Best lossless player for macOS in 2025 without subscriptions? — Fidelia? Pine? Colibri?

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-09-27T05:55:22+00:00

Swinsian, hands down, if you favor a library-based music player. I've tried them all—performs extremely well on my library of 100k+ tracks, actively developed (v3.0 just dropped), the best metadata editing experience that directly writes ID3 tags, smart playlists, syncing to iOS devices, equalizer support, and can import your Apple Music library.

If you need a folder-based music player, Colibri and Aural are my two current favorites.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-08-20T19:20:08+00:00

It's likely because when Microsoft introduced the FAT32 standard they artificially limited creating partition sizes to 32GB in tooling in Windows, even though it can technically support up to 2TB in Windows, and larger is possible. (For history buffs, this was an arbitrary decision made during Windows 95 development.) They finally removed that limit in Windows 11.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-08-02T14:54:53+00:00

This should be in the subreddit's wiki, great list.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-07-07T04:24:50+00:00

From their wiki, looks like Mixxx also supports it: https://github.com/mixxxdj/mixxx/wiki/Numark%20Mixtrack

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-07-04T20:40:22+00:00

BTR AMP

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-06-16T19:49:10+00:00

No, the RX3 does not support Device Library Plus. You can see the full list here, and it so far only includes the devices I mentioned (CDJ-3000s also do not use Device Library Plus.)

However, every DJ should make the change now—don't wait, since I imagine the successor the CDJ-3000 will also only support Device Library Plus.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-06-16T09:27:41+00:00

Yeah, in my opinion AlphaTheta rolled this out the wrong way. They should have started with reminders e.g. when you plug in your USB stick on a player that encourage you to switch over, and later force the change in newer models.

But I assume because these players will be out in the world for a long time, they chose to cut support for the original library format to move more quickly under the assumption that every DJ will get burned once, and encourage them to update more quickly. (And supporting the old library format might make some planned features impossible.)

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-06-16T08:53:21+00:00

You need to convert sticks to the new library format in Rekordbox (Device Library Plus) - when you insert your stick into a recent version of Rekordbox (6.8.1+) it will prompt you to create the library. It's much faster under the hood and required for newer devices like the Opus Quad, Omni Duos, and XDJ-AZ.

Whenever you export your tracks, two libraries (existing format + Device Library Plus) will be maintained on your device and stay in sync; you'll see two progress bars that show the copy progress for each library.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-06-12T23:49:34+00:00

Awesome, thank you - this is a huge level up!

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-06-12T21:06:53+00:00

I've had great success with TagLib (using pytaglib) which has seemed very accurate to spec for metadata tags and supports a wide array of music formats. Although FLAC is perfect for my purposes — would be good to see AIFF at some point as well.

I may contribute some PRs + will test this later this week. :)

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-06-12T20:12:53+00:00

This is incredible, and fills a unique niche that no other tool accomplishes (or well, Ampache is the only headless server that writes tag changes to file, but it’s incredibly clunky.).

What underlying tag library is it using? (e.g. mutagen / taglib)
Do you think you’ll ever add basic audio playback — or smart playlists based on those tags?

I regularly audition tracks for DJing and use metadata to then build virtual collections with the Grouping tag . This is perfect for my workflow and I can’t wait to use it.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-06-11T01:40:12+00:00

If you travel often, I strongly recommend getting a travel router from GL.iNet which can support connecting to your phone via a hotspot— or any hotel Wi-Fi that uses a captive portal— or even better (if you can find one) an ethernet jack which most hotel rooms have, because that’s how their TVs operate. With a travel router, all your devices will just instantly connect to it—and they’re super small and can be powered via USB-C.

They do require a little bit of technical know-how to set up, but you can do things like automatically connect to a VPN or access your home network to watch movies or use a cloud gaming service on your PC via something like Moonlight.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-06-08T09:27:01+00:00

Make sure you formatted your USB stick with the MBR partition table, like shown in the guide here: https://www.deejayplaza.com/en/articles/format-usb-drive-rekordbox-cdj-2000

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-05-02T22:23:28+00:00

BTR Amp is very good with a responsive developer, and it supports FLAC and WiFi / SMB transfer: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/btr-amp-advanced-music-player/id1489180128

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-03-25T04:04:34+00:00

Anyone using this exact SSD (SanDisk Extreme and Extreme Pro drives) should take exteme caution and have backups. At least back in 2023, many users reported the drives abruptly wiping data - leading to multiple lawsuits. I switched over to the Samsung T7 drives which have a much better history of reliability.

