SONE

The native desktop client for TIDAL on Linux. Lossless streaming with bit-perfect ALSA output up to 24-bit/192kHz (MAX) — your DAC, not your browser's resampler.

[!IMPORTANT] Requires an active TIDAL subscription. Not affiliated with TIDAL.

https://github.com/user-attachments/assets/67d7a8ed-352b-4ce6-8b9c-70b7427a5f22

The Vision

The Linux desktop app TIDAL never built.

SONE finally gives Linux users a first-class streaming client. It delivers the complete, fully-featured experience you expect with seamless library management and a sleek, familiar workflow—and then supercharges it.

We went beyond the basics with direct-to-DAC bit-perfect ALSA output, a resizable-adaptive floating miniplayer, music video playback, custom themes, Discord Rich Presence, and multi-service scrobbling (Last.fm, Libre.fm, ListenBrainz)—all wrapped in a fast, native Linux app.

Features

Audio

• Lossless FLAC and MQA streaming up to Hi-Res (24-bit/192kHz) with automatic quality fallback
• Max streaming quality — cap streaming at your preferred quality tier
• Bit-perfect output — no resampling, no dithering. Your DAC receives the unaltered decoded signal
• Exclusive ALSA — bypasses PipeWire/PulseAudio entirely for direct hardware access
• Smart DAC matching — automatically detects your hardware's supported formats and sample rates, picking the best fit
• Signal Path Transparency — see exactly what your audio is going through end-to-end. Probes the live GStreamer pipeline, OS mixer (pactl), and ALSA card (/proc/asound); flags every conversion, format mismatch, or volume alteration with a PRISTINE verdict for bit-clean playback
• Volume normalization (ReplayGain) with automatic context switching between album and track gain
• Autoplay — discovers and plays similar tracks when your queue ends
• Gapless playback — seamless, silence-free transitions between tracks in normal output mode. On by default, with automatic fallback when unavailable

Video

• Music video playback — a dedicated player (fullscreen or minimized to the bar) with adaptive HLS that starts at your selected quality; videos and tracks share one queue (shuffle, repeat, autoplay, history) controllable from the tray, MPRIS media keys, miniplayer, and shortcuts
• Favorite & browse — love videos separately from tracks, with dedicated Tracks/Videos tabs on your loved page — a paginated, searchable grid with tab-aware Play/Shuffle
• Find videos — add them to playlists (mixed playlists show accurate "N Videos · M Tracks"), and discover them across Explore and search — a Videos section, a dedicated Videos tab, and rows in Top Hits

Interface

• Custom themes — 15 presets and a full color picker for accent and background with both light/dark mode
• Lyrics — synced lyrics display for supported tracks
• Miniplayer — compact floating window with album art, playback controls, and resizable-adaptive layout
• Full-screen player — maximized view with album art, lyrics option and auto-hiding controls
• Queue persistence — picks up where you left off across restarts
• MPRIS integration — media keys, shuffle, repeat, seek, and desktop widget support
• System tray with playback controls and minimize-to-tray
• Keyboard shortcuts for all common actions with a built-in shortcut overlay

Library

• Library management — browse and sort your playlists, albums, artists, and mixes with playlist folder support
• Share — share tracks, albums, playlists, artists, and mixes with your friends via a direct TIDAL link
• Deep links — open tidal:// URLs directly in SONE
• Profile — edit your bio, social links, and avatar

Integrations

• MCP server — built-in Model Context Protocol server on port 5577 lets external AI agents (Claude Code, etc.) search your library, control playback, and manage playlists/favorites. Off by default; enable in Settings with one-click token generation
• OBS overlay — built-in browser source widget (port 5578) displays the currently playing track — album art, title, artist, audio quality badge, and a live progress bar — in any streaming software. Off by default; Enable in Settings, add the URL as a Browser Source in OBS at 400×120px. Inherits your active SONE theme automatically
• Scrobbling — track your listening history on Last.fm, Libre.fm, and ListenBrainz with full ISRC and MusicBrainz metadata
• Play reporting — reports finished plays to TIDAL so Recently Played reflects what you listen to in SONE. On by default; turn it off in Settings → Scrobbling
• Discord Rich Presence — show what you're listening to with album art, track info, and a direct TIDAL link
• Proxy support — route everything through an HTTP, HTTPS, or SOCKS5 proxy, including audio playback, with optional username and password. If the proxy can't be reached, SONE stops rather than sending your traffic around it

Why SONE?

SONE is a lightweight, native alternative to the official TIDAL web player and Electron-based unofficial clients.

