I listen to music a lot. A lot, a lot. Because I spend so much time at my desk, I’m usually using a Mac desktop to do it. But because I tend to keep the volume pretty low I’ve noticed it seems like the volume doesn’t adjust in a linear way – particularly at the low end of the spectrum. I went off on a research session to figure out if these adjustments were linear. It turns out they’re not even!
Apparently the decibel levels per notch are as follows:
−48, −41, −36, −32, −28, −25, −22, −19, −16, −13, −11, −9, −6, −4, −2, 0 dB
Yes, those values are from a random Apple support forum and no, I can’t find any other documented evidence so take it with a grain of salt, but hey…
The more you know
This started me down a rabbit hole thinking of a college physics class I took where we talked about the difference between decibels and perceived loudness (or something) but I was satisfied with the exhaustiveness of this research.
Since you’ve made it this far, this is where I say:
You should definitely know about opt+shift+volume to get quarter-steps when adjusting your volume
Pure zen.
Lastly, you should probably check out SoundSource. I use it for completely inscrutable reasons related to my local setup but most importantly the per-app EQ is actually really nice.
As a bonus feature it gives you percentage-level control over the volume output in case you want to completely nerd out over how loud your music is.
Ok back to the Viva Piñata soundtrack.