Hi vs Nyquist Player
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Hi
Access your music library on iPhone and iPad with a streamlined, distraction-free interface. Enjoy high-quality playback, offline listening, and easy library management. Search and stream additional music from Apple Music.
- Play music from your library
- High-quality audio playback
- Offline listening mode
- Browse, search, and sort library
- Shuffle and repeat modes
- Bluetooth and AirPlay streaming
- Search Apple Music catalog
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Hi-Fi provides fast, simple access to your music library on iPhone and iPad. Hi-Fi’s streamlined design means less clutter and fewer distractions. It’s your music, without the noise. Features • Play music from your library — including Apple Music*, iTunes Match*, iTunes Store purchases, or your music files synced from a Mac or PC. • Listen to music at the highest available quality, including AAC, lossless ALAC, Apple Digital Masters, and Spatial Audio with Dolby Atmos. • Listen without an internet connection — optional offline mode filters your library for music you’ve downloaded to your device. • Browse, search, and sort your music library — including albums, artists, genres, playlists, and songs. • Create and edit your own playlists in Hi-Fi. • Use the Now Playing interface to view and manage your playback queue. • Mix it up with shuffle mode, or repeat your queue or individual songs. • Stream music using Bluetooth or AirPlay. • Search the Apple Music* catalog for more music. • No ads. Ever. • Hi-Fi is private. We don’t track our users. Not Supported by Hi-Fi • You can’t delete music in Hi-Fi. • You can’t modify playlists from outside Hi-Fi. Requirements • An iPhone or iPad running iOS 26 or iPadOS 26 or later. • For Apple Music subscribers: • Apple Music app must be installed on your device. • For iTunes Match subscribers: • Apple Music app must be installed on your device. • To listen to locally synced music files: • Mac with Apple Music app; or • Windows PC with Apple Music and Apple Devices apps installed. * Apple subscription required to access Apple Music or iTunes Match library sync services.
Nyquist Player
A file-first music player for audiophiles with large local libraries. It offers bit-perfect playback, true gapless transitions, and advanced track analysis tools. Stream to network receivers and manage huge libraries with ease.
- Bit-perfect playback
- True gapless transitions
- Network streaming (UPnP/DLNA)
- Advanced track analysis
- On-device search
- Large library management
- NAS support
- Portable playlists
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Nyquist is a native, file-first music player for audiophiles who keep large local libraries on SSDs, external drives, and NAS shares. It is not a streaming app — it is a fast, precise playback tool built for people who care about sample rates, bit depth, and an honest signal path. WHY NYQUIST • Bit-perfect intent — On macOS, Nyquist matches your DAC's hardware sample rate to each file (44.1 → 88.2/176.4, 48 → 96/192) and waits for the clock to re-lock so CoreAudio performs no resampling. No cross-family conversions are ever forced on your music. • True gapless playback — Sample-accurate transitions between tracks of the same format, so albums by Pink Floyd, Tool, Daft Punk, live sets, and classical recordings flow without a single gap. • Network play — Discover UPnP/DLNA receivers on your network (Denon, HEOS, and friends) and stream the original file straight to them, with gapless hand-off on receivers that support it. Network devices sit right next to your DACs in the output picker. • Track analysis — A built-in lab for every file: a whole-track waveform with peak, RMS, and dynamic-range readouts; EBU R128 / BS.1770 integrated loudness with ReplayGain; a long-term spectrum that exposes upsampled "hi-res" and lossy-sourced "lossless" files; a full spectrogram; plus live spectrum, level meters, and a stereo goniometer — each with a plain-language verdict. • On-device search — A private, persistent index of your saved locations, with filters by file type and metadata field (title, artist, album, genre, composer, label, year, format). Nothing leaves your device. • Built for huge libraries — Folder-first browsing that behaves like a high-performance file browser, not a slow database. Lazy-loaded discovery means no full-library scan before you can press play, even across 50,000+ tracks. A topology view classifies your folders into artists, albums, EPs, singles, live sets, compilations, box sets, and discs. • NAS-aware — Add SMB shares directly or through the Files app. Remote tracks start instantly while a background copy makes seeks immediate, and the next track is prefetched for seamless rotation. • Playlists — Organize your music into groups and playlists saved as portable .m3u8 files in a folder you choose. Point every device at the same folder — including a NAS share added through the Files app — and your playlists stay in sync across Mac, iPhone, and iPad. Build them from tracks, whole folders, or the current queue, then reorder and edit them anywhere. • Background playback — On iPhone and iPad, playback keeps going when you lock the screen or switch apps, with working lock-screen and Control Center transport — including while streaming to a network receiver. • Flexible volume — On iPhone and iPad the slider follows your device's system volume; on macOS, choose software gain, your DAC's own hardware volume (bit-perfect at any level), or a fixed 100% for maximum purity. An optional limiter caps the level across every output — even against the hardware volume buttons — to prevent accidental loud jumps. • Exclusive (hog) mode — Optionally take exclusive ownership of your DAC during playback on macOS. • Flexible output routing — On macOS, choose the exact CoreAudio output device (USB DAC, built-in, and more); your choice is remembered across launches. On iPhone and iPad, send audio to AirPlay, Bluetooth, or wired outputs with the system route picker. • Deep technical transparency — Inspect format, sample rate, bit depth (with FLAC/ALAC recovery), channel count, codec, and a live signal-path view showing source rate, output rate, and bit-perfect / resampling / exclusive status. • Memory-friendly — Tracks are streamed from disk frame-by-frame, never decoded whole into RAM, so even 24/192 material stays light on resources. SUPPORTED FORMATS FLAC, ALAC, MP3, AIFF, WAV, and AAC today. The engine is format-agnostic, with DSD and SACD ISO planned.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is price: Nyquist Player at Free against Hi's $2.99. Nyquist Player also leads on iOS requirement (17.6 vs 26.0). Hi's advantage is rating (5.0 vs 4.0). On review sentiment, ratings volume, update cadence and ads 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
Nyquist Player is free to download; Hi costs $2.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Hi holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 2 and 1 respectively. Written reviews split almost evenly too, at 100% and 100% positive.
Hi ships an update weekly, Nyquist Player every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 3, 2026 and November 5, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Hi | Nyquist Player |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $2.99 | Free — better |
| Rating | 5.0 (2 ratings) — better | 4.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 100.0% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Weekly — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Paid | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 26.0 | 17.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 24 MB | 13 MB |
| Age rating | 12+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Pod 98, LLC | Jose De Jesus Garfias |
Customer experience
Hi
Nyquist Player
In-app purchases
Hi
No in-app purchases
Nyquist Player
No in-app purchases









