[Lord Chaos]

I bought an Ipod Touch a couple of weeks ago, based on Apple's specs. Unfortunately the specs were wrong and the device would not work with my Mac Mini, so I took it back.
 
What I'm trying to do seems pretty simple. For years I had a portable CD player by my bed along with a few CDs, and I'd listen to music before going to sleep. When the player wore out there were no quality replacements, so I bought a Squeezebox to bring my music library into the bedroom. It worked, but wasn't what I wanted.
 
In the last couple of years I've been reading reviews--here, and elsewhere--of digital audio players. I have read the Pono news, and looked for information on Sony's new player. Key points for me are:
1. It must play Apple Lossless files
2. It must work with my older Mac and Itunes *
 
I kept my eye on the Pono Player. When I read a review that said it wouldn't support gapless playback I took it off my list of possibles. That problem has been fixed with a firmware update. Also, thanks to comments here, I know the Pono machine will simply mount on the desktop and allow drag-and-drop music transfer.
 
Astell and Kern players are said to have good sound, but I've not managed to find any details on how file transfers are done.
 
Sony's ZX2 seems to require special software for transfers.
 
Various others have software and OS problems, are slow, clunky, buggy, unreliable, and have questionable quality control and product support.
 
I'm wondering what I might have overlooked. I don't need to have my whole library installed on the portable, as I anticipate just copying a few albums, either by memory card or direct transfer, and listening to those until it's time for a change. I also won't be using this in the field as it's just too noisy out there for most of the music I listen to. So, I'm looking for suggestions on what players to consider, and what the spec sheets have left out.
Thank you.
 
 
 
 
* Regarding Itunes 12: I do a lot of work with playlists. Itunes 10.7 allows me to have more than one playlist open at a time, but versions 11 and newer take this ability away. What I really want here is an Itunes replacement, and I've asked Rogue Amoeba Software to keep it in mind.

 

[jruschme]

I suppose the obvious question is what about an older iPod? Maybe an older Nano or a flash-upgraded Mini? Add one of the old iHome clock radios and you have a nice bedside setup.

 

[Lord Chaos]

Thank you for the suggestion; that hadn't occurred to me.
 
It's kind of funny. When I started looking into this, I was moving toward buying an Ipod Classic but I decided further research was needed. In this case it was the wrong decision because, by the time I was ready to spend the money, Apple had discontinued the Classic--the day before I decided--and the price took off on turbo boost.
 
For the before-sleep use, I plan to use headphones (older Denon AH-D7000). Really too big for the purpose but they're what I have, and I could never get in-ear types to work right when lying down.

 

[tsn141]

Altmann Tera player is simplest thing can play music, usage is very practical and very compact. Unfortunately it is not play ALAC and not connect with iTunes.