# Does anybody else still use MP3 Players (rather than just your phone or whatever)?



## GayCoonie (Jun 22, 2019)

For me, I've always preferred to have a separate device for music. I don't really use my phone very much, so it saves the battery. I also prefer using an interface made for music playing, rather than using a media player on Android where I either have to find the files myself, or if my media folders are scanned, often files are there that really aren't intended to be part of my "music" library.

I could just use Spotify, but I've collected a lot of obscure tunes over the years that just aren't there, and I don't like being at the mercy of a service like that. I prefer using actual media files that I'll always be able to have regardless of what happens with Spotify or any other website.

My MP# player of choice is the Sony Walkman (yes they still use that brand) NW(Z)-A15 /A17/ A25 / A27. There's really not much of a difference between any of those, besides internal storage capacity, and I use a microSD card anyway. It's not a cheapie unit, though they go for 200 minimum new, and at least 100 used. That's a lot of the reason I like it so much, that it has expandable storage, and isn't cheap junk.


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## rehevkor (Jun 22, 2019)

I have a weird response. I always like the idea of having a separate MP3 player, for ages I had an iPod shuffle, never used it. Then I set up my Gear S3 to play music - never used that for music either.


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## GayCoonie (Jun 22, 2019)

rehevkor said:


> I have a weird response. I always like the idea of having a separate MP3 player, for ages I had an iPod shuffle, never used it. Then I set up my Gear S3 to play music - never used that for music either.



Honestky, i don't use my mp3 player very much either, but it's great to have for going places where boredom might ensue. I tend to play games on mute while listening to my own music.


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## spectral (Jun 22, 2019)

I do, never liked using my phone for audio. Mostly because I dont like having it in my pocket, even small phones are too big. I use a Sandisk Sport+, although I mainly use it for podcasts and audiobooks rather than music.


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## FAST6191 (Jun 22, 2019)

I can't walk with headphones in/on (for whatever reason they make me fall over) so I mostly listen to things when at my computer.

I did want a music player for the bus or train or something but for whatever reason we never got good cheap MP3 players. Back before phones did take over for most people we started to have some perfectly acceptable MP3 players around the £30 mark from the usual Chinese vendors. With scale up, time and such I expected the prices to be such that I could get an acceptable thing for £10 or something but it never came. All I wanted was something to plug a set of headphones into, possibly be powered by an AA battery but I would take an 18650 cell, microSD for storage (or one of those ones that is also a USB thumb drive), few buttons to do forward, back, pause, random play, would have been fine with a lit dot matrix screen to scroll through the tags, maybe a nice analogue volume.


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## Jayro (Jun 22, 2019)

I absolutely do, I believe in using a dedicated music device. I modified my iPod Classic 4th gen with a 128GB SD card, and a new battery. I installed RockBOX and dual-boot it with iPod OS.


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## GayCoonie (Jun 22, 2019)

Jayro said:


> I absolutely do, I believe in using a dedicated music device. I modified my iPod Classic 4th gen with a 128GB SD card, and a new battery. I installed RockBOX and dual-boot it with iPod OS.



I've never been a big fan of Apple. I really don't like dealing with iTunes, and all of the modding required to make an iPod usable and "normal" isn't worth it to me, when I can just use the Sony MP3 players that I like out of the box.

I had an iPod nano 4th/5th gen (I forget which) back when I was about 10, and I thought it was fine, but that's before I really got into obscure music and having a large music library, which is a pain to deal with in the Apple ecosystem. I definitely prefer my Sony players where I can put the MP3s right on the card without any special software or anything, and I can browse the music according to the id3 metadata, and everything just works,


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## Jayro (Jun 22, 2019)

GayCoonie said:


> I've never been a big fan of Apple. I really don't like dealing with iTunes, and all of the modding required to make an iPod usable and "normal" isn't worth it to me, when I can just use the Sony MP3 players that I like out of the box.
> 
> I had an iPod nano 4th/5th gen (I forget which) back when I was about 10, and I thought it was fine, but that's before I really got into obscure music and having a large music library, which is a pain to deal with in the Apple ecosystem. I definitely prefer my Sony players where I can put the MP3s right on the card without any special software or anything, and I can browse the music according to the id3 metadata, and everything just works,


For me, modding the iPod is the fun part. I didn't want to deal with iTunes either, and now I can just drag and drop my FLAC files and listen without any conversion or syncing.


