Decibels
A minimal GNOME audio player that opens and plays individual audio files without a music library.
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About Decibels
Decibels, shown as Audio Player on the desktop, is a GNOME app that plays audio files without needing an organized music library. It is meant for opening a single recording or track quickly rather than managing a collection.
It shows a waveform of the track, offers adjustable playback speed and easy seek controls, and can play several files at the same time. The latest version is installed from Flathub; version 49.6 was released in April 2026.
Strengths
- Opens a file and plays it with no library setup
- Waveform view with easy seeking
- Adjustable playback speed
- Can play multiple files at once
Limitations
- No library, playlists or tag management
- Linux only
Details
- Pricing
- FreeFree, developed as part of GNOME with donations going to the GNOME Foundation.
- License
- Open source, license not stated
- Developer
- The GNOME Project
- Platforms
- Linux
- How it runs
- Downloadable app
- Account
- Not required
- Works offline
- Yes
- Best suited for
- GNOME users who want to play a single audio file quickly
- Categories
- Media players, Audio tools
- Last verified
- Added
- Provenance
- Facts checked against the developer's own pages and store listings, 1 sources on file.
Alternatives to Decibels
Compare allSoftware that can replace Decibels for an important use case, and what changes if you switch.
Amberol
A simple GNOME music player for local files that plays music and nothing else.
Amberol is another simple GNOME player for local files, adding drag and drop queueing, album art colours and MPRIS controls, but without a waveform view or speed control.
Audacious
A lightweight open-source audio player descended from XMMS, with optional Winamp Classic skins.
Audacious is a lightweight open source audio player for Windows, macOS and Linux, with Winamp Classic skins, an equalizer, effects and plugins instead of a minimal GNOME interface.
VLC media player
A free player that opens almost any video or audio file, disc or stream without installing a codec pack.
VLC media player opens almost any audio or video file on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android and iOS, though its interface is functional rather than modern.
Parole
A lightweight GStreamer-based media player written to fit the Xfce desktop.
Parole is a lightweight GStreamer-based player built for Xfce that handles local files, CDs, DVDs and live streams, with plugins, rather than GNOME-specific audio playback.
Similar software
Related functionality, not necessarily a direct replacement.
Rhythmbox
A music player and library manager for the GNOME desktop with podcast and internet radio support.
Elisa
A KDE music player for browsing and playing a local music library and listening to online radio.
Clapper
A GNOME media player built on GStreamer and GTK4, designed for simplicity and ease of use.
Showtime
GNOME's video player, with simple playback controls, subtitles, multiple audio tracks and screenshots.
Celluloid
A simple GTK front end for the mpv video player on Linux.
