Audita · User Guide

Everything Audita does, and how to drive it.

Audita is a menu bar SPL meter and NIOSH hearing-dose tracker for macOS. This page is the canonical user reference. Skim the table of contents to jump to a feature, or read top-to-bottom for the full tour. The full audita:// URL scheme reference lives on a separate page.

1. What Audita does #

Audita is a macOS menu bar app that protects the hearing of audio professionals. It continuously measures the sound pressure level (SPL) reaching a microphone at your listening position and calculates how much of your safe daily hearing budget has been used, using the NIOSH Recommended Exposure Limit (85 dBA reference, 3 dB exchange rate, 80 dBA threshold). It runs passively alongside any DAW, with no conscious interaction required.

One measurement chain feeds two jobs:

Safe duration at different levels

The NIOSH formula gives you a budget that halves every 3 dB. Below 80 dBA no dose accumulates at all. This table is the canonical reference cited from the landing page and FAQ.

LevelSafe duration
80 dBAThresholdNo dose accumulates below this
85 dBA8 hoursNIOSH criterion
88 dBA4 hours
91 dBA2 hours
94 dBA1 hour
97 dBA30 minutes
100 dBA15 minutes

The dose resets at midnight.

Audita is $19.99, one-time purchase, with a 7-day free trial. macOS 14 (Sonoma) or later.

2. First launch #

On first launch:

  1. macOS asks for microphone access. Click OK. Audita needs microphone access to measure SPL; the measurement microphone you pick (see below) is the only audio source it reads.
  2. The Audita icon appears in the menu bar. Click it to open the popover.
  3. Open Settings → Audio and select your measurement microphone from the input device picker. Defaults to the system default input. Any mic works (built-in, talkback, anything CoreAudio sees); for the most accurate readings we recommend a small condenser or omnidirectional measurement mic permanently mounted near the listening position.
  4. Run the 3-step calibration wizard (Settings → Audio). Without calibration, the SPL numbers Audita displays are not in real-world dB.

Audita is agent-only. It never appears in the Dock or the ⌘-Tab switcher. All interaction happens through the menu bar.

DAW auto-detection

Audita watches for known DAWs to launch and quit, and automatically starts and ends sessions accordingly. Out of the box, 15 DAWs are tracked by bundle ID: Logic Pro, GarageBand, Pro Tools, LUNA, Ableton Live, REAPER, Cubase, Nuendo, Studio One, FL Studio, Bitwig Studio, Audacity, Adobe Audition, Final Cut Pro, DaVinci Resolve.

When the first tracked DAW launches, an Audita session starts. When the last one quits, the session ends and a recap notification fires. Multiple simultaneous DAWs are handled correctly - only the first launch and last quit trigger transitions.

To add a DAW that isn't in the built-in list, open Settings → DAWs → Add Custom DAW and enter its bundle ID and display name. Custom DAWs persist across launches and survive Auris imports.

The menu bar glyph is the Pressure Bloom, the same arcs-and-dot shape as the Audita app icon. The number of arcs reflects live SPL; the colour reflects today's NIOSH dose tier. So a single glyph tells you "loud right now" and "how much of today's hearing budget has been spent" at the same time. The same state machine drives the larger Bloom in the popover header (see The dropdown menu), so both surfaces always show the same arc count and colour at any given moment.

ConditionGlyphColour
No session runningFull bloom (3 arcs + dot)Neutral (system foreground)
Session, < 35 dBADot onlyDose tier
Session, 35-55 dBA1 arc + dotDose tier
Session, 55-80 dBA2 arcs + dotDose tier
Session, ≥ 80 dBA3 arcs + dot (full bloom)Dose tier

The 80 dBA arc-count maximum lines up with the NIOSH dose accrual threshold (Constants.thresholdDBA): the moment your listening starts counting against today's budget is the moment the glyph reaches its full shape. Higher-dB cues come through the dose-tier colour, not extra arcs.

