Anyone still use MP3 players?

[Alex_225]

I just wondered if anyone used an MP3 player or iPod of some description?

I'm still old school and buy CDs, rip them and have them as MP3s on various devices. I recently moved back to a dedicated MP3 player and picked up a couple of lossless/hi-fi MP3 players and a set of decent wired headphones.

I've spent the best part of 3 weeks in between work re-ripping my CDs to a higher bit rate. Despite not spending much on these two the sound quality is a marked difference I must say.



I'm sure there's better/more expensive/more technical ways to listen to music on the go. I used to use Bluetooth earphones off my Fold 5 phone but not only does this sound better, it's nice to be un-tethered from my phone but still have my music to hand.

[Martin315]

Use an iPod in the car and when travelling by plane (have some old Bose noise cancelling headphones with a jack).

[Jimjimhim]

No, why would you?!

[Drumroll]

Use one nearly all the time. Especially out walking. It means I am not using my mobile battery as much.

[Gompo]

I do, but only when on holiday abroad, my wife is similar too.

[C69]

Alex_225 said:

I'm still old school and buy CDs, rip them and have them as MP3s on various devices.

Same here. I keep the ripped tracks on my laptop and a dedicated MP3 player.

Edited by C69 on Wednesday 3rd July 22:23

[OutInTheShed]

Seems to be more faff that it used to be, if you want to shove some mp3 onto a phone and play it back.
Having just bought a car with a primitive wireless lacking a USB socket, I'm looking for an mp3 player!

[RizzoTheRat]

My Garmin watch links to Spotify and will download a playlist when it's on WiFi to listen to when I'm running, so kind of a halfway house as I don't own the tracks but they work offline.

I took my old iPod Classic in to the office, but they've now unblocked Spotify on our systems so use that instead.

[dapprman]

I'm another that burn CDs to MP3s and the reverse if I download the music. While I normally use my phone when I'm out and about, until I stopped going to the gym I was still using an old iPod Shuffle. Just tried it now and my PC and iTunes do not want to recognise it, though it could be not enough juice so hoping a long charge will work.

[richhead]

Yes i do, ive got the same as you, the one on the right, it replaced an old ipod classic that died, i use it connected to a headphone amp.
It only gets used at home, and is my main source, works well. as i have all my music ripped from when i had the ipod.

[thebraketester]

Not since the mid 2000s. I use my iPhone now like most people. iTunes lossless.

I would love to have I personal ripped from cd mp3 library on my NAS and use that to stream to my iPhone but the reality is I cannot be arsed, it’s cheaper to pay the 10.99 a month.

[simon_harris]

I rip everything to lossless (and still buy CD's for new music) and then re-rip to high rate MP3 only when I need to compromise quality to fit onto a device, other than that I just have less music on the device and switch it more frequently if required.

The truth is though I generally listen to the same old stuff so never actually change it!

[Miserablegit]

Yes I use one of these when travelling: it takes an SD card so I’ve got much more capacity than I have in my iPhone.
I tend to stream Tidal in the car but this is still useful in some of the older stuff.

[Alex_225]

Some interesting responses and surprisingly I'm not as much of a dinosaur at 42 as I thought! haha

Jimjimhim said:

No, why would you?!

Number of reasons really. The sound quality this way is much better. I listen to music a lot, especially when travelling from work but it's also nice not to be tethered to my mobile phone. I had an issue with my phone whereby it was blacklisted by O2 by mistake. During the time it was, I had no signal/data out and about and it was weirdly freeing. So I thought I'd give it a go and I'm quite partial now.

OutInTheShed said:

Seems to be more faff that it used to be, if you want to shove some mp3 onto a phone and play it back.
Having just bought a car with a primitive wireless lacking a USB socket, I'm looking for an mp3 player!

The Mechen one on the left in this photo cost me £38 from AliExpress, they're about £70 from Amazon. Very solid little device, I added a better SD card to it and I'd say the sound with the same earphones is slightly better/warmer sounding than the other. Only criticism is sometimes it gets the track order wrong on albums. But for the price, it's hardly an issue.

richhead said:

Yes i do, ive got the same as you, the one on the right, it replaced an old ipod classic that died, i use it connected to a headphone amp.
It only gets used at home, and is my main source, works well. as i have all my music ripped from when i had the ipod.

It's a nice bit of kit and I went off the reviews I'd seen. I still have an iPod Nano but only 16gb and to be fair this sounds much better. The Bluetooth is handy as a back up too.

I'm often on Music Magpie looking up various CDs still. I work from home so ripping them is done whilst I do my day to day work anyway haha

[Alex_225]

Miserablegit said:

Yes I use one of these when travelling: it takes an SD card so I’ve got much more capacity than I have in my iPhone.
I tend to stream Tidal in the car but this is still useful in some of the older stuff.

Astell & Kern seem to rate very highly on the DAP front and that one isn't a crazy price as it seems in this market the prices can be seriously high.

Oddly, I preferred the idea of physical controls over the touch screen models. Not quite sure why, the scroll wheels remind me of the old iPods though.

[gizard]

Surprised no one has mentioned .FLAC all my CD collection has been re-encoded to it - works in the car too on a USB stick.

[Alex_225]

gizard said:

Surprised no one has mentioned .FLAC all my CD collection has been re-encoded to it - works in the car too on a USB stick.

Do you notice a big difference using that format to MP3? My cars are old and I'm not sure if they'd recognise the format.

Even just re-ripping in a higher bit rate and lossless playback has impressed me.

[boyse7en]

Jimjimhim said:

No, why would you?!

To listen to music on the move?

I've got a pair of iPod Classics to use in the cars and take one running sometimes as it is smaller and lighter than my phone, and also is less of a ball-ache if i damage it or lose it.

It's cheaper too. An iPod cost me £10 and can store 80GB of music for more or less ever. A monthly subscription is £10 a month and doesn't work wherever there isn't 4G - which is a surprisingly large number of places when you live/work/run in a rural area.

[Richard-390a0]

I do too!. Some sort of Walkman that lives in the car. I could just whack a SD card into the drive in the glovebox instead I suppose to save on charging the Walkman etc.

[Miserablegit]

gizard said:

Surprised no one has mentioned .FLAC all my CD collection has been re-encoded to it - works in the car too on a USB stick.

In the same way people “Hoover” with a Dyson, portable digital audio players tend to be referred to as MP3 players irrespective of the format being played. All of my music is ripped to FLAC and played on my portable MP3 player.