• Full audio quality — browsers and Electron apps downsample audio to 48kHz before it leaves the application. SONE is native — it outputs at the source's original sample rate, up to 192kHz (TIDAL's max). Exclusive ALSA mode bypasses the system mixer entirely for bit-perfect output to your DAC.
• Familiar interface — a modern UI inspired by the streaming apps you already use
• Direct hardware access — GStreamer talks directly to your audio hardware. Lock your DAC to the exact source format, bypassing the system mixer
• Lightweight — built with Tauri and Rust. Small binary, low memory footprint
• Encrypted at rest — credentials, cache, and settings are encrypted with AES-256-GCM
• No telemetry, no tracking — fully open source under GPL-3.0. SONE collects no telemetry and sends nothing to its developers. Finished plays are reported to TIDAL so Recently Played works; turn it off in Settings → Scrobbling

Installation

Flathub

SONE is officially available on Flathub, making it easy to install on any Linux distribution. You can install it via your software center or by using the CLI:

Install the application

flatpak install flathub io.github.lullabyX.sone

Run the application

flatpak run io.github.lullabyX.sone

OS Packages

Pre-built packages for Ubuntu/Debian (.deb), Fedora (.rpm), openSUSE (.rpm), and Arch Linux (PKGBUILD) are available on the GitHub Releases page.

Or add the repository so apt upgrade / dnf upgrade / zypper up keep SONE current automatically (the setup script auto-detects your distro and imports the signing key):

curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/lullabyx/sone/setup.deb.sh' | sudo -E bash
sudo apt install sone

curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/lullabyx/sone/setup.rpm.sh' | sudo -E bash
sudo dnf install sone

curl -1sLf 'https://dl.cloudsmith.io/public/lullabyx/sone/setup.rpm.sh' | sudo -E bash
sudo zypper install sone

yay -S sone-bin    # prebuilt binary — or 'yay -S sone' to build from source

Snap Store

SONE is available on the Snap Store for any distribution with snap support. Install it via your software center or the CLI:

Install the application

sudo snap install sone

Run the application

sone

For exclusive / bit-perfect ALSA output, also connect the hardware-access interface:

sudo snap connect sone:alsa

Nix

SONE ships a Nix flake. On any system with Nix and flakes enabled, run it without installing:

nix run github:lullabyX/sone

Or install it into your profile:

nix profile install github:lullabyX/sone

The flake builds from source (no binary cache yet) and also exposes a development shell with every build and runtime dependency wired up:

nix develop github:lullabyX/sone   # then: pnpm tauri dev

Building from source

Rust:

curl --proto '=https' --tlsv1.2 -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- -y
source "$HOME/.cargo/env"

Node.js 22+ (via nvm, fnm, or your preferred method)

pnpm 11.x:

npm install -g [email protected]
# or, if corepack ships with your Node install:
corepack enable

System dependencies:

sudo apt install -y \
    build-essential curl wget file patchelf \
    libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev libgtk-3-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev libssl-dev libdbus-1-dev \
    libgstreamer1.0-dev libgstreamer-plugins-base1.0-dev \
    gstreamer1.0-plugins-base gstreamer1.0-plugins-good gstreamer1.0-plugins-bad gstreamer1.0-libav \
    libsecret-1-dev libasound2-dev xdg-utils \
    pulseaudio-utils

sudo apt install -y gstreamer1.0-alsa

sudo dnf install -y \
    gcc gcc-c++ make curl wget file patchelf \
    webkit2gtk4.1-devel gtk3-devel libappindicator-gtk3-devel librsvg2-devel openssl-devel dbus-devel \
    gstreamer1-devel gstreamer1-plugins-base-devel \
    gstreamer1-plugins-base gstreamer1-plugins-good gstreamer1-plugins-bad-free gstreamer1-plugin-libav \
    libsecret-devel alsa-lib-devel xdg-utils \
    pulseaudio-utils

sudo dnf install -y gstreamer1-plugins-base-tools

yay -S sone       # build from source
# or
yay -S sone-bin   # pre-built binary

sudo pacman -S --needed \
    base-devel curl wget file patchelf \
    webkit2gtk-4.1 gtk3 libayatana-appindicator librsvg openssl dbus \
    gstreamer gst-plugins-base gst-plugins-good gst-plugins-bad gst-libav \
    libsecret alsa-lib xdg-utils \
    libpulse

sudo pacman -S --needed gst-plugin-pipewire alsa-plugins

Build and run:

git clone https://github.com/lullabyX/sone.git
cd sone
pnpm install
pnpm tauri dev             # Development mode
pnpm tauri build           # Release build (produces .deb, .rpm, .AppImage)

Using build scripts:

Docker-based build scripts are provided in build-scripts/build/ to produce distro-specific packages in isolated environments. Requires Docker.

