Advantages

The new StreamingKit (version 0.2.0 and above) is an almost complete rewrite which abandons the AudioQueue API in favour of the Audio Unit API. It comes with the following advantages:

• 30% less code
• Far less locking and much simpler/faster threading code
• Very low latency audio
• Faster, more responsive seeking
• More accurate progress indicator
• Direct access to audio frames for DSP, metering etc
• Gapless playback between files of different sample rates, formats and codecs

Unlike a lot of other streaming libraries that use the Audio Unit API, StreamingKit still retains the use of the AudioFileStream API for reading audio formats which has the advantage of being efficient in streaming situations (random access streams only required when seeking is required). It does this by managing codecs directly via Audio Converter Services. This also allows StreamingKit to forcefully use hardware decoding if it's available.