The dose-tier colour is unchanged from v1.1: safe 0-40 % is green, caution 40-70 % is yellow, warning 70-90 % is orange, danger 90 %+ is red. Today's dose is saved continuously so a quit/relaunch doesn't lose progress. Accumulated dose is stamped with the calendar date and discarded if the date has changed since last launch - each day starts clean at midnight.

When no session is running, the bloom renders as the full three-arc shape in a neutral system-foreground colour. That distinct "Audita is present, just not measuring" state reads differently from the dose-tinted bloom you see during a live session.

5. Floating measurement panel #

A detached always-on-top window that keeps the measurement panel visible while you work in another app. Opened via the pin icon in the menu bar footer; dismissed via the same pin or by double-clicking the panel surface.

The Audita floating measurement panel translucent over a DAW window showing live SPL, dose, Monitoring Discipline, and today's summary

What it shows

All the same data the menu bar popover shows, configurable per section in Settings → Panel:

All sections default on. Sections that depend on context (no active session, monitoring disabled, audio not running) auto-hide regardless of the toggle.

Behaviour

6. Calibration #

Audita's measurement chain is only as accurate as its calibration. Settings → Audio presents calibration as a numbered 3-step journey because the steps depend on each other: Step 2 only matters if Step 1 has flattened the mic, and Step 3 only matters if Steps 1 and 2 have made the broadband level reliable.

The Settings Audio tab showing the three-step calibration layout: mic frequency response, level offset, and reference monitor level
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TL;DR. Run Step 1 once per mic. Run Step 2 every time you move the mic or change the gain. Run Step 3 once per pair of monitors.

Step 1 - Mic frequency response correction (optional)

Most desk-mounted measurement mics, talkback channels on audio interfaces, and onboard laptop mics have non-flat frequency responses that bias dBA readings by 1-5 dB depending on programme content. Step 1 measures your mic's actual frequency response with pink noise and an FFT, then derives a corrective FIR filter that flattens the input chain before the A and C weighting filters run.

  1. Place the measurement mic at your normal listening position - where your head sits during a session.
  2. Turn your monitors to a normal listening level - loud enough to dominate room noise, not so loud the mic clips.
  3. Settings → Audio → Step 1 → Measure.
  4. Pink noise plays for ~4 seconds. The mic captures the response. The FIR is computed and saved automatically.
  5. The status row updates to Active.

Re-run when: you change the measurement mic, move it to a meaningfully different position, or change room treatment in the listening area.

Step 2 - Level offset (the main one)

This is the single number that maps 20·log₁₀(digital RMS) to real-world dB SPL. The default 94 dB matches the IEC 60942 pistonphone standard - a calibrator that produces a 1 kHz tone at exactly 94 dB SPL. If you have a pistonphone, place it on the mic and adjust the offset until the live reading shows 94 dBA. For everyone else, calibrate against an iPhone running the free NIOSH SLM app (independently validated to ±2 dB):

  1. Install NIOSH SLM on iPhone.
  2. Place the iPhone at your listening position - where your head would be - not next to the measurement mic.
  3. Open Settings → Audio → Step 2. Click Play Pink Noise under the offset slider and let your monitors settle at a typical listening level. The live SPL reading is shown next to the slider.
  4. Note the difference: NIOSH reads X dBA, Audita reads Y dBA.
  5. Adjust the offset slider by (X − Y). So if NIOSH says 78 and Audita says 72, increase the offset by 6.
  6. Repeat until both meters agree to within 1-2 dB. Click Stop Pink Noise when you're done.

Right under the offset slider is a free-text Mic Location field. Use it to record the physical setup ("Earthworks M30 at LP, 1.2 m behind monitors, 38 cm above desk, gain at unity"). It's stored alongside the offset so you can reproduce or cross-check the calibration weeks later.

