I want to get less reliant on my phone and go out more without it. One of the big use cases for my phone is music.
I have a lot of local music files and I would like to transfer them to a mp3 player. I would prefer something offline that I can drag files too. Also Bluetooth would be a plus so I can continue to use my earbuds.
Something easy to navigate would be ideal too. Basically like what iPods were like with a small screen where you can navigate easily and see album artwork.
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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.
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.
I mean, if money is no issue…
But they also have cheaper options, including a wearable player if you want absolute minimalism.
How about a Tangara?
Get an iPod…or your phone and just don’t use it for anything other than music…
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?
Especially when you can update them with stuff like Rockbox.
I’ve been meaning to replace the battery on my 1st generation iPod, getting a firewire card, and putting Rockbox on it.
tbh I didn’t like rockbox. I used a random program called FooBar2000 with some 3rd party plugin found on a dead forum to let me drag and drop .mp3-s on it.
I don’t have the exact link but this guide seems pretty similar https://www.howtogeek.com/24473/how-to-use-your-ipod-with-foobar2000/
rockbox seems like a dope project, it just wasn’t for me.
How dare you enjoy something different than my suggestion! /s
FooBar2000 is a classic program, wild it’s been around for over 20 years and is still being developed!
It’s still the best Windows music app. It is one of the only things I miss from Windows.
Loved Rockbox, installed it on my Sansa Clip+ back in the day and was able to scrobble through it
I second this. Get an iPod Classic on eBay or local marketplace. Go heavy on the storage. It works perfectly!
Heck, my teenie tiny iPod Shuffle 3rd gen still works and I have no idea how!
Just keep in mind you can run into issues with some of the highest capacity cards. There are limits to how much music an ipod can handle depending on the generation which aren’t immediately obvious. Dankpods mentioned it in one of his older videos.
If you’re on a Mac, I think ipods are still recognized and you can use their software to sync and manage music. You can only sync over music you own so no apple music obviously.
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.
The R1 is also good of you want something a bit cheaper.
It does look nice. The R1 wasn’t available when I bought my R3, but if it was, I think I would have gone with an R1 instead. I don’t really need the 4.4 mm balanced output jack that the R3 has, and although the aluminum of the R3 does feel nice, the R1 is quite a bit lighter.
Nice. I also wanted a DAP that didn’t run Android and I ended with the fun and ultra gimmicky Mixxtape (you can use the device itself as a cassette tape). It was only $60-ish, so don’t expect top tier build quality or interface, but I am pretty happy with it.
Wow, that is a very creative idea, I love it! :D
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.
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.
And if you use the Universal debloater, you can kill almost anything.
Get the Universal Android Debloat Utility, it’s pretty good at letting you know what can be disabled.
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 had one and I also really loved the way it sounded.
Apparently called “Digital Audio Players” nowadays:
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).
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)
FiiO make a pretty nice line of digital audio players.
Yeah, FiiO players are great.
FiiO makes some pretty good stuff. I love my BTR5 to use with some of my wired headphones. I recently bought an Echo Mini cause I liked the retro look and wanted something dead simple to just play music and it’s just ok. No support for playlists which is interesting. It also has a hard limit of around 8000 songs. Their android based stuff seems popular though.
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
