Brought to you by the Asahi Linux team. Our goal is to provide a (subjectively) better-than-macOS audio experience on Apple Silicon Macs, and in doing so demonstrate that userspace audio management on Linux does not need to suck in 2023.
This software is still pre-release and not ready for user consumption or beta testing. As it exists in this repo, it is deliberately non-functional to prevent intrepid users from damaging their machines. Please do not ask for help with installing this, or enabling speaker support on your machine. An announcement will be made when speaker support is ready for wider release.
- MacBook Pro (14-inch, 2021)
- MacBook Pro (16-inch, 2021) (uses same EQ as J314, probably sounds bad!)
- All Mac mini models
- PipeWire
- pipewire-pulse
- WirePlumber with eleven secret herbs and spices
- LSP Plugins (you must have the LV2 set of plugins installed)
- The latest linux-asahi kernel
- speakersafetyd
- Audio enabled in your devicetree (read the dislaimer)
Modern microspeakers aren't any better than microspeakers from 20 years ago. What has improved is our ability to paper over their shortcomings with digital signal processing.
This package applies EQ to the speakers in the form of an impulse response which acts over the input signal. It also performs some light-touch dynamics shaping to prevent overexcursion and make the volume range more natural.
It is our opinion that the tuning applied by Apple is, while technically impressive, too tryhard. Apple make liberal use of psychoacoustics, fancy phasing, equal-loudness curves and other tricks to extend the bass response, widen the stereo image, and implement virtual surround. While this is appealing to a certain class of consumer, it renders the machines useless for professional use as the sound is too far from reference. Their psychoacoustic bass implementation is also prone to saturation artefacts at high volumes.
We believe that delivering a simpler, natural-sounding stereo system will not only more accurately reproduce source material, but will be a more enjoyable listening experience for a wider cross-section of users.
Speaker support is still a work in progress, and no guarantees as to its safety or quality are made. As above, no support whatsoever will be provided to users regarding the installation or use of any speaker-related items until public support has been announced. You assume all risk to - and responsibility for - your machine should you choose to try and use the speakers.