Are portable MP3 players going away ? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: MathWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 08:42:04 pm
content: There's not many places to get electronics where I live, besides what little bit walmart and Bestbuy have in store. And now it seems both of them are moving away from selling them in-store. A few years ago, walmart would have a few MP3 players to choose from, now they are lucky to have a way over priced 8GB Sony model. The last MP3 player I got from walmart was 64GB, and still is half the price online.So what do most people use? Their phones ?These days I like to use bluetooth earbuds, but they sure kill the battery fast in my MP3 player compared to headphones, like maybe 1h-2h vs ~8h. How much better has BT gotten for power consumption in the last few years ? And how much better have Lithium batteries gotten in the last few years ?

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 08:47:21 pm
content: Well, I for one shed no tears at this lack of availability of MP3-playing devices.It's a shitty format that deserves to die. (And no, I'm not an audiophool; I just know the difference between good-sounding recorded music and that which is not.)

author: MathWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 09:06:44 pm
content: Growing up batteries were always too expensive (really just not a priority I guess). So I used to walk around without a walkman or CD player. Now I can't imagine not having an MP3 player for walking or doing certain work. I'd don't need that much storage, but for most stuff I listen too, sound quality is not an issue either.There's hardly anything on the local radio I'm interested in, actually is mostly garbage IMO.

author: tggzzz
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 09:44:25 pm
content: I hope they aren't going away; I use one to listen to music in the car, via an adaptor plugged into the cassette tape slot.When I bought that MP3 player, I had to returnseveralbecause they played the tracks from an album inalphabeticorder FFS.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 10:08:21 pm
content: Just add em to the list of stuff we used to carry around,camera ,map ,calculator, notebook,torch,watch,diary etc

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 10:13:49 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on June 07, 2025, 10:08:21 pmUsed to? I still do.Well, all except a watch: I had a nice automatic (non-quartz, self-winding) watch but it broke.I miss it and would like to replace it.(For those who prefer quartz accuracy but hate any watch that takes batteries, Seiko used to make an automatic watch that used the wheel inside to turn a small generator to charge a rechargeable battery. Very nice device.)

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 10:19:46 pm
content: I still use a Sandisk Clip MP3 player at the gym, mostly for podcasts. It's a lot smaller and lighter than a phone, and the audio (wired) is quite good. But I don't know if they are still made anymore. Anyway, when this one dies, I'll probably try one of the knockoffs from the Far East.

author: SteveThackery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 10:39:57 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on June 07, 2025, 10:13:49 pmSeiko Kinetic. They're OK, but not brilliant ‐ the rechargeable battery fails after a few years. The original version was called the 'AGS' (automatic generating system) and was a bit of a disaster: it used a capacitor, which had insufficient capacity and failed even more often than the later rechargeable batteries.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 10:42:03 pm
content: If you put an old Android phone into flight mode it's basically an MP3 player that will last for days on battery, the idle drain of most phones is the cell radio, and you will still get Bluetooth connectivity (and Wi-Fi on some phones) in flight mode.I suspect the smartphone has killed the technology, no one wants a standalone MP3 player any more.Bluetooth headphone battery life varies. I have two Sony headphones; one has average to poor noise cancellation but lasts 80 hours per charge, the other has excellent noise cancellation, but I used it on my flight to San Francisco (~10ish hours) and it went from 100% to 10% in that time, so real world battery life 12 hours... But, the noise cancellation is so good, I didn't even hear the breakfast cart come through...

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2025, 03:11:01 am
content: I would like to see an open source audio player based on STM32 or Raspberry Pi Pico, running Rockbox. I still have an old iPod running Rockbox, but it has gotten flaky and its 30GB doesn't go very far with FLACs.

author: MathWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2025, 06:36:39 pm
content: I have a few of my old MP3 players, 2 work for sure, but have problems. Someday I need to look into the MP3 player's hobbyists have made. Maybe even try one w/ a 9V battery mod.My current MP3 player, the battery or it's circuits have started having trouble, it seems to charge too quickly, and stop charging, but then drain too fast. But I don't want to open it up yet, but maybe I will order a new battery for it.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2025, 09:42:07 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on June 07, 2025, 08:47:21 pmMany of them support a number of other formats.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2025, 10:02:58 pm
content: Quote from: SiliconWizard on June 08, 2025, 09:42:07 pmDo any of them support .wav?

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2025, 10:08:31 pm
content: Quote from: Analog Kid on June 08, 2025, 10:02:58 pmMany do, but why when you can use FLAC instead?

