SonoBus vs Trail Station

SonoBus is an easy to use application for streaming high-quality, low-latency peer-to-peer audio between devices over the internet or a local network. Simply choose a unique group name (with optional password), and instantly connect multiple people together to make music, remote sessions, podcasts, etc. Easily record the audio from everyone, as well as playback any audio content to the whole group. Public groups are also available, for those interested in connecting to new people. Connects multiple users together across the internet to send and receive audio among all in a group, with fine-grained control over latency, quality and overall mix. Use it on your desktop or in your DAW, or on your mobile device. You can also use it locally on your own LAN to send audio among your devices with low latency. Works as a standalone application. as an AudioUnit v3 plugin with a compatible host app, or via Interapp-Audio. You can connect to others using SonoBus on any of the other platforms it runs on. Easy to setup and use, yet still providing all the details that audio nerds want to see. Audio quality can be instantly adjusted from full uncompressed PCM down through various compressed bitrates using the low-latency Opus codec. SonoBus does NOT use any echo cancellation, or automatic noise reduction in order to maintain the highest audio quality. As a result, if you have a live microphone signal you will need to also use headphones to prevent echos and/or feedback. SonoBus does NOT currently use any encryption for the data communication, so while it is very unlikely that it will be intercepted, please keep that in mind. All audio is sent directly between users peer-to-peer, the connection server is only used so that the users in a group can find each other. For best results, and to achieve the lowest latencies, connect your device with wired ethernet to your router. Little known fact, you can use USB ethernet interfaces with your iOS device using the proper adapter (USB camera connection kit, or natively with USB-C apple devices). It *will* work using WiFi, but the added network jitter and packet loss will require you to use a bigger safety buffer to maintain a quality audio signal, which results in higher latencies, which may or may not be acceptable for your use case.

Trailstation is a synced, offline radio you build from your own audio files. Every station you make loops on the iphone clock, so two phones that tune into the same station play the exact same moment — the same track, the same second. There's no host device, no shared Wi-Fi, no cell signal, and no account. Pick a station, press Tune In, and you're listening together. It's built for the places music apps give up: a group hike with no network coverage, a campsite, a long drive through a dead zone, a backcountry ski run. As long as everyone has the station, everyone's in sync. BUILD YOUR OWN STATIONS • Import audio from your library or Files — AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, and more. • Track titles and artists are read from your files automatically. • Reorder tracks, rename, and edit any time the station is off air. • Set a crossfade from 0 to 12 seconds — 0 is fully gapless. TUNE IN TOGETHER, NO HOST NEEDED • Stations loop pinned to the clock, so every device lands on the same moment. • No one is "the host" — there's nothing to connect to and nothing to drop. • Output-latency compensation and route-change re-sync keep AirPods and Bluetooth speakers locked to the clock too. • Fine-Tune Sync lets you nudge the timing for a specific pair of headphones, and remembers it for next time. STAY IN TIME OFF THE GRID • On a multi-day trip with no signal, two device clocks can slowly drift. • Sync Time Nearby matches them directly, device to device, over a short-range connection — no internet and no servers involved. KEEP A BIG LIBRARY TIDY • Group stations into folders, and search across station, track, and artist. • Whatever you're listening to stays pinned at the top of the home screen. SHARE A STATION • AirDrop or Email a self-contained .trailstation file — it opens straight into Trailstation on the other device, fully offline. • Or Save to iCloud Drive and share a link from Files. • Export Track Files hands back a plain folder of the original audio. ON YOUR WRIST • A full Apple Watch app plays your stations in sync with everyone else. • Send your built stations to the watch from your iPhone. PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No accounts, no ads, no tracking, no analytics. • Trailstation collects nothing. Your audio stays on your devices (and your own iCloud Drive only if you choose to share that way).