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Is there a lack of audio players on the market?

fountain

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Jan 24, 2024
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I post this because I have noticed that on Amazon, for example, that it is the largest marketplace in the world, if you search for an mp3 you will only find ones of very dubious quality and strange brands that no one knows with very strange names, I have tried two, and both have presented failures in the first week.

If you look closely, there are none that have a rating of 4.5 stars or more, as is usually the case in all the sub-ranges of products available in the site, and no recognized brand manufactures them either, for example, Apple left the market when the iPods in my opinion were a very good product for the company, Sony with a normal mp3 (ipod style) it is found 4x the price wich mp3s usually have and it doesn't offer much storage either, you also have another option from Sony but much more expensive and of dubious quality for the price (dac poor quality sound for price), as can be seen in a review that can be found in this forum, and for example, Sandisk only manufactures, with a limit of 32GB wich is a joke if you're willing to use it for listening to your library.

You can also find mp3 also on Aliexpress but most of them are garbage, I myself bought one that was very nice looking at a price of 90usd and it already have 3 problems.

A good brand could be Fiio but it costs a lot of money, there are also other good brands (some of them better than Fiio too), Fiio is not the only one, but they are equal or more expensive.

Many will say that mp3s are no longer useful since you can put your entire music library on your phone and enjoy the same or higher quality, but the truth is that mp3s are important to me since I want them as an alternative to get rid of the distractions that the phone brings me, like the minute you look at it, whether to change songs or something, you unconsciously start looking through Google or any other app and the truth is that it is annoying (on top of that, they removed the jack). I'm just looking for a product that gives me concentration and less screen time to isolate me from the distractions of which there are many that we experience on our phones, like for example when tiktok came it changed all, it is a shame with his methodology, in this era, you no longer decide for what you look for, the algorithm is in charge, you cannot even decide what content is going to shape you, on top of that in a system designed to cause addiction and without limit of scrolls, it is a shame (and what's worse, this model has been applied in all popular applications) (also nowadays you can't find shit in google, if you search something it's always the same 3 or 4 sites and all the millions that exist are hidden).

I know the last sentence wasn't about what this post is about, sorry.
 

Hidiz AP80 PRO​

I understand your feeling very well, which is mine too, I resolved with extreme happiness with this excellent quality product but also with an overall affordable price
 
Look in the iOS/iPadOS: section.
 
Smartphones and music streaming services have pushed mp3 players firmly out of the mainstream.

They only remain as part of the audio enthusiast landscape and there are a few brands that make quality players catered to them:

-Sony
-FiiO
-HiBy
-Shanling
-Hidizs
-iBasso
-Cayin
-Luxury&Precision
 
I feel your pain. FiiO could be reissuing their M3K (using the AK4377A to sub in for the AK4376A) today and it would be one of the best players at its price point. There is a major void in the mid-priced ($100-ish) MP3 player market.

One problem for this class of device is the proliferation of BT headphones in recent years. It is extremely hard to accommodate these without an existing software stack. Android already has all of that built-in. There were some efforts to bring BT to Rockbox years ago but it doesn't look like it really went anywhere.
 
They only remain as part of the audio enthusiast landscape and there are a few brands that make quality players catered to them:

-Sony
-FiiO
-HiBy
-Shanling
-Hidizs
-iBasso
-Cayin
-Luxury&Precision
Astell & Kern are hard to miss in this niche market. Yet, with a debatable price/performance ratio... ;)
 
I don't understand why no one considers the Surfans F28. I purchased it and I am very satisfied. It currently costs $163.99 on Amazon USA.
 
...I want them as an alternative to get rid of the distractions that the phone brings me, like the minute you look at it, whether to change songs or something, you unconsciously start looking through Google or any other app and the truth is that it is annoying...

Pardon me for being offensive but this sounds like a self-control issue than a technical one.
 
Pardon me for being offensive but this sounds like a self-control issue than a technical one.
I agree with OP that a lot of online content today is created to be addictive, and sadly very successful at that.

Different people may have different ways to fight against this. Looking for a technical alternative such as DAP seems reasonable to me.
 
Still keeping my little fleet of ipod shuffles (4th gen and 2nd gen) charged up, and my one remaining nano, for the times I need one while working out where I don't want to drain my iphone.

I may pay eventually for one battery restoration on the nano or a 4th gen shuffle, just to keep one working.

The 4th gen shuffle is still a thing of wonder to me. A sublime design...form follows function to the hilt.

There's nothing out there now that has the style and grace of the previous Apple players, in my view.
 
The last iPod I owned for any length was a Video. I owned a Nano, but not for long. Not sure why? I do not endorse Apple at all anymore, but I cannot deny that the iPods were just so well executed.
 
I had iPods of various styles/models and most irivers which I think are all still in a box I put in the attic years ago, this is the only complete/boxed example I have - the mighty brick of an Iriver H340, I hunted it out of the cupboard a while back as I was going to sell it but didn’t get round to it, it fired right up, including the nostalgic whirr of the HD, and still holds a charge after 16 years of non use. They don’t build them that anymore :D

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I have a Hiby R5, a FiiO M11 Plus, a AK Jr and a Sansa Sandisk. They all work, the Hiby my daily driver, the FiiO much too big and heavy to carry around much, the AK Jr doesn' do streaming but does sound ok and the Sandisk is pitifully weak in terms of power output but it does have a FM radio which is kinda neat every once in awhile. It depends on what you're looking for-bleeding edge specs or functionality-Hiby has several inexpensive models, some which support streaming and some not and most have decent power output for IEM's but one would have to bump up to at least the R5 and go 4 mm balance to drive HP's.
 
I had iPods of various styles/models and most irivers which I think are all still in a box I put in the attic years ago, this is the only complete/boxed example I have - the mighty brick of an Iriver H340, I hunted it out of the cupboard a while back as I was going to sell it but didn’t get round to it, it fired right up, including the nostalgic whirr of the HD, and still holds a charge after 16 years of non use. They don’t build them that anymore :D

53645346961_017871273f_h.jpg


53645857780_8d4cfd1838_h.jpg


53645398576_f79326e31c_h.jpg
Amazing little time capsule there. Great post.
 
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