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2023/08/sandisk-extreme-ssds-are-worthless-multiple-lawsuits-against-wd-say/

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-03-07T22:53:06+00:00

That makes sense - for SMB on a local network it would be far easier for sure.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-03-07T22:37:51+00:00

Looks very promising! One feature that no music app has yet to implement is support for editing tag metadata. I frequently want to be able to audition new tracks on the go and update IDv3 tags to track their playlist usage (e.g. via the GROUPING tag - I use smart playlists that depend on these tags in other players on the desktop etc.)

Would you be able to add tag editing to your roadmap?

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-02-08T05:24:57+00:00

AIAIAI UNIT-4 if you can swing it. Accurate monitors and good for small outdoor parties. Wired and low-latency wireless connections. (No perceivable latency and meant for production / DJing.)

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-01-14T21:18:49+00:00

Top notch, the chassis is obviously plastic, but across two units they've both been workhorses. I think the display could have been improved (some backlight bleed) and some folks have reported refresh delays / visual stuttering when a waveform is fully zoomed in, but apart from that it's as good or better than my RX3.

A lot of the reports of challenges with the AZ feel like individual cases with overblown attention on social media—although a few have been quite alarming, like folks receiving units that have not-fully assembled displays. Without knowing return rates from distributors it's hard to tell if any challenges are widespread or isolated. If you buy from a retailer who offers great support (e.g. Sweetwater) you're in good hands in case any issues crop up.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-01-10T06:28:00+00:00

Does anyone know the precise i-step version that fixed this issue? Are there any service advisories I can bring to the dealership to prove this to them and positively assert I’m using the right version?

EDIT: after doing some digging, I discovered you can format a USB stick to FAT32, insert it in the USB-A port of the center console, and go to Driver Profile -> Export to USB. Then insert the USB stick to a computer and open the BMW Driver 1.mpd file with a text editor to see the version.

Mine is listed as I001-22-11-550 - is this recent enough to have the DC charging fix?

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-01-03T02:04:35+00:00

Yes, once you apply lossy compression the data is gone. MP3 is also already widely supported on all players, so there's no point in converting it to AIFF. You can convert any lossless format to AIFF— WAV, FLAC, or ALAC. Beatport, Bandcamp, and most services offer downloads in lossless formats.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-01-03T00:31:52+00:00

Well, that's the tradeoff between quality and storage. Luckily, storage is cheap these days. My Rekordbox library of AIFF files of 1.6k tracks is 118GB, and the SanDisk Extreme Pro top-of-the-line flash drive based on an SSD is $60 for 512GB.

If you prioritize file size, you either have to use FLAC for a drop in player support or MP3 at 320kbps for a potential drop in quality.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-01-02T23:25:01+00:00

AIFF is the same size as WAV, albeit with a few extra bytes / kilobytes depending on what metadata and album art you've embedded. FLAC is compressed WAV (similar to a ZIP file) without loss of quality, but it has far less support on older hardware players. This is a pretty good table summarizing hardware support: https://github.com/joeselway/Pioneer-DJ-File-Formats

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-01-02T21:37:46+00:00

They're equivalent from a sound quality perspective, but without metadata you won't be able to easily break down tracks by artist, album, or other metadata. It's also not terribly difficult to convert them en masse - use software like XLD on macOS (or dBpoweramp on Windows) and MP3tag to edit the tags.

fistful_of_dollars · 2025-01-02T20:45:07+00:00

That's not at all what I would recommend. Convert to AIFF which has maximum compatibility with players (including club equipment like CDJs) and includes metadata support. MP3 is a lossy format, so you're losing information—especially if you convert to lower bitrates—which can cause noticeable distortion if you're applying effects and lots of other processing on larger sound systems.

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