I think phones have generally taken over MP3 players because you can do everything an MP3 player does on your phone.

But I recently bought one because I just like a single device having that unique purpose of playing music.

  • rockandsock@lemm.ee
    ·
    8 months ago

    I have an old SanDisk player with RockBox that I use for exercising outside.

    Not having a phone with me is part of the good getting out to exercise does me.

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
      ·
      edit-2
      8 months ago

      yeah I hate having them in my pocket. It's so bulky. MP3 players on the other hand are like credit cards weightwise, and you can still use normal fucking headphones with them

  • pixelscript@lemmy.ml
    ·
    8 months ago

    I keep my 160GB iPod Classic on life support.

    I think the clickwheel design is, in my view, the single best one-thumb no-looking-required input scheme for an MP3 player I think anyone has ever made. Plug it into, say, my car stereo AUX port and I can pick it up with a free hand to control volume, select tracks, and even navigate mostly by memory without having to look at the thing. I can just tell where I am based on the feel of the control. Infinitely better than a featureless flat slab of a touch screen that gives you no sensory feedback.

    I like its solid build quality. Full metal chassis with that sexy anodized aluminum finish. I miss that. Despite having a spinning disk hard drive, it never skips, and I've never had read or write issues. Though I'd probably try to mod it over to some kind of flash NAND storage someday. There's also a USB-C mod available that I'd like to do someday, since Apple 30-pin connectors are an endangered species now, and even then, carrying around an outdated proprietary cable for only one device is something I'm eager to never need to do again.

    I'm also pretty heavily conditioned to not have tens of gigabytes of music stored on my phone eating up all the precious space. But that's mostly a holdover from my previous phone, which had a 32 GB onboard memory limit and no SD card expansion slot. I guess now that I have a proper memory expandable phone and, and now that half terabyte microSD cards are relatively inexpensive, that's no longer a huge concern...

    Also, Rhythmbox can sync to it. Maybe other software too. So I don't even need iTunes to use it.

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
      ·
      8 months ago

      I think the clickwheel design is, in my view, the single best one-thumb no-looking-required input scheme for an MP3 player I think anyone has ever made. Plug it into, say, my car stereo AUX port and I can pick it up with a free hand to control volume, select tracks, and even navigate mostly by memory without having to look at the thing. I can just tell where I am based on the feel of the control. Infinitely better than a featureless flat slab of a touch screen that gives you no sensory feedback.

      can't most of these things be achieved easily by physical buttons too? of course everything is better than touch screen buttons

    • em2@lemmy.ml
      ·
      8 months ago

      I have one that's dead. I think I accidentally broke it by setting it on some desk piece that I had no idea was magnetic. Rip chunky buddy.

  • golden_zealot@lemmy.ml
    ·
    8 months ago

    Like some other people here I still use an iPod classic for all the music in my car. Haven't had iTunes installed to change the music on it for 14 years.

    • manuallybreathing@lemmy.ml
      ·
      8 months ago

      you can use foobar2000 (and likely other programs, its a bit fiddly but not hard) to change the music on an iPod classic fyi, but I also understand its totally fine to be listening to the same 200gb of music you had in 2009, rockon

  • tetris11@lemmy.ml
    ·
    8 months ago

    Any Rockbox fans here? I got it running on my sandisk clip+, and it's still customizablento this day

  • LadyLikesSpiders@lemmy.ml
    ·
    8 months ago

    I still have my old iPod that somehow still works. I don't use it regularly, but it comes in handy if I'm gonna be out some place bored, waiting for a while. I don't like to use my phone for music because I just generally try to rely on my phone as little as possible. Kinda hate how much cellphones are the absolute center of our lives. That thing gives me anxiety

    Up until a few years ago, I'd use my ipod almost exclusively hooked up to my car. Eventually I decided I wanted more space, so I swapped out for a USB with all of my music in it

  • fermionsnotbosons@lemmy.ml
    cake
    ·
    8 months ago

    I have an Astell & Kern SR25 MKII DAP (digital audio player) and I use it quite frequently. The sound quality far surpasses what my phone can produce when connected to any of my speakers or headphones.

    It plays FLAC files and any other audio file type you can think of. And it acts as an offline music library when needed (64 GB of memory plus a 1TB microSD).

    The better the headphones/speakers I use, the more it outshines anything coming out of my other electronic devices. I use it almost every day.

  • bel@lemmy.eco.br
    ·
    edit-2
    8 months ago

    I do, they have better battery life, are lighter and smaller and actually have great sound quality (my alliexpress 20 dolar mp3 player have better sound than my desktop pc)

    edit: I use it mostly for flac, not having so much going on electronically makes the sound extremely clear even on cheap devices with good headphones

  • toastal@lemmy.ml
    ·
    8 months ago

    I own a digital audio player (DAP), but it’s not limited to MP3s—I play a lot of Ogg, Opus, & FLAC files too. The device I use offers Bluetooth pairing in both directions as well as being a digital audio converter (DAC) via USB on devices where the built-in DAC is poor quality. I like that don’t have to wear down the battery of my phone for music, & while my phone has SD card support, 3.5 mm headphone jack, & a great quality DAC, there may be a future where these audio requirements are removed from all phones, laptops, & other devices on the market. My biggest issue with the device is being Chinese, they’ve made modifications to the Linux kernel which run on the device but don’t publish these modification which is a violation of GPL-2.0 (other smaller complaints are the UI uses flags for languages, the edges of touch screens do action yet the screens not big enough so if not careful you can exit a scrolling view, & it could definitely be lighter weight).

  • LaGG_3 [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    8 months ago

    I have an iPod classic that I haven't used in about 5 years. My daily listening just shifted towards more podcasts and it's easier to download those on a phone.

    The thought of upgrading it to flash memory and a new battery seems like a fun project, though.

  • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
    ·
    8 months ago

    Yes, a waterproof one for swimming. It's life changing, but it means having to scour the seven seas for music as I don't buy CDs or have an mp3 collection any more.

    • Doxatek@mander.xyz
      ·
      8 months ago

      I use YouTube to mp3 website to strip audio from YouTube videos and load them onto an mp3

      • hitmyspot@aussie.zone
        ·
        8 months ago

        Sounds like more steps than getting high quality audio in an album format but good to know the option exists.

        • Doxatek@mander.xyz
          ·
          8 months ago

          Oh yeah. You're definitely right. I just meant if there was something you couldn't find. I have stuff that people will post there but won't be anywhere else

  • dan1101@lemm.ee
    ·
    8 months ago

    Sorta, I have a 64GB third-generation iPod Touch full of music that I listen to while mowing. It still holds a charge for a couple hours at least, haven't tested how long it can last.

    • sooper_dooper_roofer [none/use name]
      ·
      8 months ago

      Does itunes even exist still?

      I have an old ipod nano that still works, but I want to get the music from it onto my computer.