Soundary vs just using macOS Sound
An honest look at whether the built-in Mac Sound menu is enough or if you actually need an app for audio switching, with a side by side of where each one stops.
I build Soundary, and I want to start with the question I'd ask if someone tried to sell me an audio switcher: do I even need this? macOS already has a Sound menu. It picks devices, it sets volume, it switches when I plug things in. So before I tell you what Soundary adds, let me be straight about what the built-in tools already do well, because for a lot of people that's the whole answer.
What macOS already gets right
The built-in Sound controls are better than people give them credit for. You get three ways to reach them: System Settings then Sound, the Sound module in Control Center, and if you turn on Show Sound in menu bar, you can option-click the menu-bar icon to pick an output or input on the spot. That last one is genuinely quick. You can set volume, set balance, and choose your microphone, all without leaving what you're doing.
macOS also does a kind of automatic switching, and it's worth naming exactly what kind. It switches on device presence. Plug in headphones, sound moves to them. Set your AirPods to Automatic and they hand off between your Mac and phone based on where you're listening. That covers the most common case in life: a thing appears, sound goes to the thing.
If that's your day, you don't need Soundary. I mean that. If you plug in one pair of headphones in the morning and unplug them at night, the built-in Sound menu is fine, it's free, and it's already on your Mac.
Where the built-in tools stop
Here's the honest gap. macOS switches on presence, but it has no idea about context. There is no place in System Settings where you can say when situation X happens, use device Y. No app-focus rule. No mic-in-use rule. No time-of-day rule. No priority list, no cooldown, nothing you can configure. It's a manual chooser with one automatic trigger bolted on.
You feel this in a few specific moments.
The first is when macOS guesses wrong on connect. You've got a monitor's speakers, a USB interface, and headphones, you plug one in, and audio lands somewhere you didn't want. Apple's own support article, If your Mac switches to a different audio device, tells you to fix this by physically disconnecting the device you don't want. That's the official answer. There's no setting for prefer this one. You unplug a cable.
The second is volume. The built-in switcher has no per-device volume memory. Each device just keeps whatever the system volume was. So you go from quiet desk speakers at 20 percent to headphones that were last at 90, and the switch blasts you. I've yanked headphones off my own head doing this. It's a small thing that happens a lot.
The third is that there's no concept of a Scene. You can't save Meeting as one named mode that sets an output, an input, and the right levels together. You set those three things by hand, every time, in three different places.
The four things Soundary adds
Soundary does one job: automatic output and input switching, done correctly. It doesn't replace the Sound menu so much as fill in what the Sound menu can't express. Concretely, it adds the four things above.
It has a real rules engine. You describe context: which app is in front, whether your mic is in use, a device connecting or disconnecting, the time of day. Rules have priority, a manual-override cooldown so it backs off when you take the wheel, an anti-loop guard, and re-evaluation when your Mac wakes from sleep. So evening at my desk can mean speakers, and Zoom in front can mean headset and the right mic, without me touching anything.
It has per-device volume memory, so every device remembers its own level and a switch never blasts you. It has smart disconnect fallback, so when a device drops, sound goes to the device you actually want next, not whatever macOS grabs first. And it has Scenes: bundle an output, an input, and per-device volumes into one named mode like Meeting or Movie. There's also an auto-hiding edge dock for switching by hand when you'd rather just do it yourself.
Task by task
Here's the same thing as a side by side.
| Task | macOS | Soundary |
|---|---|---|
| Manually pick output or input | Yes (Settings, Control Center, menu bar) | Yes (edge dock) |
| Set volume and balance | Yes | Volume yes |
| Switch when you plug a device in | Yes (presence) | Yes |
| Switch by app in front, mic in use, or time of day | No | Yes |
| Prefer a specific device on connect | No (Apple says unplug the other one) | Yes (priority rules) |
| Remember each device's own volume | No | Yes |
| Save a named mode like Meeting | No | Yes (Scenes) |
One thing I won't claim: Soundary is not the only app that switches audio automatically. macOS switches on presence, and some small tools reorder devices by priority when you connect them. Soundary's real edge is the contextual part: app, mic, time, plus connect and disconnect, with Scenes and volume memory, in a focused app built to App Store standards.
And there's a boundary I want to be clear about. Soundary does not do per-app volume, per-app routing, or EQ. That's a different job, the kind of thing SoundSource is built for, and it needs deeper system access than an App Store app gets. Soundary stays in the sandbox on purpose. Public CoreAudio only, nothing leaves your Mac.
So, do you need it
If you rarely change devices, the built-in Sound menu is genuinely enough, and I'd rather you keep your 4.99. If you switch contexts all day, calls then music then a movie, headphones then speakers then a headset, that constant manual fiddling is exactly the gap Soundary fills. It's a one-time purchase coming to the Mac App Store, no subscription and no account. If the part about yanking off your headphones felt familiar, that's the part I built this for.