SonoBus For Linux

Streaming music is something we're all accustomed to these days. However, if you fancy yourself as a bit of an artist, and you want to stream your own music (or your local music collection) over the Internet or share it with a group of friends, then SonoBus is the answer.

SonoBus is a free, open-source, and cross-platform (works on Windows, macOS, Linux, as well as Android and iOS) app for streaming high-quality and low-latency peer-to-peer audio.

In short, it's an app that allows you to share any audio (not just music) with listeners either over the Internet or over a local network.

The app supports high-quality audio streaming up to 256 Kbps. However, please note that you can tweak the compression bitrates anywhere from 16 to 256 Kbps per channel via low-latency Opus codec.

The audio quality can also be adjusted to full uncompressed PCM (either 16, 23, or 32-bit) , with the option of changing it for any of the users who are part of the group.

One of the best features of SonoBus is the fact that it allows the connection of multiple users. What's really impressive is the level of control it provides. For instance, you can stream audio to all users within a group with fine-grained control over everything such as the quality, and the latency.

You can also create separate groups (optionally protected by passwords), share audio input from your microphone, share audio stream from a file, playback to the group, record audio from everyone, mute individual users (or all users).

The app also comes with pan support, and has various useful tools such as an input mixer, a metronome (useful for music creation), a decent collection of effects (such as Noise Gate, Compressor, and EQ). It also works with Jack and ALSA.

SonoBus is a remarkably competent app for audio streaming and many potential use-cases. Be that as it may, it might not be the perfect solution for everyone.

For starters, the app's GUI is not exactly beginner friendly. Not to say that it's a difficult app to use, but it does require a bit of practice until you'll be able to unleash its full potential. Then there's the discussion about system resources.

While it doesn't hog all your system resources, there's a very good chance you will feel this app working.