The Sovereign, Bit-Perfect Audiophile Music Player & Instrument
Sonora provides dedicated, context-tuned workspaces — switch instantly with keyboard shortcuts or the workspace selector.
| Audiophile Studio (64-Band Real-Time Spectrum, 384kHz/32-bit Float DSP) | Atmospheric Theater (Full-Bleed Artwork & Dynamic Synced Lyrics) |
|---|---|
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| Modern Curator (Instant Library Search & MusicBrainz Metadata) | Synced Lyrics View (Cmd + L, Millisecond Precision Offset) |
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| Album Detail (Multi-Provider Artwork & Hi-Res Metadata) | Minimal Player (Distraction-Free Desktop Transport) |
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Most modern music players are thin web wrappers for subscription streaming platforms. Sonora is built on a single core principle: you own your music collection, and playing it should feel like operating a precision high-end instrument.
- Sovereign & Local-First: No accounts, no telemetry, no tracking, no remote server dependency, and zero cloud lock-in.
- True Bit-Perfect Pipeline: Dual-decoder gapless engine (Symphonia + Rubato 64-bit sinc resampler) operating at up to 384kHz / 32-bit float with EBU R128 True Peak Limiting.
- Decoupled 60 FPS Audio DSP: Real-time 64-band logarithmic FFT spectrum analyzer running on a dedicated audio thread with lock-free ring buffer IPC (
rtrb). - Universal Command Palette (
Cmd + K//): Sub-5ms instant local library queries via SQLite FTS5 alongside ranked online metadata matching (MusicBrainz, Cover Art Archive, Fanart.tv). - Millisecond Synced Lyrics (
Cmd + L): Synchronized word/line scrolling with manual±10msoffset stepper and LRCLIB integration. - Sandboxed WASM Plugins: Safe, capability-gated Wasmtime extension runtime. Crashing plugins will never interrupt playback.
Pre-built binaries are ready to download and run without compiling or installing developer toolchains.
👉 Download Sonora v0.1.0 Releases
| Platform | Format | Package / Asset Name | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| Linux (x86_64) | Universal AppImage | Sonora-v0.1.0-linux-x86_64.AppImage |
Primary (Fully Tested) |
| Linux (Debian/Ubuntu) | DEB Package | Sonora-v0.1.0-linux-x86_64.deb |
Primary (Fully Tested) |
| Windows (x86_64) | MSI Installer | Sonora-v0.1.0-windows-x86_64.msi |
Supported |
| Windows (x86_64) | Portable Executable | Sonora-v0.1.0-windows-x86_64.exe |
Supported |
| macOS (Apple Silicon) | DMG (Universal/ARM64) | Sonora-v0.1.0-macos-aarch64.dmg |
Supported |
| macOS (Intel) | DMG (x86_64) | Sonora-v0.1.0-macos-x86_64.dmg |
Supported |
Standalone bundles containing sonora, sonora-tui, and documentation:
- Linux (x86_64):
Sonora-v0.1.0-linux-x86_64-terminal.tar.gz - Windows (x86_64):
Sonora-v0.1.0-windows-x86_64-terminal.zip - macOS (Apple Silicon):
Sonora-v0.1.0-macos-aarch64-terminal.tar.gz - macOS (Intel):
Sonora-v0.1.0-macos-x86_64-terminal.tar.gz
# AppImage (Universal)
chmod +x Sonora-v0.1.0-linux-x86_64.AppImage
./Sonora-v0.1.0-linux-x86_64.AppImage
# Debian / Ubuntu (.deb)
sudo dpkg -i Sonora-v0.1.0-linux-x86_64.debtar -xzf Sonora-v0.1.0-linux-x86_64-terminal.tar.gz
./sonora-tui # Full-screen interactive TUI
./sonora status # Scriptable CLI- Download
Sonora-v0.1.0-windows-x86_64.msior.exe. - Run the installer and launch Sonora from your Start Menu.
- For Terminal tools: extract
Sonora-v0.1.0-windows-x86_64-terminal.zipand run.\sonora-tui.exe.
- Download
Sonora-v0.1.0-macos-aarch64.dmg(Apple Silicon) orSonora-v0.1.0-macos-x86_64.dmg(Intel). - Open the
.dmgand dragSonora.appinto Applications.
Verify downloaded assets against checksums.txt:
# Linux / macOS
sha256sum -c checksums.txt
# Windows PowerShell
Get-FileHash Sonora-v0.1.0-windows-x86_64.msi -Algorithm SHA256| Format | Extension | Decoder Engine | Metadata Tagging |
|---|---|---|---|
| FLAC | .flac |
Symphonia (Bit-Perfect Lossless) | Lofty (Vorbis Comments) |
| ALAC | .m4a, .alac |
Symphonia (Apple Lossless) | Lofty (MP4 iTunes Tags) |
| WAV / AIFF | .wav, .aif, .aiff |
Symphonia (PCM 16/24/32-bit float) | Lofty (RIFF / ID3v2) |
| MP3 | .mp3 |
Symphonia (MPEG Audio Layer III) | Lofty (ID3v1 / ID3v2.4) |
| AAC | .aac, .m4a |
Symphonia (Advanced Audio Coding) | Lofty (MP4 Atoms) |
| Ogg Vorbis | .ogg |
Symphonia (Vorbis Codec) | Lofty (Vorbis Comments) |
| Opus | .opus |
Symphonia (Low-Latency Opus) | Lofty (Opus Tags) |
Building from source is completely optional. If you would like to hack on the audio engine or contribute:
- Rust stable toolchain (
rustup update stable) - Node.js 20+ & npm
- Linux system libraries:
sudo apt-get install -y libasound2-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libjavascriptcoregtk-4.1-dev libsoup-3.0-dev
git clone https://github.com/Sumeet-basfore/sonora.git
cd sonora
# Build entire Rust workspace (audio core, DSP, FTS5 indexer, CLI, TUI, Tauri desktop backend)
cargo build --workspace
# Build modern desktop frontend
npm --prefix apps/desktop install
npm --prefix apps/desktop run build
# Run applications locally
cargo run -p sonora-cli -- status # Scriptable CLI
cargo run -p sonora-tui # Interactive TUI
npm --prefix apps/desktop run tauri # Desktop GUIcargo fmt --all -- --check
cargo clippy --workspace --all-targets -- -D warnings
cargo test --workspace
npm --prefix apps/desktop test- WASM Plugins: Sandboxed WebAssembly modules implementing the
sonora_plugin_*ABI. Seedocs/05-plugin-system.mdandplugins/example/. - Theme Customization: Pure JSON token schemas with hot-reloading CSS textures. See
docs/06-theming-and-customization.mdandthemes/sonora-retro/. - Community Registry: Reproducible manifest format and SHA-256 package registry. See
community-registry/.
- System Architecture Specification
- Audio Engine & Real-Time DSP
- Online Metadata & Enrichment Architecture
- Universal Search & Keyboard Palette UX
- Artwork Retrieval & Multi-Provider Caching
- Synchronized Lyrics Pipeline
- Deterministic Metadata Matching & Scoring
- Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)
Sonora is dual-licensed under MIT and Apache-2.0.






