Alternative Nation: The Fediverse's Alternative and Indie Music Community

JBL Flip (I have Flip5), it's a great design well made. The bass never fartingly resonates no matter what surface you place it on, battery lasts like 25 hours and it's IPX rated, I regularly wash mine. You can also pair two of them for double the volume and stereo sound, but I only have one and haven't tried it.

For me, as much as I love my myriad of headphones and used to love my record player and my iPod Classic - I think it's now my iPad Pro. I've made 10 albums on that thing (new one out this Thurs), which not only was a dream come true, but has allowed me to build an even deeper connection with my daughter (a real full-blown professional musician) as we build songs, share, talk music & music theory together.

Here's her band, Tyche https://songwhip.com/tyche

Here's my DIY little alternative rock pop "band of one" - https://songwhip.com/fairy-eyelashes (all songs made 100% on my iPad)

Plexamp plus my Plex-based media server.

24K tracks and growing.

Plexamp is by far the best music player I have ever used

I will probably swear by CDs until the day I die. Small, physical, hard-wearing, and with excellent sound quality: they are perfect. I'm also fond of the Ogg Opus file format.

In terms of actual devices, though, I don't really know anything.

My Sony headphones for sure. I have the WH-1000XM4. I’m sure there’s something better out there but I’m not enough of an audiophile to know, lol. As bluetooth headphones go, they’re pretty solid.

First thought: MP3s. I still own about 400 records and about 300 CDs, but when digital music became a thing, and I could sample everything online, my music collection just exploded. Thanks, clever compression software engineers.

After that, Navidrome, my current home music server software, which let's me play all those files from any computer at home or my phone wherever I am.

I absolutely love my Aftershokz (now branded Shokz) bone conduction headphones. Are they the best sound quality ever? No. Do they lack depth in the bass? Yes. But I listen to a lot of podcasts and the talking voice is right in the sweet spot. But what is fantastic is I never have to take them off (unless I'm at work) because there is no actual obstruction to hearing. I love going for a walk in the woods with some low level post rock playing adding a layer of beauty. It's Iike having my own private soundtrack.

My phone.🤷‍♀️