Isai: Hi-Res Music Player

Isai is a music player for people who own their music.

Maybe it lives on MEGA. Maybe on Dropbox, a Nextcloud server, a Synology in the cupboard, or a folder on your phone. Connect it once and Isai reads the tags, builds a proper library with albums, artists and artwork, and streams straight from where the files are. Nothing goes through a server in between, and nothing is transcoded on the way.

WHAT PLAYS FLAC, ALAC, M4A, WAV, AIFF, MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis and Opus. DSF and DFF, including DST. Embedded lyrics and .lrc files scroll along with the song. DSD goes through Isai's own engine. It goes out as DoP to a DAC that takes it, and is carefully converted to PCM for everything else. Playback is gapless, and you can turn on crossfade. Isai skips it wherever it would change the sound.

THE SIGNAL PATH Tap the quality badge to see what happened between the file and the output: the source, the decoder, any processing, the device it went to, and a verdict. On the Mac, BIT PERFECT means exactly that. Isai can take exclusive access to your DAC and set its sample rate and word length to match the file. Then it reads those settings back from the hardware to make sure they stuck. If the equalizer is on, the verdict says so. If the audio was resampled, it says that too. On iPhone and iPad, Isai asks an external DAC for the file's own rate and tells you what the system actually gave it, even when that isn't the answer you wanted.

PURE MUSIC ON IPHONE DUO On an iPhone Duo, Isai can stop looking like an app and turn into a machine. Choose a pocket cassette player, a portable CD player or a turntable, each modelled on the classics of the eighties, and the machine fills the screen. No tabs, no status bar. Fold the phone shut and the cover screen is the player in your hand, with the tape turning behind its little window or the disc spinning under the lid. Open it and your records sit on one page with the open machine on the other.

Underneath, it's the same library and the same signal path.

ONE LIBRARY, EVERY DEVICE Add a source on your iPhone and it shows up on your Mac, your iPad and your Apple TV, already signed in. Favourites, playlists, play history and where you stopped in a track all sync through iCloud. So does the library itself: scan a source once and your other devices get the albums without reading the files again. Downloads keep the original files, run in the background, and wait for Wi-Fi if you ask them to.

PLAY ON Two copies of Isai on the same Wi-Fi can control each other. Sit on the sofa with your phone and play through the Mac that's wired to the good DAC. The queue, the position and the Signal Path follow whichever device is making the sound. Nothing leaves your network and there's no account to create. Your own devices recognise each other through your Apple Account. Anything else has to be let in by hand, with a code shown on both screens.

ALSO A ten-band equalizer with presets you can copy and rename. An A/B loop for the sixteen bars you're learning, or the cymbal decay you're judging a cable on, with saved loops that play one after another. Album editions, so the FLAC, the MP3 rip and the Apple Music copy of one record show up as a single album with the format shown once. Animated covers when a label ships them. And if you subscribe to Apple Music, it sits on the same shelf as the files you own.

ISAI PRO Free for the music on your device and for Apple Music. Pro adds cloud sources (MEGA, Dropbox, WebDAV), Play On, Pure Music on iPhone Duo and the widgets. Monthly or Yearly, each with a 7-day free trial for new subscribers, or Lifetime: one payment that never renews. Bought Pro before? It's Lifetime and stays unlocked for good.

Subscriptions renew automatically unless cancelled at least 24 hours before the trial or period ends. Manage them in your Apple Account settings. Terms of Use: https://www.apple.com/legal/internet-services/itunes/dev/stdeula/ Privacy Policy: https://arrcade.dev/apps/isai/privacy.html