play:Sub Music Streamer 2024.1

Review:

The play:Sub app allows users to stream music from their Subsonic-server-hosted library to their iOS or CarPlay device, Chromecast device, or Subsonic Jukebox. With play:Sub, you can enjoy your music anytime and anywhere, with the option to choose the desired audio quality.

play:Sub supports playback of various audio formats, including FLAC, MP3, and AAC, among others. It offers lossless and gapless playback, along with the ability to crossfade between tracks.

The app features a 10-band equalizer that can be fully customized to achieve the desired sound. It includes presets for common genres and scenarios and allows users to apply crossfade and replay gain for a perfect listening experience.

Browsing music is made easy with play:Sub. Users can navigate through their library by folder, artist, album, or decade. The app offers various control options such as gestures, buttons, and remote control from your headset. It supports playback on a variety of devices, including built-in speakers, headphones, Bluetooth-connected devices, and AirPlay devices.

play:Sub ensures seamless music streaming by caching songs when connectivity is poor. It automatically caches played songs and provides the option to manually cache individual songs, folders, artists, or albums.

The app is compatible with several server types, including Subsonic, AirSonic, Ampache, Madsonic, Funkwhale, Libresonic, and Navidrome. It supports multiple servers and allows for easy switching between them.

play:Sub offers a user-friendly interface with dark and light UI themes. It is optimized for different orientations and provides iPad multitasking support.

When it comes to audio compatibility, play:Sub supports a wide range of formats, including FLAC, AAC, ALAC, MP3, MP4, OGG, WAV, AIFF, and WEBM. It plays most audio formats without the need for transcoding and supports lossless playback and gapless playback. Additionally, the app offers a 10-band equalizer, crossfade functionality, replay gain, variable playback speed, and HI-rez digital up to 24bit/192kHz.

play:Sub allows users to stream music on various platforms, including any iOS device, CarPlay, Chromecast, and Jukebox. The app also offers discovery features such as artist radio, artist top songs, similar artists suggestions, random artist/album/song inspiration, and random genre songs playback.

Browsing music is customizable according to user preferences. play:Sub supports browsing by artists, albums, songs, folders, playlists, favorites, genres, podcasts, audiobooks, bookmarks, and decades. Additionally, users can filter their library by Subsonic media folder.

The app provides access to a vast internet radiostation directory with over 20,000 stations powered by radiobrowser.info. It also offers playlist management features such as creating, updating, and deleting playlists. Users can create both personal and shared playlists and cache complete playlists to their device for offline listening.

play:Sub allows users to star their favorite artists, albums, tracks, and folders. This feature works in both online and offline mode, with items starred in offline mode syncing when the user is back online. The app also provides convenient list filtering options for starred content.

Users can view all or random albums from a particular genre or browse starred albums and songs from a specific genre. The app offers a context menu that provides relevant actions for each item. Users can easily navigate between associated artists, albums, tracks, and folders, add items to playlists, and use swipe-to-reveal shortcuts.

play:Sub ensures a seamless offline mode experience by allowing users to play their cached music when connectivity is poor. In offline mode, only cached content is shown, but the user interface remains consistent with the online mode.

The app seamlessly integrates with various features and functions on iOS devices, including AirPlay, Bluetooth, remote control, lock screen, control center integration, and support for the sleep timer. It also resumes music playback after interruptions such as phone calls and allows for background downloads.

For secure connections, play:Sub supports SSL and self-signed certificates. It provides secure authentication for Subsonic 5.3+ servers and adjusts the bitrate depending on the network connection type (cellular or WiFi). Users can override the settings for slow or fast WiFi networks.

play:Sub offers scrobbling options to Last.fm if configured on the server. It updates Now Playing information on the server and updates server playcounts when playing cached content. Songs played while offline are scrobbled once the user is back online.

It is worth noting that a licensed installation of Subsonic 4.8+ is required to use play:Sub, and some features may require a higher server version, such as Top Songs, Artist Radio, Similar Artists, Last.fm Imagery, and Album Info.