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.
You can buy anything from a basic model to a super deluxe audiophile player. But you are going to need some kind of desktop or laptop for transferring files, an ipad probably won’t work.
I use a Sandisk clip, it’s 12 years old and the battery still lasts a few days. Sandisk players are still for sale - they have a few models, their sound quality is quite good and they are less than $50? Though I’m sure a lot of lesser known brands would also be decent at this point also.
I haven’t tested, but you should be able to hook up a USB CD drive to an Android phone. No idea if anyone’s bothered to make a CD ripping app for Android, though.
If you’re willing to skip the CD step then they’re are lots of ways, even without SD cards. Lots of cheap MP3 players work as USB drives. You can turn your phone into host mode and just plug them in to your phone and transfer files.
To get the songs, torrent or download or rip your songs with NewPipe or whatever. Lots of ways to get mp3s.
Or rip the CDs at the library and put them directly into your MP3 player. You can borrow the CDs from the library for free, too, as an added bonus.
Here’s a cheap Sandisk one and here’s a cheap Sony one. I’d probably just install foobar2000 on your phone though. They also sell USB CD drives that you can pick up for cheap. I’m sure there’s plenty of Android apps that can rip CDs.
Yeah, just get an MP3 player that uses an SD card, and copy your MP3 files to the card.
The question is, where are your files? Are they already on your phone or iPad? If not, you have the challenge of ripping from a USB CD player to the iPad or Pixel. I have no idea what software can do that, but there are apps on the Google Play store that claim to be able to.
Sounds like a great opportunity to dig up an old laptop and use Linux, though. I’ve got a couple of USB DVD readers sitting in a drawer that I pull out for these jobs, they’ve worked fine for years.
Double post, but focusing more on the real computer. Do you have access to a library? Sometimes they have computers people can use. You might be able to load a program to rip onto a USB stick and run it portably (that is, without installing it onto the computer.) Not ideal, but if it’s Windows I think Windows Media Player can rip CDs natively.
In that case, bring in the CDs and the MP3 player, rip the CDs, then load them all at the library. There might even be CDs at the library you can check out as well.
Neat. Does the playdate even have a headphone jack?
Yep! It’s got mic input on the jack too, a few people have been writing recording tools for it
Find the cheapest MP3 player possible, maybe one of those built like a USB stick that can plug into a computer.
Here’s one. There might be better options out there. The idea here is no wifi, no Bluetooth, etc. You could presumably load MP3s onto it just like you could a flash drive. Unlike the flash drive, it can play it back.
As far as ripping CDs, I use EAC. It supports ripping compressed to MP3, among other things. The linked player can play FLAC as well. I imagine most can, but the larger files size of FLAC might become an issue. Other programs exist, of course. It can be done!
The new term is “digital audio player”. http://www.reddit.com/r/digitalaudioplayer is a good community for that. mp3s are out, if you want a really small file size, opus has better quality. If quality is more important than file size, rip to FLAC. I know at least for android, there are music player apps like musicolet and poweramp that will allow you to play songs from your phone if you have the storage space. The old ones work with modern computers. You can buy reconditioned ipods on ebay, but the new ones are better IMO. For ripping music a good community is http://www.reddit.com/r/musichoarder
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.
In theory, any MP3 player / DAP that can have music loaded onto it by drag and drop could work with your iPad (assuming you have the means to connect it, of course).
But there are a number of things to consider.
Firstly; storage. Obviously, your iPad doesn’t have expandable storage, so depending on the size of your collection, you might run out of space. Using the same method you’ll need to connect the player to your iPad, you can hook up an external drive of some description. Files should be able to see it (as long as it’s formatted to exFAT or FAT). From there, using Files you can simply drag from one place to another.
However, this doesn’t allow you to change metadata or anything. There are apps you can download that will allow you to do it, but it can be a pain in the ass if you’ve got quite a bit of music.
Finally, there’s where you get the music from.
If you buy from somewhere like Bandcamp, then you can download directly to your iPad, though they don’t make it easy. You can’t buy from iTunes because the app won’t let you open them in Files. Torrents are obviously out, so is CD ripping, as there are no CD drivers for iPad that I’m aware of.
So while it’s entirely possible to run a DAP with just an iPad, it’s kind of a pain in the arse, unless you already have a ready supply of music and it’s either already tagged well, or you don’t really care about that sort of thing. As others have suggested, it might be just as easy for you to pick up a cheap PC. It doesn’t need to have any bells and whistles, just the ability to store music and have some way of managing the library.
