Buying an MP3 Player in 2018

[Squid Surprise]

Apple decided to discontinue their lines of portable audio players because their smartphones could replace them for the average consumer; however, by definition, not everyone can be an average consumer. There are many companies that do portable audio better than Apple, so Apple investing in innovating better devices specifically in relation to audio isn't a smart business strategy for them. They're not wrong to have discontinued the iPod, but you are wrong in that their motive for discontinuation was based on a lack of demand.

By the way, Apple still manufactures the iPod Touch, which, by its namesake, must be an iPod; they haven't closed up shop on them, yet.

Um.... regardless of whether smartphones replaced iPods, if there was a demand for iPods, Apple would have continued to sell them...

iPod touches are on their last legs - Apple stopped reporting unit sales for them awhile back, and numbers have continued to drop. You have any numbers on the amounts of MP3 players being sold? And for those using them as their primary listening device? If you do, I’d love to see them...

 

[DylanMilesT]

Um.... regardless of whether smartphones replaced iPods, if there was a demand for iPods, Apple would have continued to sell them...

iPod touches are on their last legs - Apple stopped reporting unit sales for them awhile back, and numbers have continued to drop. You have any numbers on the amounts of MP3 players being sold? And for those using them as their primary listening device? If you do, I’d love to see them...

There was not a significant enough demand to illicit continued production. The iPhone did everything the iPod did and more. If you have a product that adequately replaces another, there will no longer be a demand for the original product. Apple never made a portable music player that met the criteria of those who continue to purchase them. Whether it be lacking in power requirements for high-end headphones or simply being more costly than the competition, people who are serious about their audio never considered iPods in the first place; they were two different markets.

 

[Joe Blow]

These are good for those handful of parents who are wise enough to keep their kids off of smartphones.

 

[DylanMilesT]

These are good for those handful of parents who are wise enough to keep their kids off of smartphones.

I can also agree with this. The cheap ones are more robust than they look and last forever. You can easily control their intake, as well.

 

[sac39507]

I have five or six Sansa SanDisk Clips and still use them all the time. The article does a good job describing why an MP3 player is a better option for some people.

I'm not a big fan of streaming. You still have to customize your playlist, providers throw in songs I could care less about, if you're not paying for a premium service you get commercials, etc.

With my SanDisk clips, I have them loaded up for whatever I'm doing. One has music for a casual walk, another for my workouts, a 3rd for driving my car, etc, a 4th for when I have company over, a 4th has party music, etc.

For a little bit of loading effort, I get exactly the music I want, when I want and through any speaker-type I want.

I too have a Sandisk. I love the FM radio feature and the drag and drop files ease of use. I freakin hate Apple crap iPods where each version of iTunes require an Engineering degree to figure out how to simply add content. The "synchronization" concept they use to do this is not easy to understand. Use simple words like "add content" instead Apple.

 

[sac39507]

You're forgetting the major point of audio players that was missed in this article: fidelity. Some people purchase high-end, portable audio players so that they can listen to lossless files through beefy headphones that require more power to drive and are more sensitive than your Apple Earpods or whatnot. Lossless file formats like FLAC can take up over half a gigabyte per song, making 10GB effectively useless if you want to store more than an album. Don't even get me started on BlueTooth headphones... You can not obtain high fidelity audio through the BlueTooth 5.0 protocol; it can only transfer data at a rate of 2Mb/s, about 50% slower than what is necessary to transfer a seamless FLAC file at the rate it is played at.

Kids today know nothing about hi resolution and hi fidelity. I had a family member ask me "is this sound what they call bass?"

 

[sac39507]

I don't have a smartphone - not sure if I'll ever get one, just personal opinion - a few years back the CD player died in my car, I didn't want to always listen to the radio + driving through the mountains the signal gets lost (as I can't stand the commercials) so I invested in a Fiio X1 2nd gen and a Fiio Q1 portable amp/ DAC.... and have never looked back.

The X1 can play all of my FLAC music files and the Q1 boosts not only the sound , but also the bass. For me it was the perfect solution for playing an seemingly endless amount of music - and I didn't have to upgrade the head unit in my car to get it.

Just my .005 cents CAD

I also have the X1 gen 2. Like it a lot but I hate the rotary control. It's too sensitive and doesn't work well for me. I wish it wouldn't have that but instead just the existing back and forward buttons. Want to upgrade to their higher end or get a Sony. I also thought about getting a headphone amp. Love my Flac and ultra hi-resolution albums I purchased from music websites that sell them. After getting my fii0, I went back through my entire CD collection and re-ripped them as Flac instead of mp3. Filled up the computer quick but well worth it.

 

[DylanMilesT]

Kids today know nothing about hi resolution and hi fidelity. I had a family member ask me "is this sound what they call bass?"

That made me chuckle in a saddened kind of way. A lot of people just don't care about audio fidelity anymore beyond 'THE WAY YOUR MUSIC WAS MEANT TO BE HEARD' or some equally mundane motto. There is, however, still a relatively large market for portable DACs, amplifiers, and high-resolution audio players. Audiophile is the word that comes to mind, though, that term comes off as a bit snobby sounding depending on who you say it to.

 

[amghwk]

Probelm is... carrying another brick in the pocket...

 

[Dimitrios]

The best MP3 player is my Windows Phone I bought from Walmart 2-3 years ago. It was the better model not the cheap 540 or 636. Think it has a 5 inch screen. Too lazy to check what model. I have used this phone and ran it over with my 1500lb Exmark ZTR and it still works. I use it to play music in my car. That Nokia battery holds up well! I have a Samsung and kinda miss the Microsoft phone. I did have also a Nokia that had Windows it was the small 4inch screen 530 or 540 and gave that to a family member and it still works even with the same old battery that sits most of the time in a cold vehicle.

 

[sac39507]

Demand needs to go down so Sony can drop their top of the line high-resolution player from $3,000 to $100. I need one.