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2025, 10:15:37 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on June 08, 2025, 10:08:31 pmExactly, FLAC is pretty much the "de facto" format for lossless compression for audio. The compression ratio is not huge, but it compresses to at least half of what a WAV file takes, so there's absolutely no point in using WAV for a portable player. FLAC decoding is also much more lightweight than MP3 decoding, so it can be done on even modest hardware. Besides, you can actually buy music in FLAC format directly.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2025, 10:22:51 pm
content: Good. I knew nothing about FLAC.So many things I don't know about.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 08, 2025, 10:57:50 pm
content: I've tried to determine the difference between 320kbps MP3 and FLAC and never been able to do so. Maybe some "Golden Ear" people would be able to do that, and of course it's useful for editing and preservation, but for an audio player it seems a bit overkill.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 02:40:50 am
content: My experience is that 192k MP3 is hard to tell from FLAC most of the time, but some content does have some audible artifacts still. Given how cheap storage is nowadays, just go with 320k if you have to use MP3. If you want to save space and have a lot of flexibility as to what codec to use, Opus does it with the best quality for a given bitrate, with 128k suggested as optimal for music.

author: MathWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 05:37:49 am
content: I listen to a lot of movie/TV show audio, reviews/interviews/lectures so mp3 is still best for me.I took apart my current player, and it's 420mAh Li battery had bulged a lot, another semi-working player has a good battery of 410mAh, so I put that in the good one. I guess I better throw away the other battery, no point having that blow up or catch on fire while charging.I might buy a cellphone sized case, and big Li battery, and with lots of electric tape, make a new outer case case, over the original.

author: u666sa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 11:20:55 am
content: MP3 player died when Apple removed 3.3mm jack and introduced wireless headphones. That, along with online media platforms, makes MP3 absolute.It's still around thought, it won't go away, just like CD and cassettes and records.However, as an act itself of going online, downloading MP3 to a USB drive or directly onto your MP3 player, before listening -- that's absolute. Similar to going to a store to rent a DVD.

author: Alex Eisenhut
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 12:51:52 pm
content: "absolute"?

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 01:11:44 pm
content: Quote from: u666sa on June 09, 2025, 11:20:55 amI think you mean “obsolete”, not “absolute”.Anyhow, one does not follow from the other: the loss of a headphone jack doesn’t have anything to do with the format the music is stored or streamed in: in all cases, the music is converted from the source format (MP3, AAC, WAV, FLAC, ogg vorbis, uncompressed PCM…) to the wireless headphones’ supported codec, streamed across Bluetooth, then decoded into uncompressed PCM, probably run through a DSP, and ultimately sent to the audio amplifier as analog audio, a digital I2S stream, or an “analog” PWM stream for the class D amplifier.

author: tooki
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 01:28:39 pm
content: Quote from: MathWizard on June 07, 2025, 08:42:04 pmYeah, people use their phones.Apple was the undisputed king of MP3 player manufacturers during their heyday. At the time when iPhone sales overtook iPod sales (in 2010), the iPod series held around 70% of the worldwide MP3 player market. I’m pretty sure that Android users would have stopped buying MP3 players at around the same time.Anyway, if we ignore the iPod touch (which was really just an iPhone without the cellular modem, and was kind of an odd niche product throughout its life) and just look at the “true” iPods, the last new model was released in 2012 and discontinued by mid-2017. IMHO, that ballpark of time is when MP3 players had basically become irrelevant to the mass market.(Though IMHO, no phone has yet to have as nice a music player interface as what Apple had in the iPods (excluding the screenless iPod shuffle and iPhone-without-cellular iPod touch). The wheel-interface iPods remain a joy to use.)

author: u666sa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 01:48:38 pm
content: Don't forget car audio.MP3's or FLAC on USB drive is pretty much irrelevant right now. This has happened shortly after car manufacturers went away from DIN format, and began using infotainment systems. Suddenly you can project your phone onto screen and play music from your phone. No more awkward USB drives.To further exacerbate things, driving these days pretty much requires your phone, either google maps or yandex maps, or other maps, which tell you up to date traffic and road conditions. If you drive without your phone, you'll be stuck in traffic a lot more. Phone makes you find new routes, warns you of road debris and cops and road closures. Phone makes you local to a new area.Thus MP3 is killed off in car scene. Instead you use whatever is convenient for you on your phone, and most likely you use online streaming service.

author: Haenk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 01:58:29 pm
content: The MP3-player goes the way of the Dodo. Only that there is a similar, but much better replacement available. Your smartphone.A couple of years back, my ZTE AXON 7 came with an AK4490 DAC - that should be still considered "high quality" audio. But technology has advanced, the standard DACs are not far behind any more. So plenty good enough for most people.I see only very limited use for a dedicated player - ultra highend players (you could use a smartphone+external DAC) or when damage or theft is possible. Still many of those available on Aliexpress, for a tenner.(Sidenote: The portable cassette player went extinct as well. When the MP3-players came to market. Funny thing is, I sold mine recently for *more* than I paid 35 years ago. Not that I would ever use one again.)

author: Peabody
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 02:01:21 pm
content: I use my Clip to listen to mostly podcasts at the gym. My phone stays in my locker. It's too big and heavy. But apparently Sandisk has stopped producing the Clips, so when this one dies I'll need to find an alternative. I don't know of a good alternative.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 02:20:30 pm
content: Quotenot everywhere, one example preshow music at gigs,chuck a cheap mp3 player in the dogbox loaded with a playlist of suitable music,job done for the tour

author: u666sa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 02:20:59 pm
content: Quote from: Peabody on June 09, 2025, 02:01:21 pmAre you kidding me? Go to aliexpress, search for mp3 player. You'll find hundreds of different models, with and without wires.

author: coromonadalix
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 09, 2025, 02:45:45 pm
content: have them on earphones, bluetooth speakers, and your cell phone ... plenty on mp3 "able" devices not going away soon