Amarra Play vs foobar2000
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Amarra Play
Experience superior audio quality on your iOS device. Enjoy local music files and stream from Qobuz and TIDAL. Unlock advanced features like MQA decoding and customizable EQ with an in-app purchase or Amarra Luxe license.
- High-resolution audio playback
- Qobuz and TIDAL streaming
- MQA decoding (with purchase)
- Customizable EQ
- Support for FLAC, AIFF, WAV, and more
- Remote control for Amarra Luxe
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Amarra Play brings the highest quality playback to your IOS device. Now providing access to your Qobuz account and soon your TIDAL account, Amarra Play is the app that brings you the tools to get the music you love right at your fingertips. As a stand-alone app you'll enjoy: • A free version to get superior sound for your audio files copied to your mobile device including FLAC files as well as your local Apple Music library. Spice it all up with a set of powerful EQ presets. • Upgrade with the in-app purchase for MQA decoding, expand to a professional grade, customizable EQ and add access to your Qobuz and TIDAL accounts as well! When used with Amarra Luxe, unlock the following features: • Remote control of Amarra Luxe and Amarra sQ+ from Amarra Play. Relax, sit back and enjoy! • Use Amarra Play to play your music on your IOS device Download files to your IOS device (local files only) Stream files to your IOS device (local, Qobuz and TIDAL files) • Formats Supported MQA Decode up to 96 kHz (Amarra Luxe license required) AIFF, AIFC, MP3, ALAC, FLAC, WAV, AAC, DSD->PCM real-time conversion NOTE: Amarra Play must be running on same wireless network as computer. Visit www.sonicstudio.com to get your free 15 day free trial of Amarra Luxe
foobar2000
An advanced audio player for mobile devices supporting a wide range of formats. Enjoy gapless playback, automatic volume adjustment, and customization options. Stream music from UPnP servers.
- Wide audio format support (MP3, FLAC, AAC, etc.)
- Gapless playback
- ReplayGain volume adjustment
- UPnP media server streaming
- Customizable appearance with skins
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foobar2000 mobile is an advanced audio player for mobile devices. Main features: * Supported audio formats: MP3, MP4, AAC, Vorbis, Opus, FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, Musepack. * Gapless playback. * ReplayGain support - automatic playback volume adjustment. * Supports playback and downloading music from UPnP media servers. * Appearance can be customized with skin files (basic black and white themes inlcuded with the app).
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: foobar2000 at 80% against Amarra Play's 20%. foobar2000 also leads on rating (4.5 vs 2.9) and in-app purchases (none vs 5). On price, update cadence, ads and device support there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Amarra Play sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. foobar2000 asks for nothing beyond the download.
foobar2000 holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 2.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: foobar2000 has 187 ratings behind it against 31, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 20% of Amarra Play's written reviews are positive against 80% of foobar2000's.
Amarra Play ships an update every 3 weeks, foobar2000 monthly. The most recent releases landed on September 26, 2026 and September 30, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Amarra Play | foobar2000 |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 2.9 (31 ratings) | 4.5 (187 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 19.6% of reviews | 79.6% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 31 | 187 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks — better | Monthly |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod, Apple Watch — better | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 12.0 — better | 12.1 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 77 MB | 13 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Sonic Studio | Resolute |
Customer experience
Amarra Play
foobar2000
User reviews
Amarra Play
From 31 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🎧 Great sound quality
- 🎶 Plays various file types (FLAC, DSD, MQA)
- 🎚️ Useful EQ presets
- 💻 Remote control capability (when working)
- 🔊 Good with external DACs
Room to improve
- 🐛 Frequent crashes
- 🐌 Slow performance and loading
- ❌ Unreliable remote connection
- ❓ Poor UI/UX and navigation
- 🚫 Lack of updates/abandoned app
foobar2000
From 187 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 👍 Good for offline use
- 🚀 Fast and responsive
- 💡 Customizable with skins
- 👍 Plays a variety of audio formats
- 👍 Convenient FTP transfer
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes and bugs
- 🔍 Lacking search functionality
- 🔍 Difficult to manage playlists and delete songs
- 🔍 Inconsistent UI and navigation
- 🔍 Missing CarPlay support
Bugs and requests
Amarra Play
Reported bugs
32 issues- App crashes on launch or during playback
- Remote app doesn't pair or loses connection
- Playback controls are unresponsive
- Album art is missing or corrupted
- MQA decoding is slow or outputs PCM
Show 27 moreShow fewer
- Gapless playback not supported
- App doesn't open on iPhone 15
- Music files load very slowly or not at all
- EQ distorts audio
- Remote app loses connection frequently
- App crashes when trying to use Tidal add-on
- Music shows as 00:00
- Remote app doesn't wake laptop from sleep
- Remote app requires constant re-pairing
- Desktop app crashes after scanning library
- Remote app doesn't display album art
- Remote app doesn't control music playback properly
- Remote app is slow to respond
- Remote app loses connection to computer
- App stops after two songs
- iTunes library sync issues
- File sharing removes cover art
- App crashes when adding more albums
- Tidal add-on doesn't work
- MQA not working on m12
- Remote app doesn't pair after upgrade
- Playlists don't show all tracks
- No search index
- EQ settings don't stick
- User presets not accessible
- Remote app doesn't open
- App crashes when loading library
Requested features
13 requests- Add more equalizer settings from MacBook version
- Timeline for updates
- Ability to add more EQ presets
- Improved album art handling
- Fix gapless playback
Show 8 moreShow fewer
- Native MQA output
- Amazon Music EQ support
- Improved UI/UX
- Search functionality
- Now Playing button in remote
- Wake laptop from sleep via remote
- Persistent login for remote
- More sophisticated EQ with frequency, gain, and Q settings
foobar2000
Reported bugs
5 issues- Crashes on startup for some users
- Playback issues with certain audio formats
- Network detection failures
- SMB/DLNA server connectivity problems
- Album art not displaying correctly
Requested features
8 requests- Add queue and repeat single track features
- Improve playlist management and song deletion
- Implement CarPlay support
- Add more UI customization options
- Improve search functionality
Show 3 moreShow fewer
- Implement Last.fm scrobbling
- Add tag editing capabilities
- Provide sort options by artist, genre, etc.
In-app purchases
Amarra Play
- EQ support$2.99
- Adds support for MQA decoding$3.99
- TIDAL Streaming$4.99
Show 2 moreShow fewer
- Qobuz streaming support$4.99
- Adds Qobuz, TIDAL, MQA and EQ$12.99
foobar2000
No in-app purchases
