Ask Lemmy

You could most definitely buy some old thing. You could legit buy an iPod, actually, in the 2nd hand market.

Why go modern, when the old stuff is good enough?

Just get an old phone that doesn't have a SIM in it, uninstall any apps you don't want want that could be used locally, forget your wifi networks, load it up with music via usb, connect it to your Bluetooth headphones and go.

Apparently called "Digital Audio Players" nowadays:

https://www.techradar.com/audio/portable-media-players/this-cheap-hi-res-audio-music-player-is-like-a-modern-ipod-mini-with-the-funky-colors-to-match

I have a Hiby R3 and have enjoyed it. https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-r3-ii-2025

It's smaller than a phone, but the screen is still large enough to scroll through your collection with. Also, it's not running Android, which I like. (For some reason I'm just irked by the fact that everything around me is running Android these days.) So there aren't any apps -- it's just a music player, which I also like.

Honestly, if you have an old phone laying around that accepts micro SD cards then just throw VLC on it and put your music on a mSD and you're set.

I've had terrible luck finding a good music player at an affordable price that plays FLAC files which is like 90%+ of my library. So I'm looking into getting a raspberry pi 4 with maybe 4 or 8 gigs of RAM and making an music player (I will be printing the case with a 3d printer)

SanDisk Clip Sport Go! 32GB memory, very small and great for training because of the clip. It has a microSD slot if you need more memory.

How about a Tangara?

Very cheap phone, disassemble, remove all radio antennnas. Voila! Untrackable pocket computer (and also as a MP3 player).

If in the US, you can get carrier-locked prepaid phones for like $20 USD, you don't need service to get pass the set up (except for Verizon ones apparantly, even tho their MVNOs work fine).

I went through this a year or two ago.

You can get an expensive MP3 player, which I didn't really want to do cuz I think MP3 players should be relatively cheap, largely because they take a beating as you carry them around with you. Or get lost.

You can get a cheap Chinese knock-off brand MP3 player on Amazon, which is what I ended up doing. I have some regrets, but it's still working, so whatever. The main thing you need to understand about cheap MP3 players is they may not properly power your headphones if you have a nice set of headphones. I only really use my MP3 player with my bluetooth speaker, so it didn't matter for me. But it absolutely sucks when I'm trying to use headphones with it. Sound is super low, even when maxed out.

Or you can just buy a relatively cheap phone, never activate cell service on it, and use it as an MP3 player, which is probably what I'll do next time. Even cheaper phones have tons of storage and decent specs for powering at least ear buds, if not actual headphones.

Ask yourself if you want a touch screen. That was my main thing. I wanted a touch screen like the iPod Touch so I'm not using some awkward buttons to navigate my huge music library. And I wanted Android so I could install whatever apps I wanted for playing my music. The cheap knockoff MP3 player I got came with an old version of Android, probably on purpose to limit resources used. But I can't update it, so I can never update the apps I threw on it when I first got it. When I was looking I didn't see any of these cheap MP3 players with a modern Android version on it. So they've gotta be using cheap hardware that just can't handle running modern Android versions.

The one really good thing about my cheap MP3 player is it came with a 120gb SD card. So all my music is stored on that. If the device eats shit, I could take that SD card out, put it in another SD card compatible device, and boom, all my music is still there, still organized into the folders I put them in. If you choose to use a cheap phone as your MP3 device, I don't think any are going to have the SD option anymore.

I guess ideally the best device would be a high-end MP3 player with a touch screen and modern Android. But when I was looking, I wasn't really seeing any that had touch screen and Android. And they're pricey.

I'm not a huge Apple fan, but the iPod Touch really hit the right spot. Maybe not that great of a battery life, but whatever. My cheap MP3 player does have a pretty big battery.

All in all, my search was pretty frustrating as I felt like I couldn't find anything that ticked all my boxes. So I'm basically just posting this to give you an idea of what to take into account as you're looking. Good luck.

FiiO make a pretty nice line of digital audio players.

I don't know how much you're willing to spend but elite obsolete has refurbished pods with increased battery life and storage or with microSD cards. Along with selling parts and tools to upgrade them yourself if you have an old one sitting around.

I haven't bought from them myself but it's worth giving them a look.

You might want something a bit bigger for dedicated local music OTG but I love my compact Shanling m0 for listening to music on runs. Relatively cheap, supports SD cards up to 512GB (no built in storage), BT as well as headphone jack

iPhone + a-shell (App) + yt-dlp

I used to appreciate the slightly nicer dac I'm my lg v20. They are very old at this point. I used to pair it with mdr-v6 headphones.

I mean, if money is no issue...

But they also have cheaper options, including a wearable player if you want absolute minimalism.

The phone in your pocket with an SD card and Omnia player?

You can just use a program on your phone that lets you play local audio files.

Foobar2000 is available for Android.

I've been looking for a descent DAP that plays .flac files and supports 2tb micro SD but they're all pretty pricey.

Fiio makes good stuff. I have one of their monster ones, the M15S, and it works great. Don't get that exact one, though, they have MUCH more affordable and portable ones.