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Why the listening position, not next to the mic? The goal of dose tracking is to estimate the SPL at your ears, not at an arbitrary point in the room. Your measurement mic is a proxy for your ears - if it sits 30-40 cm away from where your head actually is, there will be a small but real difference in level due to distance and room reflections. Calibrating with the iPhone at the listening position folds that spatial offset into the calibration constant. This is not the formally correct method (IEC 61252 specifies the mic on the shoulder, 10-20 cm from the ear), but it's the closest practical approximation for a desk-mounted setup. If you move the mic, recalibrate.

Step 3 - Reference monitor level (per output device)

Steps 1 and 2 establish that what Audita measures matches reality. Step 3 captures which physical knob position on your monitor controller produces your target reference level - and stores that record per output device UID, so each monitor pair carries its own calibration.

Audita target-level calibration wizard in the captured state, showing live SPL at target with the option to save the controller position
  1. Settings → Audio → Step 3 → Run Calibration Wizard.
  2. Pink noise starts playing through the selected output device. The live SPL is shown alongside your target dBA (set in Settings → Reference, defaulting to 79 dBA / K-14).
  3. Adjust your physical monitor controller until the live SPL matches the target. Take your time - this is the moment that defines what "K-14" means on your rig.
  4. Click Capture. Pink noise stops; the position is held so you can verify it before saving.
  5. Type a short note describing the controller position (e.g. "Apollo knob at 11 o'clock, monitors L+R at 0 dB on the desk panel").
  6. Click Save. The record is persisted; the card shows a green checkmark.

Audita stores the captured measuredDBA alongside the target for honesty - if you aimed for 79 but the closest knob detent gave 80.4, that's recorded. The discrepancy is shown in the saved-record card so you can decide whether to live with it or fine-tune.

Re-run when: you switched monitor pairs or selected a different output device, you moved a knob and forgot to put it back, you changed monitor placement or room treatment, or you added/removed a hardware level pad.

Calibration profiles

If you work in multiple physical setups - studio desk, mobile rig with its own measurement mic, second room - saving a named profile that captures Step 1 (FIR) + Step 2 (offset) lets you switch between them in one click. Settings → Audio → Calibration Profiles has a save button and a picker. The active profile name is shown in the menu bar popover.

Step 3 records aren't part of profiles - they're keyed by output device UID, so the current output determines which Step 3 target applies. A profile only carries the mic (Step 1) and the level offset (Step 2).

7. Monitoring Discipline #

A separate, optional layer on top of dose tracking that helps you mix and master at a stable, calibrated reference level - and warns you when you've drifted off it.

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Hearing protection (the dose calculation) tells you how dangerous today's listening was. Monitoring Discipline tells you how disciplined today's listening was. Different questions, different answers. A 12-hour day at 70 dBA produces zero NIOSH dose but is also zero K-14 mixing time.

Reference targets

Audita ships with four presets in Settings → Reference, plus a Custom option:

StandardTargetWhere it's used
Mastering~73 dBACritical listening, low-level detail work
K-1479 dBABob Katz mixing reference (default)
K-1283 dBABroadcast / loudness-targeted mixing
K-20 / Dolby / SMPTE85 dBAFilm, theatrical, reference-loudness mix stages
The Settings Reference tab with the K-14, K-12, K-20 and mastering presets visible, the tolerance slider, and the on-target and off-target alert toggles

On-target percentage

Every SPL tick (10 Hz) is classified into one of four zones:

ZoneCondition
SilentdBA < 50 OR dBA < (target − 30) - nothing meaningful is playing
Under(silent floor) ≤ dBA < (target − tolerance)
On-target(target − tolerance) ≤ dBA ≤ (target + tolerance)
OverdBA > (target + tolerance)

The on-target % reported in the menu bar's Monitoring Discipline section is:

on_target % = on_target_seconds / (under + on_target + over) × 100

Silent time is excluded from the denominator - breaks don't penalise your discipline score. A session where you mixed for 90 minutes (80 % on target) and then took a 30-minute break still reports 80 %. The metric is suppressed (shown as "-") until at least 30 seconds of non-silent monitoring time has been recorded.

