Many make the switch from wired to wireless earbuds. Popular music streaming apps offer decent audio quality, and most don’t seek a paid tier just for the sake of hearing top-notch quality music. However, a dedicated DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) with a pair of high-end earphones can change that.

Aside from the precise separation of different instruments, this player also clearly separates the subtle intake of breath from the singer and even the faint scrape of fingers on the guitar strings. This experience prompts the question: Is this just because of the high-end hardware setup, or is there something else at play?

Apple devices -– whether iPhone, iPad, or Mac –- generally have superior audio quality compared to Android phones. The quality difference can be audible even when comparing flagships like the Galaxy S25 Ultra against the iPhone 17 Pro. Since they are such capable audio machines, they need the right software to unlock their true potential. Upon testing a bunch of apps, we have listed a bunch of apps that play Hi-Res audio at full quality on Apple devices.

When Apple announced support for high-resolution lossless audio on its native streaming service, the digital music landscape shifted. Previously, audiophiles had to rely on expensive, third-party services, but now Apple Music has a massive library of uncompressed ALAC files right out of the box. You don’t have to subscribe to the premium tier to enjoy lossless audio, as it is included in your standard subscription. All you need to do is head over to the iPhone settings and toggle on the high-resolution streaming options to get started.

This feature is a significant step up from standard streams. The iPhone effortlessly feeds the 24-bit/192kHz data directly to the portable DAC, proving that complicated third-party software isn’t needed to enjoy high-fidelity listening.

Aside from audio fidelity, the seamless integration into the Apple ecosystem just elevates the experience. While it lacks some of the audio tweaking features that hardcore audiophiles love to play around with, Apple Music compensates with simplicity, selection, and convenience.

Tidal has long been a champion for high-quality audio. Over the years, the platform has evolved its underlying technology, moving away from controversial proprietary formats to industry-standard FLAC files for its top-end audio. This opened the gates for Apple devices to easily process and pass through uncompressed music files to your DAC, allowing you to hear lossless audio, as engineers mixed it in the recording studio.

After spending considerable time with the app, we liked its user interface. It offers lossless audio support (FLAC up to 24-bit/192kHz) and formats such as Dolby Atmos. You will quickly understand how Tidal’s audio quality is completely devoid of the muddy compression you hear on other standard platforms. The best part is that Tidal confirms the audio quality level on the interface and labels them Max, HiFi, or High, where Max means Hi-Res FLAC. You can change this in the app’s settings menu.

Aside from offering Hi-Res audio, Tidal’s presentation of music discovery and curation is also top-notch. You can read articles, staff picks, and dive deep into specific genres. You can also cast high-resolution music using Tidal Connect to compatible smart speakers.

For those who value audio quality, Qobuz is the gold standard. This app comes from France and is built from the ground up specifically for high-resolution audio. Unlike other apps that adjust audio quality depending on internet strength, Qobuz prioritizes pure, hi-res, and unadulterated sound quality. You get millions of tracks in true 24-bit FLAC formats that sound amazing when played with a good DAC on an Apple device.

We found the jazz music experience particularly compelling on Qobuz; you will feel like you’re in the front row of a smoky jazz club. Qobuz is strong at instrument separation, voice quality, and separating minute brushstrokes on the snare drum.

Qobuz also provides a clean interface and an effective search bar for your song discovery. It also provides attractive digital booklets and original liner notes right on your Apple device. Overall, it is one of the best apps for streaming Hi-Fi audio.

Amazon Music is highly underrated. It is rare to see people enjoying music on Amazon Music, and most of them stick to Spotify or Apple Music. However, if you love high-fidelity audio, then you should check out Amazon Music because it is highly capable. If you are on the Prime membership, you can get the Amazon Music Unlimited tier for huge discounts. Amazon Music Unlimited tier boasts one of the largest and most accessible libraries of HD and Ultra HD audio.

You can listen to true lossless FLAC audio on your Apple devices, easily getting that 24-bit/192kHz sweet spot. During our testing, Amazon Music stood out, delivering outstanding audio quality on our iPhone with a DAC.

The app’s interface features a yellow badge to display the exact bitrate and sample rate currently playing. Though the interface is less sleek than its peers, the audio quality and value within its ecosystem are persuasive. Amazon Music is one of the best budget-friendly tools for audiophiles who love listening to Hi-Res audio.

Audirvana Remote is not a standalone music player, where you hit the play button on your iPhone and the music starts playing from its huge library of songs. It is a companion app for Audirvana (a respected audiophile app) you can install on your Mac or PC. Audirvana Remote bypasses the computer’s internal audio mixer and takes control of your DAC to deliver high-quality audio.

This app shines in scenarios when you want high-quality audio away from your desk. With Audirvana Remote, you can use your iPad to open the app and play music, while the Mac mini, connected to all the speakers, processes the DSD and FLAC files. Your iPad will act like a luxurious command center.

The app’s design is unique, intuitive, and brings elements of the desktop app, but optimized for touch display. You can create a playlist, adjust the volume, or view the real-time processing of the audio signal right on your iPad or iPhone. It is a must-have if you use your Mac as the brains for your home hi-fi audio setup.

Roon/Roon Remote is similar to Audirvana Remote. It isn’t a standalone music player but a gateway to a larger and sophisticated audio ecosystem. Roon is the master brain that you can operate on your computer. It brings together all of your locally stored high-resolution files and seamlessly merges them with your Tidal or Qobuz accounts. Using the Roon Remote app for iOS, you can control and listen to high-quality music with an impressive interface.

