Ask HN: Any suitable method to manage large music collections in iDevices?

Last week was the grand ol' time to play upgrade cycle for the iDevice. It coincided with my usual look at songs I have on my phone (I usually try and change up on device tunes about every 3-4 months). Every time I need to address this it is a pain in the backside.

My circumstances:

- large media collection

- primarily iOS devices

- i prefer to manually manage songs

When using iTunes, bulk select and drag by artist starts a slow process of "processing, syncing, copying". If you add anymore during said process, it seems to sometimes lose it's brain. In short, iTunes (for large collections and my use case) is not cutting it.

Are there alternatives out there? Does anyone know if the process for going from directory of mp3 files -> plays well on an iOS device is documented or at least reverse engineered? (My assumption is no).

I know for large libraries and streaming from Linux/etc to Apple devices there are options, but for me the management of putting things on to iDevices is the bigger issue.

To address the "just stream music" option, I travel internationally fairly regularly and don't feel like paying for spottily/rdio/nokia music for things I already have.