The drift detector

Drift is the slow, unconscious creep of monitoring level upward over a long session. Your ears adapt, you compensate, you get louder, the cycle continues. Audita catches this in the background.

  1. Ten minutes after the session begins, Audita snapshots the current rolling 30-minute Leq as the session baseline.
  2. From then on, the rolling 30-min Leq is compared against that baseline on every 1 Hz tick.
  3. When the rolling Leq exceeds the baseline by ≥3 dB, a stopwatch starts.
  4. If the elevated condition persists for ≥5 continuous minutes, the alert fires.
  5. The alert is one-shot per session - once you've been told you're drifting, you won't be told again until the next session starts. The 30-min snooze action defers any future drift warnings.

The off-target detector

Drift is about change. Off-target is about intent. You can be totally stable for 30 minutes and still be 5 dB below your stated target the whole time. The off-target detector asks: was that intentional?

  1. Every 1 Hz tick, the current dBA is classified against the alert tolerance band (separate from, and wider than, the on-target tolerance - default ±5 dB vs ±3 dB).
  2. Classifications fill a rolling buffer trimmed to the user-configured window (default 15 minutes).
  3. The alert fires when the window is full, and at least 50 % of it was active monitoring (we don't ping you on a break), and at least 90 % of that active time was off-target (the deviation has to be persistent).
  4. The notification reports the dominant direction: below target or above target.
  5. One-shot per session, with a 30-min snooze.

Configurable in Settings → Reference → Alerts

Snooze is routed by category

Snoozing a drift alert silences future drift alerts only - dose alerts still fire. Snoozing an off-target alert silences future off-target alerts only. Snoozing a dose / peak / sustained-SPL alert silences those collectively but leaves drift and off-target alone. A user who's mid-mastering at a level intentionally below K-14 can silence off-target alerts without losing the safety net of dose alerts.

When Monitoring Discipline is meaningful

When you're working at a roughly stable level (mixing, mastering, music creation) on a calibrated output. If you're tracking, A/B-ing across levels, or the output device has changed since the last Step 3 calibration, disable Monitoring Discipline in Settings → Reference.

8. Sessions & DAW detection #

A session is a contiguous span of recorded measurement. Each session captures start and end time, the DAW that triggered it, average dBA, peak dBA and dBC, peak impulse counts, the dose accumulated during that session only, and sparse SPL readings taken every 60 seconds.

How sessions start and end

Session recap notification

When a session ends, Audita fires a recap notification: "This session used X.X% of your daily dose. Running total: Y.Y% - Z.Z% remaining today." Sessions with < 0.1 % dose (mic wasn't meaningfully active) are skipped. No action buttons - informational only.

Session history

Sessions persist to ~/Library/Containers/com.headroom.Audita/Data/Library/Application Support/Audita/sessions.json. Retention is configurable in Settings → General → Storage - default is 90 days for full session records and 14 days for the detailed time-series within each session. See Session reports & sharing for the full retention model.

Two ways to review history:

The Audita session history window with the calendar range selector, the six summary stat tiles, and the chronological session list

Peak monitoring (EU 2003/10/EC)

Beyond cumulative dose, Audita monitors for dangerous peak impulses on the C-weighted path. Three thresholds per EU Directive 2003/10/EC:

ThresholdEU action levelMeaning
135 dBCLower action valueHearing protection must be available
137 dBCUpper action valueHearing protection must be worn
140 dBCAbsolute ceilingNo exposure permitted - immediate damage risk

Notifications fire when an impulse exceeds 135 dBC, rate-limited to one per 30 seconds. Peak counts are tracked per session and per day. EU Directive 2003/10/EC also defines a maximum 115 dBA instantaneous A-weighted level - a separate limit from the C-weighted thresholds. A red ≥115 dBA: N badge appears in the active session block, today's summary, and session history rows whenever the count is non-zero. Even a count of 1 indicates a level capable of immediate mechanical hair-cell damage.

