Acoustic Orbit

Install Acoustic Orbit

You need an Apple silicon Mac on macOS 15 or later, and a second speaker that already plays from your Mac. If it is Bluetooth, pair and connect it in System Settings first.

  1. Download the disk image from https://acousticorbit.com/download, open it and drag Acoustic Orbit into Applications. Open it. macOS will say it cannot verify the app: open System Settings, Privacy & Security, scroll to Security, press Open Anyway, then Open.
  2. Setup starts by itself. Press "Install the system-audio tap". macOS asks for an administrator password once, because the app adds a small audio driver to your Mac. Sound pauses for about two seconds while macOS restarts its audio system. AirPlay (audio, video and screen mirroring) stops and has to be started again. The driver is how Acoustic Orbit hears what your Mac plays. Afterwards Sound settings lists a new output device called "Acoustic Orbit", which is that driver, and the app switches your Mac to it when you press Start.
  3. Press "Allow Microphone". macOS treats reading your Mac's audio as microphone access, and Calibrate also listens for test sounds. What the Mac's microphone hears is analysed in memory and never recorded or stored. If you calibrate with a phone instead, the phone records up to a minute and sends it to your Mac over your Wi-Fi, where it is analysed and not kept.
  4. Press "Play the demo". A sound walks from speaker to speaker.

Music, Spotify, Screen Recording and Bluetooth permissions are optional. Skip them.

Two devices play free, for as long as you like. For more, buy a key on the page and enter it under File › Licence…

Stuck? hello@acousticorbit.com

The system-audio tap the app installs is a modified BlackHole (GNU GPL v3); its complete source is at https://github.com/snehasisgouda/acousticorbit-tap.

Remove Acoustic Orbit

  1. Open Acoustic Orbit and press Stop. Open the Engineer tab (⌘3), scroll to Setup extras, and press "Remove the tap driver…". macOS asks for an administrator password; sound pauses for a moment while macOS restarts its audio system, and AirPlay (audio, video and screen mirroring) stops and has to be started again.
  2. Quit Acoustic Orbit and move it from Applications to the Trash.