My First Alfa (Giulietta 2011, 1.4L) - Blue and Me and audio upgrade advice pls

[arobbo]

Ok so now I am the latest custodian of the Alfa in the subject line, bought sight-unseen off an interstate online auction.

Drove it for 2 days without major dramas (the ol' intermittent EOBD warning light and "limp home" behaviour was an issue, but seems to have "worked itself out" for a later point to follow up on), through the Great Divide Yass-Oberon-Lithgow etc etc and up to the Queensland border. I was seriously impressed. Very memorable drive in a veritable mountain-killer. No-one else in several generations of my family lines has ever owned an Alfa and I am putting up with all their ribbing, silently and good-naturedly. (They haven't driven one yet...)

But, I wasn't particularly thrilled by the original sound system. I have upgraded car stereo systems myself in the past, and wasn't too worried. I was hoping that I could basically update the Blue & Me firmware to enable me to play my flac file libraries etc, now that mp3 is officially obsolete. But it seems an open secret that the Blue & Me concern has died - the website seems to be down permanently and I can't even find archives of the last updates. So I figure my options are:

1) persist with the original, never-updated version I have and hope I can get [edit] Android Auto /bluetooth to play nice with it;
2) update the head unit (etc) to the Alpine single-DIN unit that I see is favoured in various fora, which plays flac natively and is still compatible with the steering wheel buttons; or,
3) hope I can get a flac media player working with the usb input in the glovebox. An old unused smartphone might do?

Can anyone recommend a sensible upgrade path for me? I do have a subwoofer (of sorts) purchased for an earlier project, but that can wait - I really want some sort of Android/Flac solution before the Christmas holiday travel trip in this machine,

Cheers


UPDATE 3 DEC: Didn't realize that "modify" meant EDIT - blame the second coffee not kicking in yet this morning - my mea culpa on sound performance :-
Yes so I found time to explore the equalizer, and improved radio search functions, and dig out *an actual compact disc* to test out. Seems my Pioneer speakers and amplifier unit salvaged from my last project vehicle will stay in their boxes for the time being

Even managed to get hands-free mobile telephony happening. (Philosophically I like to shaft options from Siri, Google, Bixby etc etc so this was an effort).

Would dearly appreciate anyone having a copy of the last-known working B&M update, or know of a comparable open source workaround to get FLAC format files playing nice with the Alfa, to give advice?