Conservative dose mode

Standard dose calculation uses A-weighted levels only. For bass-heavy work (sub-bass mixing, kick tracking, live sound with subwoofers), Settings → Safety → Conservative dose mode uses max(dBA, dBC) for dose accumulation. Each tick, whichever weighting gives the higher reading is used. For mid-range content (speech, acoustic instruments), dBA ≈ dBC and behaviour is unchanged. There is no formal NIOSH or OSHA standard for this approach - it's a maximum-protection option.

9. Session reports & sharing (v1.2+) #

Every session Audita records can be opened as a one-page Session Report and shared as a PDF through the standard macOS Share menu - AirDrop to a phone, attach to a Mail draft for a producer, drop into a Messages thread, or save to disk for an archive. The Session Report is also a self-contained brief for anyone who hasn't seen Audita before: chart, stats, and a footer link to the product.

The Audita Session Report window showing the brand strip, the SPL chart with monitoring-discipline shading, the stats grid, and the headroomstudio.dev/audita footer link

What the report contains

A single-page layout, top to bottom:

Behind the scenes the time-series sample rate was bumped from one reading per minute (in v1.1) to one reading every 10 seconds in v1.2, so the chart has enough density to read. Older v1.1 sessions still render - they just plot at the lower density they were captured at.

Three ways to open it

PDF format and the Share menu

Hit Share in the report window (or the Share Report… entry on any of the three entry points above) and Audita renders the report to a temporary PDF, then opens the standard macOS Share menu. From there: AirDrop to another device, Mail to attach to a draft, Messages to a thread, Save As to drop the file anywhere on disk, or any third-party share extension you've installed (Slack, Things, Drafts, Reminders, your password manager - whatever you have).

The generated PDF lives temporarily at ~/Library/Caches/Audita Reports/. Caches are macOS-managed - the system handles cleanup on its own schedule, and you can safely empty the folder by hand any time.

CSV export (the analyst's companion)

The PDF is the per-session narrative. For broader-time analysis, the History window's Export CSV button drops the selected date range into a spreadsheet-friendly file. Two blocks per file: one row per session, then a per-day summary block.

Per-session columns: Date, DAW, Start, End, Start ISO (sortable), Duration (min), Avg dBA, Peak dBA, Peak dBC, Leq dBA, L10 dBA, L50 dBA, L90 dBA, Target dBA, Tolerance dBA, Time under (s), Time on target (s), Time over (s), Time silent (s), On-target %, Impulses ≥135 dBC, Impulses ≥140 dBC, Peaks ≥115 dBA, Dose %.

Daily summary columns: Date, Sessions, Total dose %, Peak dBA, Peak dBC, Impulses ≥135 dBC, Impulses ≥140 dBC, Peaks ≥115 dBA.

Leq is the legally-cited metric in ISO 9612 and EU Directive 2003/10/EC; the CSV is the place to extract it for compliance logs. Sessions that pre-date a feature (e.g. v1.1 sessions, which had no Monitoring Discipline buckets) leave those cells empty.

Retention settings

Old sessions take up disk space, mainly through the per-session SPL time-series. Settings → General → Storage exposes two sliders that let you tune the trade-off between archive depth and disk footprint:

A live preview caption under the sliders shows how the current settings will affect existing data. If a slider drag would drop existing sessions, the caption turns orange and reads, for example, "7 sessions older than 60 days will be deleted on next launch" - so you can see what you're about to commit to.

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Slider drag is non-destructive. Retention deletion runs at next launch only, never on slider drag. If you change a slider and then change your mind, just quit Audita without restarting - or move the slider back. The deletion pipeline never runs mid-session, so a session in progress is never affected by retention changes.

