Aria vs Nyquist Player
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Aria
Create, edit, and play back musical scores on your iPhone or iPad. This app supports MuseScore and MusicXML files, offering intuitive touch controls for note entry and playback. Organize your library, manage parts, and export your compositions in various formats.
- Create and edit music scores
- Play back compositions
- Support for MuseScore and MusicXML
- Intuitive touch controls
- Manage individual parts
- Export in multiple formats
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Aria is a notation editor for iPhone and iPad that lets you create, edit, and play back MuseScore files on the go. Open existing MuseScore and MusicXML files, make changes with intuitive touch-based notation controls, play back your score, organize your library, manage individual parts, and export your music when you’re ready to share. Built for musicians who want a lightweight, mobile-friendly way to review, create, and revise scores wherever they are. Features: * Open mcz and MusicXML score files * Create new scores from templates * Edit notes enter notes with touch controls, Apple Pencil, or Midi controller * Play back scores locally * View and manage individual parts * Export and share your work, as Mscz, Pdf, MusiXML, audio, and more.. Aria is an independent app and is not affiliated with or endorsed by MuseScore, Muse Group, or any related project. Aria is open-source software licensed under the GNU GPLv3. Source code, license notices, and build instructions are available here: https://github.com/hdi200/aria
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 rating: Aria at 4.9 against Nyquist Player's 4.0. Aria also leads on update cadence (every 2 days vs every 2 weeks) and ratings volume (24 vs 1). Nyquist Player's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 1) and review sentiment (100% vs 86%). On price, ads, monetization model 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. Aria sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Nyquist Player asks for nothing beyond the download.
Aria holds the better App Store score, 4.9 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Aria has 24 ratings behind it against 1, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews complicate that: 86% of Aria's written reviews are positive against 100% of Nyquist Player's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Aria ships an update every 2 days, Nyquist Player every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 20, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Aria | Nyquist Player |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.9 (24 ratings) — better | 4.0 (1 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 85.7% of reviews | 100.0% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 24 — better | 1 |
| Update frequency | Every 2 days — better | Every 2 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, Mac — better |
| Requires iOS | 17 — better | 17.6 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 350 MB | 13 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Jack Gruber | Jose De Jesus Garfias |
Customer experience
Aria
Nyquist Player
In-app purchases
Aria
- Aria Full Access$9.99
Nyquist Player
No in-app purchases









