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How to get system volume control on Dell monitor

C

cutcopypaste

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 28, 2008
171
16
I have a DELL U2715H Display and while the HDMI carries the audio, it makes it so I cannot use the system volume to control the audio output to the speakers I have plugged into the monitor.

I got a recommendation for Soundflower, and installed that along with soundflowerbed, but unfortunately the sound quality is VERY bad. Tons of tics and artifacts and stutters..

I wonder if there's another way to get system wide volume control?
I can fiddle with the volume on specific apps, but then when i'm on headphones or whatnot it gets tricky to keep things at all consistent. (and right now for my music to be pretty loud in itunes, the volume control is at less than 5%...)
 
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C

cutcopypaste

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 28, 2008
171
16
I'm trying to keep the hookups to a minimum when I dock.. this way the audio cable can live in my monitor
 
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xenpearl3

macrumors newbie
Jun 12, 2015
1
0
on most of the dell monitors like that you can use the buttons on the bottom right of the monitor itself to adjust the volume when on HDMI. It's not the same as using the keyboard settings from your mac, but it's easy enough to do. That's the simplest, low cable bloat solution I can think of.
 
J

joeykork

macrumors newbie
Jul 17, 2012
3
0
Some monitors allow using DDC for controlling their internal speaker volume along with brightness & contrast.
Mac displays don't use DDC at all.

I write a command line DDC setter for Mac here:
http://github.com/kfix/ddcctl

to bump the volume on your 1st display 5 "ticks" (the actual dB change varies between monitor brands), you'd do:
ddcctl -d 1 -v 5+

However, that's not nearly as well implemented across manufacturers as the brightness (-b)/contrast (-c) controls.

No one has yet made a nice status bar slider or Prefpane that controls all options on multiple external monitors.
So I use my cli tool with Today-Scripts/ & Karabiner for quickly toggling my monitors bright and dim.
 
N

nolem

macrumors member
Jan 9, 2004
58
3
Just hooked up my shiny new Dell SE2716H and same issue here with audio over HDMI. So I ran a male to male headphone cable from my mac mini to the audio in jack on the monitor which allows me to use the mac's system and keyboard volume controls.
 
A

asheenlevrai

macrumors newbie
Dec 14, 2014
18
8
joeykork said:
Some monitors allow using DDC for controlling their internal speaker volume along with brightness & contrast.
Mac displays don't use DDC at all.

I write a command line DDC setter for Mac here:
http://github.com/kfix/ddcctl

...
Click to expand...


Dell monitor without any audio jack line-in port (audio in via HDMI or DP only).
Soundflower + SoundflowerBed provides buggy results (intermittent loss of audio, buzz, ...
The monitor is compliant with DDC/CI. Could DDCCTL be useful to me? Is it "mature" and user friendly now?
I run OSX 10.12 +

Best,
-a-
 
J

jdiamond

macrumors 6502a
Dec 17, 2008
699
535
Gwendolini said:
Why go through the monitor at all and not use the direct output of your Mac?
Click to expand...
I have a related issue, and my scenario is that I have a Mac Mini, and I have headphones already using the headphones jack, so I'd really love a solution that can go through the monitor display port. I will probably have to find speakers with their own volume knobs. It's just odd that Dell doesn't provide this control when they have an audio out.
 
J

jdiamond

macrumors 6502a
Dec 17, 2008
699
535
xenpearl3 said:
on most of the dell monitors like that you can use the buttons on the bottom right of the monitor itself to adjust the volume when on HDMI. It's not the same as using the keyboard settings from your mac, but it's easy enough to do. That's the simplest, low cable bloat solution I can think of.
Click to expand...

I checked - at least the Dell Precision monitors don't have audio adjustment in their menus.
 
Gwendolini

Gwendolini

macrumors 6502a
Feb 5, 2015
589
127
random
jdiamond said:
I have a related issue, and my scenario is that I have a Mac Mini, and I have headphones already using the headphones jack, so I'd really love a solution that can go through the monitor display port. I will probably have to find speakers with their own volume knobs. It's just odd that Dell doesn't provide this control when they have an audio out.
Click to expand...

If you have a free USB port you could get something like the SoundBlaster Play! 3, which has an analog TRS connector for speakers and headphones. Once connected, no driver installation needed, it shows up under SOUND OUTPUT in System Preferences and the Volume icon in the Menu Bar.
 
- rob -

- rob -

macrumors 65816
Apr 18, 2012
1,007
683
Oakland, CA
Topping this thread. Curious if anyone has gotten macos system audio controls to work with the Dell P2715Q audio output.
 
- rob -

- rob -

macrumors 65816
Apr 18, 2012
1,007
683
Oakland, CA
alexcohn

alexcohn

macrumors newbie
Dec 3, 2020
1
0
Thanks for this answer. eqMac seems to work even on Big Sur (Intel) with U3419W over USB-C.
 
southerndoc

southerndoc

Contributor
May 15, 2006
1,833
504
USA
alexcohn said:
Thanks for this answer. eqMac seems to work even on Big Sur (Intel) with U3419W over USB-C.
Click to expand...

Reviving an old thread here. Curious if eqMac works with the new M1 Macs with its full security mode that hinders kernel extensions. Does eqMac install kernel extensions?
 
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