Hello fellow lemmings <3

I have been struggling with how to listen to music in a while now. I am on spotify but I don’t want to be. I despise the app for being inefficient, battery hog bloated crap that I don’t need in my phone and that’s not even beginning with my issues with the company.

So I have been looking into other solutions for my music needs.

I tried setting up my own server for streaming music, but it’s too much manual work, that still uses a lot of resources for a subpar experience. Going through the albums and sorting them and fixing the metadata and all that because musicbrainz insists this live track is the same as the studio one is not fun and I’m just over it.

So I’m going back to the roots, physical music player. I am looking into buying a device just like those old mp3 players but I’m not sure which way to go.

For me the most important feature (other than quality ofc) is it having FOSS software. I won’t be tweaking with the hardware but being able to modify the software, at least to a degree, for me is the main attraction. If it already has an active community then even better.

Do you guys have similar experiences or anecdotes? Perhaps device recommendations? Other solutions are also welcome I am still shopping for ideas

Thanks y’all!

  • tuckerm@feddit.onlineEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    Unfortunately, the only open source physical media player I’m aware of is the Tangara. Their most recent blog post is from July, 2025, and mentions some tweaks they want to make before doing another production run. So there might be more units coming, but there will be a wait.

      • hardcoreufo@lemmy.world
        2·
        2 days ago

        I have one. I appreciate it exists, but its still very rough. Controls are fiddly still and theres some issues indexing large libraries. Not sure if its a total GB issue, or number of files issue. So it sits in a drawer and gets updated when I remember to check, but so far no update has fixed either issue.

        The only other FOSS DAP I can think of is refurbishing an ipod with an ssd and new case then flashing rockbox. Thats probably what I’d go for next.

        • zo0@programming.devOPEnglish
          1·
          2 days ago

          Thanks for the input. That does sound disappointing :/ Could it be the small ram?

          • hardcoreufo@lemmy.world
            1·
            1 day ago

            Sound is pretty good, maybe slightly on the thin side. Not sure what the library issues are. I don’t think its RAM. The library indexs to a certain point then stops and rolls back. I can re index from the point it rolls back to, but it always resets to that point again.

            I mostly use it as a dedicated audio book player until it gets reaolved.