aplay

Play a specific file (sampling rate, bit depth, etc. will be automatically determined for the file format)

$ aplay [path/to/file]

$ aplay --duration=[10] --rate=[2500] [path/to/file]

$ aplay --channels=[1] --file-type [raw] --rate=[22050] --format=[mu_law] [path/to/file]

aplay [options] [file ...]

-h, --help
    Show help message and exit.

-l, --list-devices
    List available sound devices.

-L, --list-pcms
    List available PCM devices.

-D, --device hw:X,Y
    Select sound card device (X=card number, Y=device number).

-q, --quiet
    Suppress output messages.

-t, --file-type RAW|WAV|...
    Specify the file type. If not specified, it is determined from the file extension.

-c, --channels CHANNELS
    Set the number of channels.

-f, --format FORMAT
    Specify the sample format (e.g., S16_LE, U8).

-r, --rate RATE
    Set the sample rate (Hz).

-V, --verbose
    Verbose mode.

-N, --no-buffer
    Disable buffer playback.

-d, --duration NUM
    Interrupt after NUM seconds.

--disable-resample
    Disable automatic rate resample.

[file ...]
    The audio file(s) to play. If no file is specified, aplay reads from standard input.

The aplay command is a command-line sound file player for the ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture) sound card driver. It supports a wide variety of audio file formats and hardware interfaces, allowing you to play audio files directly from your terminal.

aplay is primarily used for testing and debugging sound cards and audio playback, but it can also be used as a simple audio player for individual files. It offers options to control the playback device, sample rate, channels, format, and volume. While graphical audio players typically offer more user-friendly interfaces and advanced features, aplay provides a powerful and flexible way to play audio files from the command line, making it especially useful in scripting and automated audio processing scenarios. It directly interfaces with ALSA, bypassing higher-level audio server abstractions like PulseAudio (although ALSA may route audio through PulseAudio).

The audio device must be correctly configured and accessible by the user running aplay. ALSA needs to be correctly configured for aplay to work. Sound server like PulseAudio may interfere, so direct ALSA device usage might require adjusting settings.

aplay returns 0 on success and a non-zero value on failure.

aplay myfile.wav: Plays the audio file myfile.wav.
aplay -D hw:1,0 myfile.wav: Plays the file on sound card 1, device 0.
aplay -c 2 -r 44100 -f S16_LE myfile.raw: Plays a raw audio file with 2 channels, 44100 Hz sample rate, and 16-bit little-endian format.

arecord(1), alsamixer(1)