10. Pause & resume monitoring (v1.2+) #

There are days when you don't want Audita to count what's playing - you're auditioning loud reference tracks, running a sweep, testing a speaker, or rehearsing in the room and don't want the rehearsal to spend your hearing budget for the working day. Pause halts dose accumulation without ending the active session.

Three ways to pause and resume:

While paused, the SPL feed still runs (the menu bar readout keeps updating) but the dose calculator skips accumulation on every tick. The pause state is checked at 10 Hz, so dose stops accruing within ~100 ms of the pause being requested. A timed pause auto-resumes at the configured deadline.

Visual indicators. Three surfaces reflect pause state so the gated pipeline is never silent:

11. Send to Lyra - write a calibrated level into a Lyra reference slot #

Lyra is the Headroom menu bar app that controls Apollo Twin X monitor volume via the UA Mixer Engine. Lyra has three Reference Level slots (Ctrl+F10 / F11 / F12). Audita can write the calibrated dB SPL value and the live Apollo monitor position into one of those slots so the slot recalls the exact level you just calibrated.

The Send to Lyra sheet in Audita with the slot picker, name field, and read-only SPL value

How to use it

After running Step 3 calibration against an Apollo output device, the saved-calibration card in Settings → Audio → Step 3 grows a Send to Lyra… button. Click it to open the sheet:

  1. Slot picker - 1, 2, or 3 (Ctrl+F10 / F11 / F12 respectively).
  2. Name - defaults from your K-System target (73 dBA → "Mastering", 79 → "K-14", 83 → "K-12", 85 → "K-20"). Edit freely.
  3. SPL readout - read-only, the calibrated value about to be stored.

When you confirm, Audita fires lyra://reference/{n}/save?name=…&dBSPL=… and Lyra:

  1. Reads the live Apollo monitor level (so the slot reflects exactly what Audita just measured against).
  2. Stores tapered + name + dBSPL together.
  3. Pops the labeled HUD as confirmation - e.g. Mix - 85 dB SPL.

Audita does not send the tapered position itself. Lyra reads it directly from the Apollo when receiving the URL, which is exactly the position the user just calibrated against. Audita contributes only name and dBSPL as metadata that Lyra surfaces in its menu and HUD.

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Don't have Lyra? The Send to Lyra button is hidden when Lyra isn't installed; a subtle hint links to the Lyra product page instead. Audita works fully without Lyra - it's a cross-app convenience for users who own both. Requires Lyra 1.4 or later.

12. URL scheme & automation #

Audita registers a custom audita:// URL scheme so any tool that can fire a URL can read its state or drive its sessions and pause - Shortcuts, Stream Deck, Keyboard Maestro, Hammerspoon, BetterTouchTool, AppleScript, open from the shell, other apps.

A brief overview:

URLWhat it does
audita://splRead live SPL (dBA, dBC, peak dBA)
audita://doseRead today's NIOSH dose and peak counters
audita://sessionRead the active session payload
audita://stateAggregated payload (spl + dose + session + pause)
audita://session/startStart a manual session (optional ?daw=…)
audita://session/endEnd the current session
audita://monitoring/pausePause dose accumulation (optional ?duration=<seconds>)
audita://monitoring/resumeResume monitoring

All endpoints accept the standard x-callback-url parameters (x-success, x-error) so you can chain Audita into a wider workflow. Read endpoints require an x-success URL to deliver their payload; write endpoints treat both callbacks as optional. Responses use flat snake_case query parameters in plain ASCII - no JSON parsing required on the consumer side.

Audita also ships a bundle of App Intents for the Shortcuts app, Siri, and Focus Filters - seven intents covering the same reads, sessions, and pause/resume that the URL scheme exposes. If you live inside the Shortcuts ecosystem, the intents are the smoother path; the URL scheme is the lowest-common-denominator surface for everything else (Stream Deck, Keyboard Maestro, Hammerspoon, AppleScript, shell). For sharing a report of a finished session, the Session Report window below covers every export case better than a Shortcut step.

