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!