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@dangoodin I use my phone as an MP3 player. No streaming involved.

@dangoodin Have you thought about repurposing an old phone?

@dangoodin Cowon have been good for 20 odd years

@dangoodin they are!

I use a Shanling M0 Pro with a 2TB MicroSD card in it, about 1.2TB full of FLACs. (There's a newer model, the M0 Pura, but it's a workaround for short supply of the DAC chips in the M0 Pro and has worse battery life.)

The Hiby R1 is a good, cheap entry level player.

The FiiO/Snowsky Echo Nano just launched and it's not great but it's cheap and, frankly, adorable. Short on battery life though.

And of course the Tangara is beloved of many fediverse nerds!!

@dangoodin I have an old Sansa Clip + that I use. The factory codec is bad, as the frequencies of the sounds are subtly wrong, so I flashed it and installed linux on it, with the added benefit of having flac support. Now I'm happy with the sound quality.
I hope this helps...

@dangoodin always set a price range before looking things like this up

TempoTec makes some decent entry level players, and so does Hiby.

Prices climb quickly after that, but the quality does too.

(Things to keep an eye on are how big of a microsd you can use, if it is just an Android device with a decent DAC as so many are.)

@dangoodin I bought an old used iPhone 13 as a replacement for my -trusty- iPod 3rd generation. Does the job.

@dangoodin I miss the Samsung Yepp series. The YP-U2J was the pinnacle of mp3 players.

@dangoodin I'd love to find a DAP (or even a FOSS Android app) that will handle 250k+ tracks without imploding.

@dangoodin

An old smartphone that's no longer used for calling gives you a zero cost option. If you delete unnecessary apps/pics/downloads, you might get a ton of music space. Plenty of MP3 apps to choose from, WiFi options, tethering for easy up/downloading, and it's already a familiar device.

Plus, you also get an emergency 911 phone!

@dangoodin you can’t beat the classics.

@dangoodin would love to find one that would work with Bluetooth ear thingies

@dangoodin I still have some lying around. U could make ur own with a raspberry pi w zero , might need an audio hat.

@dangoodin@infosec.exchange

[Frank] Yes! You can still buy them new off amazon, or buy used ones on ebay 😊

@dangoodin @jacqueline made the Tangara - you could build your own from the sources if that's of interest
https://cooltech.zone/tangara/

@dangoodin there's a few like this that i've been tempted by https://www.amazon.co.uk/MECHEN-Lossless-Resolution-Portable-Player%EF%BC%8CSupport-Gray/dp/B0B4NCSPNX

@dangoodin probably depends what you want it for but I want something 🤏 teeny so I love my sandisk clip jam. I have the wired one but they also have bluetooth

@dangoodin I just went through pains to copy some MP3s onto my old Essential PH1 phone (on which I recently replaced the battery), 128GB should be enough for everyone right? Now, if only this phone had a headphone jack…

@dangoodin https://www.crowdsupply.com/cool-tech-zone/tangara is cool but not sure if it'll "be for sale" after the campaign is fulfilled (many things on crowd supply do go that route)

@dangoodin I got a FiiO JM21 recently, when my Sansa/SanDisk players all finally died. It cost a lot more but does a lot more and sounds a lot better.

@dangoodin yes! there is a lively community here: https://www.reddit.com/r/DigitalAudioPlayer/

@dangoodin I'm still using my refurbished Sansa Clip from like 15 years ago and it's a champ. Not sure what features you're looking for but it works well as an offline music player. For streaming I use Subsonic app and my Nextcloud server.

@dangoodin Fiio makes some pretty good ones. I just recently bought a Snowsky Disc, and after a firmware update, I love the thing. I also have an open source Tangara that's a bit less stable, but still has potential.