The cross-app studio-on ritual is a three-step Shortcut that chains both apps: open your DAW, start an Audita session, switch Lyra to a reference monitor level.

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The full automation reference - every intent, every URL endpoint, every return field, error vocabulary, and the worked studio-on ritual example - lives on the API reference page.

13. Importing from Auris #

Audita is the successor to Auris, which was sunset on 2026-05-08. Auris 1.3 shipped with a Move to Audita export modal; Audita 1.0 and later include a first-launch import wizard that reads the exported JSON and brings your data over.

What's imported:

The wizard runs once on first launch. It can be re-run later from Settings → General → Migration → Import from Auris if you want to bring data over from a second Mac.

Your existing Auris license key and trial state carry across automatically. Reinstalling Audita on a machine that previously had Auris finds the same trial countdown and license credentials. Existing Auris users do not need to re-pay.

14. Trial & licensing #

Audita is $19.99, one-time purchase, via Lemon Squeezy.

Trial

The first launch starts a 7-day free trial with full functionality - every feature, no nags, no watermarks. The trial start date persists across reinstalls. After 7 days Audita shows a hard-lock window on launch and refuses to run until you activate a license.

Buying

Click Buy Audita in the menu (or the Buy button on the website). Lemon Squeezy emails you the license key after checkout.

Activating

Menu → Activate (or Manage if already licensed) opens the license window. Paste your key and click Activate. Activation requires an internet connection. Once activated, Audita works fully offline.

Two-machine limit

Each license can be active on up to two Macs. To free a slot, open Audita on the machine you want to release, Menu → Manage License → Deactivate, then activate on the new Mac.

Lost your key?

Check the Lemon Squeezy confirmation email. If you can't find it, email hello@headroomstudio.dev with the address you used at checkout.

Validation

Audita silently re-validates your license on each launch. If activation has been revoked (refund, deactivation, abuse), the local credentials are cleared and the app drops to trial / expired state. Network failures are silently ignored - the offline case is benefit-of-the-doubt.

15. Updates #

Audita checks for new versions automatically. When one's available you'll see an update prompt at the next launch. To check on demand: Menu → Check for Updates…

Release notes: headroomstudio.dev/audita/releases.html.

16. Troubleshooting #

No SPL reading - the menu bar shows a dash

  1. Microphone permission. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Microphone and verify Audita is in the list and toggled on.
  2. Input device selected. Open Settings → Audio and confirm the measurement microphone is selected. If you previously selected a device that has since been unplugged, Audita stops measuring gracefully - re-select an available device or plug the original back in.
  3. Audio engine status. The dash means the audio engine isn't running. After granting microphone permission for the first time, quit and relaunch Audita to re-initialise the engine.

Readings are wildly off (off by 20+ dB)

Audita measures relative to the digital full-scale level of your microphone. Without Step 2 calibration, the displayed dB is not in real-world SPL - it's a digital level offset by the default 94 dB pistonphone constant. Run Step 2 against an iPhone running NIOSH SLM to map the digital scale to real-world dB SPL.

dBA and dBC differ by > 10 dB on broadband content

On broadband pink noise, dBA and dBC should be within ~3 dB. A larger gap means your mic has significant low-frequency response that A-weighting alone underreports. Run Step 1 to flatten the mic, then re-verify against pink noise. If the gap persists after Step 1, the mic itself may be the issue (check the cable, preamp, and gain staging).

On-target % stays at "-"

The metric is suppressed until at least 30 seconds of non-silent monitoring time has been recorded. If you've been monitoring for longer and it still says "-", check that the dBA is above the silent floor (50 dBA, or target − 30 dBA, whichever is higher).

Drift alert never fires

The drift detector needs 10 minutes of baseline plus 5 minutes of sustained elevation. A 20-minute session is the earliest it can fire. If you're in a longer session and expected an alert, check that Settings → Reference → Alerts → Drift alert is enabled.

