Simple music player for OSX (with sync)

[happycadaver]

Is there an iTunes alternative available, which has a simple GUI (like the good old foobar/Winamp f.e.) and does have a sync option for iPhone/iPod?

For movies and tv series iTunes is a great tool (in connection with an Apple TV), but i like a simple folder structure - customized to my prefs - much more easier to manage.

If there a players with a simple GUI - Artist/Album + Artwork would suffice - and you need an extra app for syncing - i could live with that, as long as syncing is not getting too complicated.

One of the many reasons for this is, that iTunes sometimes "looses" single files from my library and I'm fed up with re-ripping CDs, because iTunes lost a single file again. No, i don't have a library backup, just because it's too big for this. I have approx. 1600 albums in lossless quality in my collection, that's almost 6TB. This behavior happened in all versions of iTunes over the last 5 years, even with different hard disks for my media library. For me it is definitely an issue with iTunes/OSX.

 

[tomekosiowy]

Try VOX, but (their, external) sync is possible via cloud (named: LOOP).

 

[happycadaver]

Looks good (on both iPhone and iMac)

What i didn't understand is, if you want to sync music to your iPhone, you have to use Loop and therefore syncing is always only available online? Which means, that i first have to upload all of my music to Loop and Vox doesn't have a local library at all?

 

[tomekosiowy]

LOOP is in fact streaming service for whole your music and to sync between Mac and iOS devices. To use music with LOOP (upload to it), you will need to put music into Vox on Mac first. Read their infos on their site: http://coppertino.com

 

[Uofmtiger]

Is there an iTunes alternative available, which has a simple GUI (like the good old foobar/Winamp f.e.) and does have a sync option for iPhone/iPod?

For movies and tv series iTunes is a great tool (in connection with an Apple TV), but i like a simple folder structure - customized to my prefs - much more easier to manage.

If there a players with a simple GUI - Artist/Album + Artwork would suffice - and you need an extra app for syncing - i could live with that, as long as syncing is not getting too complicated.

One of the many reasons for this is, that iTunes sometimes "looses" single files from my library and I'm fed up with re-ripping CDs, because iTunes lost a single file again. No, i don't have a library backup, just because it's too big for this. I have approx. 1600 albums in lossless quality in my collection, that's almost 6TB. This behavior happened in all versions of iTunes over the last 5 years, even with different hard disks for my media library. For me it is definitely an issue with iTunes/OSX.

That sounds like a lot more space than is typically needed for 1600 albums. That being said, regardless of the size, I would HIGHLY recommend backing it up. If your drive gets corrupted, I don't think you want to start over.

That being said, I have heard good things about J River Media, but I haven't used it on the Mac.

 

[happycadaver]

JRiver looks similar bloated like iTunes, It's a complete media center, not a music player.

Since the collection is in lossless quality, the needed space is not a big surprise. I have a HDD stack with RAID 5, so one drive at a time can get corrupted with no problem. I already had to change a drive some months ago.

@tomekosiowy
Thank you for your input, but VOX didn't survive the initial test run over a few days. The forced backup option via LOOP for syncing is a deal breaker. The iOS player looks exactly the same as the stock player, minus the missing artwork in detail view.

It's a shame, that there's nothing available similar to Foobar or Winamp for OSX. I will keep looking and hoping.

 

[Uofmtiger]

JRiver looks similar bloated like iTunes, It's a complete media center, not a music player.

Since the collection is in lossless quality, the needed space is not a big surprise. I have a HDD stack with RAID 5, so one drive at a time can get corrupted with no problem. I already had to change a drive some months ago.

@tomekosiowy
Thank you for your input, but VOX didn't survive the initial test run over a few days. The forced backup option via LOOP for syncing is a deal breaker. The iOS player looks exactly the same as the stock player, minus the missing artwork in detail view.

It's a shame, that there's nothing available similar to Foobar or Winamp for OSX. I will keep looking and hoping.

Yes it is a surprise. 1600 songs doesn't typically take up anywhere close to 6 TB.

http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threads/lossless-audio-file-sizes.295452/

J River doesn't require you to pull in every file. You simply pull in the files you want to use, so you can only use it for music if you please. There is no store, apps, Apple Music involved. One of the many upsides is that it can also be controlled via a remote app or you can use the remote app to send audio to your iOS device. It has special settings for headphones and other features. I have only used it on Windows, though.

As a side note, I have a Synology NAS with 4 drives running their version of RAID. I went on vacation and came back to two drives being dead. They are in the same enclosure on the same power outlet (UPS) and we apparently had a bad storm while I was away. I had to throw out the 2 discs. Luckily, I only use the Synology as a backup, so was able to start over without losing data. However, if you want to trust it with your only library, go for it.