How To Correct Your Hearing With Deezer And ARIA ONE

What This Does

This guide shows how to route Deezer through ARIA ONE on Mac or Windows. Deezer plays into a virtual audio device, ARIA ONE reads that signal, applies your hearing correction, and sends the result to your headphones or speakers.

Deezer has no audio output setting of its own, so the routing happens in your operating system rather than in the app. Once that is set, there are only a couple of Deezer settings worth checking.

Before You Start

You need the Deezer desktop app and ARIA ONE installed on a Mac or Windows computer, plus an Altitude Audio account. If you do not have one yet, ARIA ONE can create it the first time you open the app.

Open ARIA ONE and sign in. On first launch, choose Cloud Mode so your profiles and presets stay in sync across devices.

Use the INSTANT Onboarding Pathway

On first launch, ARIA ONE opens onboarding automatically. To get listening quickly, choose the Instant pathway and continue. Available pathways include:

• Instant — no test. ARIA ONE loads an age-matched hearing profile so you can finish onboarding and start listening immediately.
• Quick Results — the full hearing test without setup and calibration. Around ten minutes.
• Full Accuracy — the complete test with setup and calibration. Fifteen to twenty minutes, and the best result.

Use Instant to finish onboarding now with an age-matched profile. When you have more time, come back to SETUP and take the full test so ARIA ONE can replace it with a profile built from your own results. At the end, choose Simple View for music listening.

Set Up The Audio Routing In ARIA ONE

ARIA ONE needs to sit between Deezer and your physical output. Deezer plays into a virtual audio device, ARIA ONE reads from that device, applies correction, and sends the result to your headphones or speakers.

If you have not installed a virtual audio device yet, start here: what is a virtual audio device and which one should I install? That page covers the setup on Mac and Windows.

Then open Audio Settings from the gear in ARIA ONE. Set INPUT to the virtual audio device and OUTPUT to your headphones or speakers. Set the sample rate here to match the virtual audio device; 44.1 kHz is the natural choice for Deezer.

Point Deezer At ARIA ONE

Deezer has no output setting on Mac or Windows. It plays through whatever output the operating system gives it, so you set the routing in the operating system.

On a Mac, open System Settings, go to Sound, and choose the virtual audio device under Output. Deezer follows that device, and so does the rest of the system audio.

On Windows, you can route just Deezer. Start a song playing, then open Settings, go to System, then Sound, then Volume mixer. Find Deezer in the list of apps and set its Output device to the virtual audio device. Only Deezer goes through ARIA ONE; the rest of Windows stays on its normal output.

Deezer Settings To Check

Open Deezer Settings and check these under audio.

Normalize audio. Turn it off. ARIA ONE works best when Deezer is not adjusting tracks before output, so 0 dB into ARIA ONE is actually 0 dB. ARIA ONE handles track-to-track level changes itself, and Adaptive Drive can find the right drive for each song.

Audio quality. Set it to HiFi, or the highest setting your plan allows. HiFi is CD quality at 44.1 kHz, which is the highest Deezer offers. The correction can only work with what is in the stream.

There is no equalizer in the Deezer desktop app, so there is nothing else to change here.

Sample Rate Is Handled For You

Every track on Deezer is 44.1 kHz, including HiFi. Deezer does not change your audio device’s sample rate, and there is no hi-res tier to follow.

Keep two things matched: the rate on the virtual audio device and the rate in ARIA ONE’s Audio Settings. 44.1 kHz is the natural choice for both, since it is the rate everything on Deezer is already stored at.

Check That It Is Working

Play a track in Deezer. The input meter along the bottom of ARIA ONE should move with the music. If it does, Deezer is reaching ARIA ONE and the routing is correct.

Toggle the correction off and on to hear the difference. In Simple View, open Sound and tap PERSONAL AUDIO / ORIGINAL AUDIO. In Advanced View, use Bypass in the top bar. Listen for clarity, detail, and changes in the sound image.

If the meter does not move, the routing is not complete. Confirm ARIA ONE’s INPUT is the virtual audio device, and that your Mac’s system output or Deezer’s entry in the Windows Volume mixer is pointed at that same device.

Casting Bypasses The Chain

Deezer can send playback to a Chromecast, a Sonos system, or another connected speaker. The music then goes straight from the internet to that speaker, not through your computer’s audio output, so ARIA ONE never receives it.

Look at the device icon near the playback controls in Deezer and confirm playback is set to this computer. If ARIA ONE’s input meter is still and the music is playing, check this first.

Using It Day To Day

Once the routing is set, daily use is simple: open ARIA ONE, open Deezer, and listen. ARIA ONE can read your computer’s Now Playing data, so Adaptive Drive can respond as tracks change and keep the input to the correction stage in a sensible range.

If you switch between headphones and speakers, save a preset for each in ARIA ONE. The correction that works for one usually is not right for the other.

When you have time, rerun SETUP and take the full hearing test. ARIA ONE replaces the Instant profile with one built from your own measurements.

What About Your Phone

This routing works on Mac and Windows only. iPhone and Android do not let one app capture another app’s audio, so Deezer cannot be routed through ARIA ONE on a phone.

On mobile, ARIA ONE can still play music files you own with your correction applied using its built-in player. Your hearing profile stays synced across devices.

Common Problems

Known-Good Details

Deezer changes menu names and placement on its own schedule. Everything in this list was accurate when this page was last updated. If a setting has moved, look for it by name; the routing logic above is unchanged.

• Deezer audio settings — Deezer Settings, in the audio section. Contains Audio quality and Normalize audio.
• Deezer quality tiers — Standard, Better, and HiFi. HiFi is 16-bit, 44.1 kHz FLAC. There is no hi-res tier.
• Deezer sample rate — everything is 44.1 kHz. Deezer does not switch the device rate.
• Deezer equalizer — mobile app only. Not present in the desktop app.
• Mac sound output — System Settings, Sound, Output.
• Windows per-app output — Settings, System, Sound, Volume mixer. Each playing app can be given its own Output device.
• Casting — the device icon near the playback controls shows the current playback device.
• ARIA ONE Audio Settings — the gear in the top bar. INPUT, OUTPUT, and sample rate are all set here.

Summary

Deezer routes through ARIA ONE at the operating system level: set your Mac’s sound output, or Deezer’s entry in the Windows Volume mixer, to the virtual audio device, and ARIA ONE reads from that device, applies your hearing profile, and sends the result to your headphones or speakers. Turn off Normalize audio, set quality to HiFi, keep the virtual audio device and ARIA ONE on 44.1 kHz, and make sure Deezer is not casting to another speaker.