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## GayCoonie (Jun 22, 2019)

Jayro said:


> For me, modding the iPod is the fun part. I didn't want to deal with iTunes either, and now I can just drag and drop my FLAC files and listen without any conversion or syncing.



Modding can definitely be fun. Personally, I don't bother with FLAC because I can not tell the difference between FLAC and a decent MP3, but that probably comes down to not really listening hard more than anything. No need to use all that extra disk space when it makes little to know difference to me.


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## Pipistrele (Jun 22, 2019)

I used to prefer dedicated MP3 players for quite a while, but once budget smartphones started catching up to the audio quality of popular players, and streaming became a widespread thing, I never looked back. Smartphone as a music device is just way too convenient - little to no storage concerns, tons of software for all the various audio needs (from local music, to streaming, to podcasts, to ambient nature sounds), and just the fact that for nominal fee I can subscribe to a service of my choice and turn on nearly any track I want in 5-10 seconds (as opposed to preloading them on device in advance). That, and the fact that a lot of reasonably priced MP3 players aren't very good with wireless headphones, if they work with those in the first place.


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## Jayro (Jun 22, 2019)

GayCoonie said:


> Modding can definitely be fun. Personally, I don't bother with FLAC because I can not tell the difference between FLAC and a decent MP3, but that probably comes down to not really listening hard more than anything. No need to use all that extra disk space when it makes little to know difference to me.


I can respect that. It's just I can hear compression in lossy formats, no matter how "good" the file claims to be (ie a 320kb/s MP3) and those "wooshing/warble" noises I hear distract me from the music. So I can only listen to lossless formats. And with 128GB cards only being $20, storage is stupidly cheap now, so that argument hardly holds weight anymore.


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## DjoeN (Jul 1, 2019)

I still use my old 8gb ipod (not modded)


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## Ryccardo (Jul 5, 2019)

I actually bought an iPod 5G last month, in part because I love its UI, in part because it works very well with the far superior non-iOS7-themed older versions of iTunes (as well as most 3rd party software - between Sharepod 3.9.7 and Copytrans Photo on windows, and gtkpod on Linux, you have most features covered), in part because I still own dock/remote/chargers/cables from the iPhone days 

Could have used a PSP, but all the ones I own are broken in some way;
Could have used a DS, but it's clunky on the bus or bike;
Could have used a phone (and I do in the car due to having bluetooth) but not only I haven't found a music app that completely satisfies me, but I'd rather waste my phone's battery on something a phone can indeed do better (like surfing the web)!


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## WallsAreLiquid (Jul 5, 2019)

I love my Sansa Clip+ for size, weight and clip, but I also miss more bulky players with AA/AAA batteries, because nothing can as good as lithium batteries when it's cold outside.


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## Rukia17 (Jul 6, 2019)

Before I used a mp3 player samsung all the time but it's true that now I only use my phone because I always have it on me and I found it more convenient. Although I recognize that the battery of my phone is emptying much faster.


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## Cyan (Jul 9, 2019)

I love and still use my 80GB iPod5.5 for 10 years, modded with Rockbox.
it can play anything, even Snes SPC !
I can't stand Apple, itune, but Rockbox is so nice to me. It can even be used to hack my PS3 thanks to Hermes 
I'm thinking about buying a new battery, mine is starting to fade away too quickly now. I already changed it once.

I don't like other devices interface. But I didn't try a lot. I just like rockbox one, with just folder and subfolders support. I don't like auto-updating libraries based on tags.

This month it started to break 
I have a full line of dead pixel near the bottom. But I guess that's not that big an issue, what's important is the Audio. I don't look at the screen that often. I don't care that it's a "ipod video", I just use rockbox for the sound. seeing covers are nice addition but not the main purpose.


I have a smartphone only for a year, and never use it for audio. it doesn't have my full 80GB library. it's also too big and I rarely use it, so I prefer my small iPod.
If I can set it up to stream from my NAS, maybe I'll use it more often.


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## GayCoonie (Jul 11, 2019)

Cyan said:


> I love and still use my 80GB iPod5.5 for 10 years, modded with Rockbox.
> it can play anything, even Snes SPC !
> I can't stand Apple, itune, but Rockbox is so nice to me. It can even be used to hack my PS3 thanks to Hermes
> I'm thinking about buying a new battery, mine is starting to fade away too quickly now. I already changed it once.
> ...



Personally, I like the meta-data sorting. It incentivizes me to properly tag all my files, and that's useful for other things as well, such as Plex, which I also use.


