EqLume vs SteelSeries Sonar

EqLume is a free system-wide equalizer for Apple silicon Macs running macOS 26.0 or later. It detects the genre of the current track and applies a matching EQ preset, with 21 presets that include hip-hop, EDM, rock, jazz, classical and ambient. The menu bar app shows a live spectrum analyzer and an EQ response curve. EqLume reads now-playing details from Spotify, YouTube Music, Apple Music and supported browsers, and offers transport controls for Spotify, Apple Music and YouTube Music. It uses a Core Audio process tap to capture system audio without a virtual audio driver or kernel extension. Audio is processed in memory, not recorded to disk or uploaded. Track and artist names may be sent to MusicBrainz and Apple iTunes Search for lookups. The built-in 3.5 mm headphone output uses tuned correction; other outputs can be enabled per device, while built-in speakers are unprocessed. The Mac App Store version omits the optional on-device classifier.

SteelSeries Sonar has no write-up on Specifiction yet; its figures are above.