Open source, native HiFi gapless music player.
Nada is a high-fidelity audio player built for audiophiles who want bit-perfect, gapless playback with DSP control — no Electron, no web views, no compromises.
- Gapless playback — zero-gap transitions between tracks
- HiFi audio output — native CoreAudio on macOS (WASAPI/ALSA on other platforms)
- Wide format support — FLAC, WAV, MP3, M4A/AAC, OGG Vorbis, Opus, AIFF, APE, WavPack
- Parametric EQ — real-time DSP with interactive frequency response graph
- Crossfeed (bs2b) — natural stereo imaging for headphone listening
- ReplayGain — album/track normalization with pre-amp
- Waveform seek bar — visual track scrubbing with async waveform rendering
- Library scanning — recursive directory import with metadata extraction via TagLib
- Cover art — embedded cover extraction with on-disk thumbnail caching
- Queue management — build and reorder a play queue on the fly
- System tray — background playback with tray controls
- Dark theme — custom Qt stylesheet with gold accent palette
| Dependency | Version | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| C++ compiler | C++20 | Apple Clang 15+, GCC 13+, MSVC 2022 |
| CMake | >= 3.27 | |
| Qt 6 | >= 6.6 | Core, Widgets, Quick, Sql, OpenGL |
| TagLib | >= 2.0 | Metadata reading |
| libsoxr | any | Sample rate conversion |
| FFTW3 | any | EQ analysis (single + float) |
| spdlog | >= 1.12 | Logging |
| nlohmann-json | >= 3.11 | JSON support |
brew install cmake qt@6 taglib libsoxr fftw spdlog nlohmann-json pkg-config
cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DCMAKE_PREFIX_PATH="$(brew --prefix qt@6)"
cmake --build build --target nada
open build/nada.app# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install cmake g++ qt6-base-dev libtag1-dev libsoxr-dev \
libfftw3-dev libspdlog-dev nlohmann-json3-dev libpulse-dev \
libasound2-dev ninja-build
cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release
cmake --build build --target nada
./build/nada# Using vcpkg
cmake -B build -G Ninja -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release \
-DCMAKE_TOOLCHAIN_FILE=<path-to-vcpkg>/scripts/buildsystems/vcpkg.cmake
cmake --build build --target nada- macOS (CoreAudio) — active, CI-built
- Linux (ALSA/PipeWire) — build scaffold in CI (needs AppImage packaging)
- Windows (WASAPI) — build scaffold in CI (needs NSIS installer)
- Bit-perfect output modes (WASAPI exclusive, ALSA direct)
- Playlist import/export (M3U, PLS, XSPF)
- Smart playlists (criteria-based auto playlists)
- Album grid view
- MusicBrainz metadata lookup + tag editor
- DSD playback
- Android remote control
- MPRIS integration (Linux)
- Last.fm / ListenBrainz scrobbling
src/
├── decoder/ # Format decoders (FLAC, WAV, MP3 via dr_libs)
├── dsp/ # DSP chain (EQ, crossfeed, ReplayGain)
├── engine/ # Playback engine and buffer management
├── library/ # Metadata, cover cache, scanner, database
├── output/ # Platform audio output backends
└── ui/ # Qt widgets (player, library, queue, EQ, settings)
vendor/ # Bundled third-party (bs2b, dr_libs)
tests/ # Catch2 unit tests
resources/ # Icons, QRC, themes
MIT — see LICENSE.
Nada is built in the open. Contributions, issues, and ideas welcome.