If you listen to a lot of music, especially high-quality audio, your digital library is probably disorganized. Thankfully, Roon will change this. The app automatically identifies your library of songs, adds correct metadata, reviews, and lyrics, and links it to similar artists on streaming services.

Roon is expensive and is aimed at hardcore enthusiasts. If you’re an audiophile with money to spend, you should check it out. With the Roon ARC companion app, you can listen and stream your massive home library of uncompressed files directly on your iPhone when traveling or commuting.

For those who already have a massive library of high-resolution audio tracks and hate relying on Apple’s default syncing methods, they should install the VOX music player. This app was specifically designed to handle lossless audio formats such as FLAC, ALAC, WAV, and DSD with ease. While you can use the VOX music player offline to listen to your high-resolution track library, it also offers an optional VOX Cloud service with unlimited, uncompressed cloud storage for your entire high-res music library.

High-quality audio files are huge and often outgrow the built-in iPhone storage. A single album can go well over a couple of GBs. For those facing a similar issue, you can simply transfer this collection over to VOX Cloud and stream all of your favorite tracks directly from your iPhone from anywhere in the world. This can be a game-changer, especially when listening to hi-res tracks inside a car audio setup, where the pristine quality of uncompressed audio is just unmatched.

Speaking of the interface, it is sleek and minimalist and comes with swipe gestures rather than cluttered menus. There is a built-in equalizer to fine-tune your music and a parametric audio engine that outputs the best quality audio to external DACs.

Neutron Music Player is a professional-grade audio player for your iPhone. Instead of relying on the operating system’s default audio processing, Neutron Music Player has a proprietary 32/64-bit audio rendering engine to process the best audio quality. This means it bypasses any potential bottlenecks in iOS, ensuring you hear pristine high-resolution audio files delivered to your DAC.

However, Neutron Music Player can be a bit overwhelming. The interface looks less like a music player and more like an airplane cockpit. But after you spend some time with the interface, everything becomes familiar. This music player has depth and a parametric equalizer that gives you granular control over every detail. 

Neutron is designed for the hardcore audiophile. It supports virtually every format and features crossfade processing to make headphone listening more akin to sitting in front of stereo speakers.

Onkyo, the legendary Japanese hardware manufacturer, offers the Onkyo HF Player for a superlative listening experience on your Apple device. The app is specifically built to handle demanding file types, particularly DSD formats, cleanly routing the uncompressed signal out of the lightning or USB-C port to an external amplifier.

You can download the application if you have an incredible library of high-resolution DSD albums that standard iOS players refuse to recognize. You need to connect your DAC hardware to your iPhone and launch the Onkyo HF player, which reads the file type and plays it flawlessly with the utmost clarity. 

Audiophiles will love the linear-phase equalizer with over 16,000 equalizations, and they’ll appreciate the smooth, user-friendly interface, too. The app is available in free and premium tiers.

You might not have heard of FiiO Music. Audiophiles will know FiiO for its impressive range of excellent and affordable digital-to-analog converters and music players. Now, they also have a standalone high-resolution player on iOS. FiiO Music is designed to bypass the standard mobile audio limitations and provide you with raw, uncompressed USB output that pairs well with external hardware to maximize your sound experience.

If you have a FiiO portable amplifier, you can pair that up with your Apple device and load your phone with high-resolution FLAC audio files. The app lets you manage everything, and the interface isn’t clunky, meaning there is no learning curve. The app focuses on local music playback and supports major formats, such as DXD, DSD (DSD64/128), WAV, FLAC, APE, ALAC, AIFF, WMA, MP3, OGG, etc.

There are several helpful features, such as Wi-Fi transfers, automatic shutdown timers, instant resume playback, and more. It is a fantastic app and is available for free. 

NePLAYER is another solid option for those interested in maximizing audio quality. This app is developed by Radius, a Japanese company that is rooted in the audiophile market. It specializes in providing real-time data about how your music is being processed and played.

NePLAYER’s audio-visualizer interface is one of the standout features of the app. It displays two numbers on the screen. The first one is the original sample rate of the file you are playing, and the second is the actual sample rate outputted by your iPhone connected to the DAC hardware. This visual confirmation reassures you that you are listening to lossless audio.

You can easily sync music from your cloud or download files directly from the high-res music store. There is also a customizable equalizer that tunes your music. The interface categorizes your library not just by artist or album but also by actual audio resolution. There is a free Lite version available to test the waters, but you will need to purchase the app to unlock its full potential.

If you don’t feel like connecting to your Apple device to transfer lossless audio, Flacbox: Hi-Res Music Player is exactly what you need. This app acts as a bridge between your high-resolution audio files and your favorite cloud storage provider. This player features a built-in audio engine that can play lossless FLAC audio and ALAC files directly from the cloud. This eliminates the need to have those files on your iPhone’s internal storage.

For those with 50GB of FLAC and ALAC soundtracks in your Google Drive or any other cloud storage, you need to connect your Google account to the app. It instantly scans your library for songs and organizes them on the screen. The audio quality remains flawless, as long as you have a solid network or strong Wi-Fi connection.

Apart from Google Drive, Flacbox player supports Dropbox, OneDrive, Box, and even your personal home NAS drives. There is a highly customizable equalizer that supports external streaming, Wi-Fi file transfer, or even lets you download albums for offline listening.