More than a beautiful music player
Bit-perfect audio.
Your music, untouched.
Quetzal plays your own files exactly as they were recorded, straight to your DAC. No resampling. No system mixer. No hidden processing and a signal path that shows you, rather than tells you. Build by a team of music lovers and audiophiles. We listesn to music and our users to build it better and better.
macOS 13+ · Apple silicon & Intel
Appearance
Light or dark
Quetzal follows the system appearance by default, and you can pin it either way. Six accent colours, and the covers stay the brightest thing on screen in both.
The promise
Nothing between the file and the DAC.
Most players hand your music to the operating system, which resamples it, mixes it with everything else on the machine and applies a volume curve on the way out. Quetzal doesn’t. It takes the device for itself, locks it to the file’s own rate, and gets out of the way.
01
Bit-perfect output
Samples reach the DAC unaltered. No resampling, no system mixer, no volume scaling unless you ask for it.
02
Automatic sample-rate switching
The hardware is locked to each file’s own rate. 44.1 through 352.8 kHz and confirmed before playback starts, rather than assumed.
03
Exclusive device access
Quetzal takes the audio device for itself, so nothing else on the Mac can resample or mix into your music.
04
No hidden processing
Integer mode where the hardware supports it. Memory playback keeps the disk out of the audio path. Gapless albums join without a seam.
05
A transparent signal path
The one claim every player makes, shown rather than asserted. When something breaks bit-perfect, Quetzal says so.
Signal path
Shown, not asserted.
Quetzal displays the codec, the rate the hardware is actually locked to, whether the device is held exclusively, and whether gain is being applied. Change the source and watch the chain answer.
Source file
Everything In Its Right Place
Codec
FLAC
Encoding
16-bit / 44.1 kHz
Source
Local file
Quetzal
Decode → memory buffer
Resampling
None
Processing
None
Gain
Unity
Audio device
External Headphones
Access
Exclusive
Locked to
44.1 kHz
Mode
Integer
Bit-perfect
The file’s samples are reaching the DAC unaltered.
Source file
Sonata No. 14 — Moonlight
Codec
FLAC
Encoding
24-bit / 192 kHz
Source
Local file
Quetzal
Decode → memory buffer
Resampling
None
Processing
None
Gain
Unity
Audio device
RME ADI-2 DAC FS
Access
Exclusive
Locked to
192 kHz
Mode
Integer
Bit-perfect
The device switched to 192 kHz and was confirmed before playback started.
Source file
Kind Of Blue — So What
Codec
DSF
Encoding
DSD64 / 2.82 MHz
Source
Local file
Quetzal
DoP packing → memory buffer
Resampling
None
Processing
None
Gain
Unity
Audio device
RME ADI-2 DAC FS
Access
Exclusive
Locked to
DSD64 (DoP)
Mode
Integer
Bit-perfect
DSD is passed through over DoP without conversion to PCM.
Source file
Everything In Its Right Place
Codec
FLAC
Encoding
16-bit / 44.1 kHz
Source
Local file
Quetzal
Decode → parametric EQ
Resampling
None
Processing
Parametric EQ
Gain
−3.0 dB
Audio device
External Headphones
Access
Exclusive
Locked to
44.1 kHz
Mode
Integer
Modified — not bit-perfect
You asked for EQ, so the samples are being altered. Quetzal says so rather than hiding it.
The listening experience
A player you'd keep open anyway.
Cover-led Now Playing with the signal path beneath it. A waveform drawn from the actual audio, building itself as the track is read. Click or drag anywhere in it to scrub. Queue with “playing from” context, a mini player for the corner of the screen, and a full-screen visualizer when you want the room to change.
- Now Playing
- Interactive waveform
- Queue
- Mini player
- Visualizer
- Media keys & Control Center
- Light, dark theme
- Six accent colours
Album
And I Have Been
Benjamin Clementine · 2022 · 12 tracks
1
Weights Of Clouds
4:11
2
Delighted
3:47
3
Difficult Does It
HR
5:02
4
Copyright
4:26
5
Genesis
6:18
Scale
Built for collections that took years.
Album, artist, folder or song. Folder browsing that understands music: one album shows the album page, several show a grid of covers. An A–Z index that files The Beatles under B. Artist pictures from your own files, from MusicBrainz and Wikidata, or a mosaic built from that artist’s covers. Click any artist or album name to filter.
- Favourites
- Play counts & history
- Hi-res badges
- Playlist folders
- Drag & drop
- M3U import & export
HD/Music
19,058
Chill Out
509
Classical
810
Agnes Obel
22
Benjamin Clementine — And I Have Been
12
Dead Can Dance
69
Hania Rani
119
Jon Hopkins
38
Ludovico Einaudi
80
Murcof
189
The Cinematic Orchestra
10
tracks
The size Quetzal is tested at.
seconds
To open that library.
ms
Search response across titles, artists and albums.
Formats & resolution
The specification, in full.
Everything your library is likely to contain, and an honest note about the one thing that isn't bit-perfect.
Quetzal
Plays
- FLAC
- ALAC
- WAV
- AIFF
- WavPack
- DSF
- DFF
- MP3
- AAC / M4A
- Ogg Vorbis
- Opus
- CAF
Lossless, hi-res and DSD are Pro. MP3 plays on every tier.
Sample rates
44.1 – 352.8 kHz
44.1 · 48 · 88.2 · 96 · 176.4 · 192 · 352.8 kHz. The device is locked to the file’s own rate and confirmed before playback starts.
Bit depths
16 · 24 · 32
16, 24 and 32-bit integer, and 32-bit float. Integer mode where the hardware supports it.
On 32-bit integer sources. Quetzal decodes them, but its internal pipeline is 32-bit float, which cannot represent every distinct 32-bit integer value, so we don’t claim bit-perfect for 32-bit integer files. Every other format is genuinely bit-perfect.
Internet radio
Fifty thousand rooms, when you want someone else to choose.
A community-maintained directory, continuously checked so dead links are filtered out. Filter by genre, country, codec and by minimum bitrate, which is how you skip past the 64 kbps stations. Now-playing titles from stations that broadcast them, automatic reconnection with backoff when a stream drops, and a live spectrum while it plays. Free for everyone, every codec.
- Genre
- Country
- Bitrate
- Codec
- Popular
200
Radio Paradise Main Mix (EU) 320k AAC
AAC · 320 kbps · US · california
Classic Vinyl HD
MP3 · 320 kbps · US · 1930
Adroit Jazz Underground
MP3 · 320 kbps · US · avant-garde
BBC World Service
MP3 · 56 kbps · GB · news
101 SMOOTH JAZZ
MP3 · 128 kbps · US · easy listening
~50,000 stations
Minimum-bitrate filter
Auto-reconnect
Live spectrum
Free and Pro
One purchase. No subscription.
We belive you should own your music and software. Quetzal is free to use as a player. Pro unlocks the part that makes it a bit-perfect player.
Free
No track limit
$0
always
- MP3 playback
- Internet radio — all codecs
- Library, search, playlists, favourites
- Visualizer, waveform, mini player
- Lossless, hi-res and DSD
- Exclusive device access
Pro
One-time purchase
$19.90
Mac App Store
- Everything in Free
- Lossless — FLAC, ALAC, WAV, AIFF, WavPack
- Hi-res — above 48 kHz / 16-bit
- DSD — DSF and DFF
- Exclusive device access
- Upsampling and parametric EQ
Quetzal
Your music already sounds good.
Quetzal gets out of the way.
macOS 13+ · Apple silicon & Intel