./build-scripts/build/all.sh              # Build all packages in parallel (deb, rpm, pacman)
./build-scripts/build/deb.sh              # Build .deb only (Ubuntu 22.04)
./build-scripts/build/rpm.sh              # Build .rpm only (Fedora)
./build-scripts/build/pacman.sh           # Build pacman package only (Arch)
./build-scripts/build/all.sh --omit rpm   # Build all except rpm

Output goes to dist/<format>/. Pass --no-cache to force a clean Docker build.

Usage

1. Launch the app
2. Click Get Login Code. You'll be automatically redirected to the official link.tidal.com to login and approve the code. Optionally, you can scan the QR Code to login via your mobile device.
3. Your library loads automatically — browse and play!

[!NOTE] NVIDIA GPU users: If you see a blank window, rendering glitches, or a Wayland protocol error on launch, start the app with:

WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 sone

gst-inspect-1.0 curlhttpsrc

WEBKIT_DISABLE_DMABUF_RENDERER=1 sone

WEBKIT_DISABLE_COMPOSITING_MODE=1 sone

Custom theme file

The theme presets/custom colors are stored in theme.json, inside SONE's config directory. That directory depends on how you installed SONE, because Flatpak and Snap both redirect XDG_CONFIG_HOME into their own sandbox:

A sandboxed SONE cannot read ~/.config/sone/, so tools that write the theme for you need the matching path above.

SONE reads the file at startup and watches it while running, so an external edit is applied straight away — even when SONE is unfocused or sitting in the tray. The watch can miss edits: it may fail to start (SONE logs a warning), it is not re-armed for the rest of the session if the config directory is deleted and recreated, and on filesystems where inotify does not work (NFS, sshfs, some overlay mounts) it starts but then never fires. In all of these the file is still read at startup, so restarting SONE always applies it.

{
    "version": 1,
    "preset": "custom",
    "custom": {
        "accent": "#3B82F6",
        "background": "#0E1118"
    }
}

• preset = "custom", or one of the built-in preset names (e.g. "Ocean", "Forest", "Noir"), case-sensitive.
• custom.accent / custom.background = #RGB or #RRGGBB colors.
• Both keys are required, even when preset names a built-in — {"preset": "Ocean"} on its own is rejected.
• Strict JSON only: comments and trailing commas are not accepted.

When preset names a built-in, that preset's colors win and custom is ignored for display. SONE rewrites custom to match the preset the next time you change the theme in Settings.

A file SONE cannot parse is left alone and the in-app theme is kept. Fix the file and the watcher picks it up, or change the theme in Settings to overwrite it.

FAQ

flatpak override --user --filesystem=/run/user/$(id -u) io.github.lullabyX.sone

Discord IPC socket at /run/user/1000/discord-ipc-0 exists but the sandbox
denied the connection; Rich Presence cannot reach Discord from this package

mkdir -p $XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/snap.sone
socat UNIX-LISTEN:$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/snap.sone/discord-ipc-0,fork \
      UNIX-CONNECT:$XDG_RUNTIME_DIR/discord-ipc-0

Tech Stack

• Backend: Rust (Tauri 2)
• Frontend: React 19, Tailwind 4, Jotai
• Audio: GStreamer
• Config: ~/.config/sone/

Contributing

Issues and pull requests are welcome on GitHub. To set up a development environment, follow the Building from source instructions.

If you enjoy using SONE, consider giving the project a star to help others find it.

Disclaimer

SONE is an independent, community-driven project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to TIDAL in any way. All content is streamed directly from TIDAL's service and requires a valid paid subscription. SONE is a streaming client only — it does not support offline downloads, and does not redistribute or circumvent protection of any content. As with any third-party client, please be aware of TIDAL's terms of use.

All trademarks belong to their respective owners.

License

GPL-3.0-only

TL;DR — SONE is an open-source, native Linux desktop client for TIDAL built with Tauri 2 and Rust. It streams lossless FLAC and Hi-Res audio up to 24-bit/192kHz, with exclusive ALSA output that bypasses PulseAudio and PipeWire entirely for bit-perfect playback directly to your DAC. It also plays TIDAL music videos in a dedicated player — fullscreen or minimized to the bar — that shares a single queue (shuffle, repeat, autoplay, favorites, and history) with your audio tracks. Lightweight and encrypted at rest, with no telemetry or tracking.