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## kuwanger (Jul 11, 2019)

I still use an MP3 player.  Like FAST6191 mentioned there are cheap Chinese vendor ones.  The good ones (A20 and similar) have a rechargeable battery, microSD slot, and around 60 hours play time costing only on the order of $25 off Amazon.  The large downside is with heavy or abuse use--the latter happens a lot if you carry it on you while doing lots of physical labor for hours--it tends to break after a year or two tops.  I'm not sure how long it'd last if I actually took good care of it.  In any case, mostly now days I use an mp3 player some nights while I sleep.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 11, 2019)

kuwanger said:


> Like FAST6191 mentioned there are cheap Chinese vendor ones.



I was actually unaware of any. All the ones I sought at throwaway prices had awful DACs and lacked abilities, this despite similar devices existing in the price range for far less. Might have to up my price range a bit then so thanks for the suggestions.


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## kuwanger (Jul 11, 2019)

FAST6191 said:


> All the ones I sought at throwaway prices had awful DACs and lacked abilities, this despite similar devices existing in the price range for far less.



Well, I'm not remotely an audiophile so have no idea how good/terrible their DACs are.  And I wouldn't get my hopes up on abilities since they're pretty basic.  Still, if you're willing to risk the money on something like this you should get a pretty good idea on about the best you can expect.  There's several different models that have the same shape/size, screen, and main dial but different auxiliary buttons and slightly different firmwares.  The worst I've had of the sort would play all songs in order based on the mp3 header.  The rest were smart enough to go in order by folder name then file name.  The current one I have can play flac (I think), mp3, ogg, and aac (maybe wma too?), but the ogg and aac are unstable and I've never really used the flac.  Anyways, good luck if you do try one out.


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## FAST6191 (Jul 11, 2019)

kuwanger said:


> Well, I'm not remotely an audiophile so have no idea how good/terrible their DACs are.



Some suspect genetics was not aided by my fondness for power tools, loud engines and occasional concerts, to say nothing of complete lack of musical talent. Even with that though most of the really cheap DACs I saw in these things still sucked -- I don't need some laser trimmed and thermally managed affair that operates at 96K or whatever but I do want it to not sound like 16 bit era voice samples. Worse is going that basic can't really have made these things cheaper by enough to really matter.


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## bjaxx87 (Jul 11, 2019)

I bought my SanDisk Sansa e 280 MP3 player 12 years ago (November 2007!).  It still works great and it's my favorite way to hear music, audio plays or audio books on the go.

But I don't own a Smartphone anyway. In theory my cell phone is able to play MP3 files but it needs weird MMC cards instead of mSD.


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## Xzi (Dec 23, 2019)

Definitely, an MP3 player is far superior for a number of purposes.  Much smaller and lighter than a phone, and a full charge lasts forever.  I use it for workouts (jogs, weightlifting) and long road trips.  Funny enough my favorite brand and model is the Sony Walkman MP3 player, I had one for around five years before it was finally too beat up to function any more, and then bought another on the cheap which I've had for about three years now.  They can be found for close to $50 these days.


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## spoonm (Dec 23, 2019)

I'd welcome a new cheap yet high fidelity portable music player like the Sansa Clip. I had a black 1 GB Sansa Clip onto which I flashed Rockbox, but 1 GB was definitely not enough for my now 275 GB big, mostly FLAC library. If not for the fact I now live in a really large city in which it is really easy for me to get lost, I'd go after a new dedicated music player.

For some time I even considered getting myself a smartwatch capable of guiding me through GPS and streaming music through bluetooth to my wireless headphones, but available options suffered from short battery life and so do my wireless headphones to some extent. Perhaps one day I'll get the hang of getting around to where I need to without needing any guidance and will finally be able to rid myself of a smartphone.


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## YOUCANTSTOPME (Dec 23, 2019)

Just my phone.  Haven't had a dedicated music player in close to 10 years.


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## Jayro (Dec 23, 2019)

I use the FiiO X1-II (2nd gen) as my player of choice. It can take SDXC cards with no problem, supports exFAT, and holds my entire library of FLAC files. It also sounds amazing wired, but the Bluetooth sucks. The Bluetooth doesn't use your equalizer settings, and sounds flat as fuck. Other than that and the UI being slow to respond, it's a great little player. I just wish I had spent a little more and gotten the X3 or X5 instead.

I guess I just like having dedicated devices for things, instead of one device that does everything. My Samsung phones sound quality isn't anything to write home about, unless I use my USB sound blaster with my JBL headphones. Then I get decent sound out of it, but it's physically clunky as hell and isn't really practical.


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