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How to make an MP3 player work in 2023? (beehaw.org)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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If I wanted an MP3 player again, in 2023, and wanted to rip cds to it and put digitally purchased albums on it, as actual owned files (not inside an proprietary ecosystem where I pay to only listen to that track within that service) could I still do that? What would I need? I don’t own, and can’t afford, a “real computer”, but i recall having lots of compatibility issues at the time between my mp3 player and computer os anyway. I’ve got an ipad and a pixel. Is there any feasible, non-ridiculously-difficult way to do this? Do they still sell any mp3 players? Do any of the old ones work with modern tech? I miss hearing my music on a simple, quiet, offline device without ads or streaming services.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I'm not certain, but you might be able to make an iPod Classic talk to an iPad (you might also be able to do it with a raspberry pi + Linux + iTunes running in wine). If it does work, there's the catch that you'd have to convert your files to aac (also known as m4a, lossy and similar to mp3) or alac (lossless and similar to flac).

If you try an iPod and rip CDs or convert from flac/wav, make sure you convert directly to your desired iPod-compatible format, avoid converting from mp3->aac unless you don't have the original lossless rip. Doing so is like repeatedly opening and saving a jpg. Each time you do it, you lose some quality.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I just put them on my phone. All you need is a USB cable (BT and wifi probably aren't going to cut it for a bunch of music files at one time), and somewhere to transfer the files from. I use Vanilla Music because that's what I'm used to, but VLC is available too.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

If I wanted to do this today I would use iTunes and an old iPhone as the mp3 player. I would use an old laptop to rip, or iTunes to purchase.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

In my experience it isn't if it'll work, it's if it'll have enough space for all my music. I still have a couple old iPods, including the original Touch, but I have way more than 16GB worth of music now.

If you just want something simple for your own music with no ads, check out iBroadcast.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

A couple years ago I bought a 128GB 2016 iPhone SE for $90 and used it with Evermusic. It worked as a great little music/podcast/audiobook player, and as a viewfinder for some weird analog cameras I built. I gave it a data-only sim for occasional downloads, but it would have been very easy to run it as a wi-fi only device.

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