Auris import skipped or didn't find data

Re-run from Settings → General → Migration → Import from Auris. Make sure the Auris export JSON is on the same machine; the wizard expects the file at the path produced by Auris 1.3's "Move to Audita" modal. If you've moved Macs, copy the export file across first.

Trial says expired but I just installed

The trial start date persists across reinstalls and across a prior Auris install on the same Mac, so a reinstall won't reset it. If you genuinely just installed Audita for the first time and it's reading as expired, email hello@headroomstudio.dev.

License says invalid even though I just bought it

Wait 30 seconds and try again - Lemon Squeezy occasionally needs a moment to propagate. If it still fails, double-check that there's no leading/trailing whitespace in the key you pasted. Otherwise email hello@headroomstudio.dev with the key and order number.

Notifications don't appear

Open System Settings → Notifications → Audita and confirm notifications are allowed. For Focus-breaking alerts (warning/danger dose, peak alerts, 115 dBA ceiling, sustained-SPL), enable Settings → General → Notifications → Time Sensitive notifications in Audita and confirm Time Sensitive is allowed in the system Notifications pane.

Sparkle won't show an update prompt

Reset Sparkle's "already checked / already skipped" state:

defaults delete com.headroom.Audita

Relaunch, then Menu → Check for Updates… to force a fresh check. This also resets other preferences (menu bar display, today's dose, etc.) to factory defaults.

17. Reporting bugs & feedback #

Email hello@headroomstudio.dev with what happened, what you expected, and ideally what's in the Console.app logs filtered by Audita.

18. Widgets (v1.3+) #

Audita ships six desktop widgets so both sides of Audita are visible at a glance, without opening the app: how closely you are holding your monitoring level, and how much of your hearing budget the day has used. To add one, right-click the desktop (or open Notification Center and choose Edit Widgets) and find Audita. They run on macOS 14 (Sonoma) and later, and need Audita to have run at least once so it can publish its current state.

On Target (small, medium). How much of your monitoring this week was at your calibrated reference level, as a time-weighted percentage, with a 7-day chart on the medium size. When a session is running it also shows the live state (on target, below, or above). This is the Monitoring Discipline use case on the desktop, and it stays useful when you are not monitoring. The same figure also appears as an On target tile in the History window.

Audita On Target widget (small and medium): weekly on-target percentage with a 7-day chart and the live on-target state

Latest SPL (small, medium). The most recent A-weighted level Audita measured, with dBC on the medium size. Widgets cannot listen to your audio the way the app does, so this is the last reading, with the time it was taken. When Audita is not measuring it reads Idle rather than showing 0 dBA.

Audita Latest SPL widget (small and medium): most recent A-weighted level, with dBC on the medium size

Safe Streak (small, medium). Consecutive days, up to yesterday, your dose stayed under 50% of the daily limit. The same streak Audita reports through Shortcuts and Siri.

Audita Safe Streak widget (small and medium): consecutive days under 50% dose

Weekly Exposure (medium, large). Your last 7 days of dose as a bar chart, with the EU weekly exposure level (L_EX,w, ISO 9612) against the 85 dBA criterion. The same figures as the in-app weekly chart.

Audita Weekly Exposure widget (medium and large): 7-day dose bar chart with the EU weekly L_EX,w level against the 85 dBA criterion

Today's Dose (small, medium) shows your accumulated NIOSH dose as a ring that fills and changes colour from green to red; the medium size adds your safe streak and EU weekly level. Overview (large) puts today's dose, latest SPL, your on-target state, your streak, and the weekly chart in one tile.

Audita Today's Dose ring (small and medium) and the large Overview tile combining dose, latest SPL, on-target, streak, and the weekly chart

Widgets refresh when your dose tier changes colour, when a session starts or ends, at midnight, and on a light schedule while you are measuring. The system limits how often a widget can redraw, so the numbers move about once a minute rather than in real time. For a live reading, use the menu bar or the floating panel.