The best MP3 (and FLAC) player ever made is the Sansa Clip+ with Rockbox firmware.
$50 when new. Size of a matchbox -- not the car, the small thing that restaurants and bars used to hand out as advertising. MicroSD slot for storage. 20+ hours of playtime, recharged via USB. Appears as a USB Mass Storage device, too. 3.5mm headphone jack. Small 2-part monochrome OLED display. Physical buttons: D-pad, OK, Menu, power, and volume up and down. After a day you don't need to look at it to pause/play, skip a track, change the volume or turn it on and off.
With Rockbox installed (ten minute process), you can play FLAC, use a parametric equalizer, customize the display, change playback speed for audiobooks, and generally do a few dozen things more than the factory firmware.
Rockbox lets you do the same on a large number of devices, but the Clip+ is the best.
Yeah, the Clip+ with Rockbox was just incredible. Got me through a lot of workdays in the corporate "no software allowed on your computer" days.
I was using mine in the very early days of Android existing. Some people had them, but I didn't yet. I got my first Android phone, moved my music over, and was ... massively disappointed. My favorite phone incident was sitting on some flight, trying to listen to music, and my phone wouldn't play it through the headphones, speakers only, annoying everyone nearby. I didn't listen to music on that flight and promptly switched back to a device that did not have a physical speaker.
Over time, phones rebuilt trust and I got a lot of use out of that, until Google Play Music got shut down and deleted all my music (no problem, I have it all locally). Now I have no idea what people do and simply go without. I guess people don't have music libraries any more and just listen to the radio for $10/month? No thanks. (I use foobar2000 on my desktop, and don't listen to music away from my home anymore. Thanks technological progress?)
I second that. I'm a commercial painter and more then once I've had my sansa mp3 player fall into a paint bucket. Fish it out, clean it up and the damn things just kept on working. Instant brand loyalty after that. Shame they stopped making them.
> Sansa Clip Sport / Clip Jam / Clip Sport Go / Clip Sport Plus
> These are based on an Actions Semiconductor ATJ2127 chips, with under 100KB of available memory and all audio decoding happening inside dedicated hardware. A rockbox port to these (and other ATJ2127) targets will not happen, as it would require an immence undertaking and due to resource limitations, the end result would lack most of the features that rockbox users have come to expect.
I agree. There was something magical about these especially how good the sound quality is for its size and portability. I use mine at the gym and when running since you can barely feel it. It has a nice selection of apps too.
I've collected 3 over the years in case any of them die off. While the battery life is still good I should probably get around to researching replacement batteries/cells while I still can.
I just ordered 2 batteries for each of my Sansa Clips. I'll have to unsolder/solder the wires to the mainboard to replace, but that's a small price to pay for keeping such a great player alive longer.
I had a Sansa clip of some type and it lasted about as long as the cheap $5 mp3 player I bought next. These days I find it more convenient to use my phone. You can play mp3s just fine on a phone.
Depends. I use my phone to control music when I'm in the gym but when I'm out running or cycling then listening to music is generally a bad idea, IMO, as you lose spatial awareness.
I suppose that's more or less important whether you're running in a busy city or out in the countryside though.
Either way, recent high end smart/sport watches usually have some sort of music playback support for folks who want to exercise with music but don't want to lug around a phone.
You can get good deals on Garmin watches that play music at their factory outlet store. I compress music with AAC Pro on my mac and then upload it, I really can't complain about the sound quality given that the gym or outdoors is usually noisy.
Garmin really undersells their music functionality on their fitness watches. I wasn't expecting the depth of music features on their newer stuff, like being able to automatically sync Spotify playlists to your watch for offline play, or being able to use the watch as a remote for your Bluetooth-connected phone.
As you said, losing spatial awareness is only an issue if you are forced to share space with cars where drivers often don't pay attention and try to murder you. If you are on paths/trails or in the middle of nowhere then its not a big deal. You don't hear the mountain lion stalking you regardless if you are listening to music.
That latter part is important. I live out in the country, and I've had more than a couple of encounters with aggressive dogs. Occasionally other wildlife, but as I like to posit: The forest reveals its secrets if you listen closely enough.
How are phones awful? In the gym I just stick my phone in the corner and the Bluetooth radio has enough range to reach my headphones. For running I just put my phone in my pocket.
I have a Garmin smart watch that supports audio playback but it's a hassle to use because I have to load or sync recordings in advance. Streaming audio on my phone is much more convenient. Plus I have my phone with me anyway in case I want to take a picture due Strava or something.
I am fortunate enough to be a member at a gym where theft isn't a problem. Good Bluetooth headphones aren't ruined by sweat (and I sweat a lot). If you drop a plate on your ear then you have bigger problems than ruining your headphones.
Fair enough! I’ve been a member at some more… high risk gyms, and I’m unusually hard on earbuds and like. Cheap and replaceable may not be optimal for everyone’s use case.
The display on my exercise bike has broken, so it has been useful to have a stopwatch as well as a music player on my phone, I don't have a good way to carry it for any other kind of exercise.
The latest Rockbox (3.15, I think) supports Opus on Sansa Clips, and I've loaded mine with transcoded Opus files. (I keep FLAC files in my archive.) I know, Opus is not FLAC, but I'm likely to be listening in noisy environments where it's impossible to tell the difference, and the vastly longer playtime is a good trade.
QC20 are not an option for me because of the extra device that is built into the cord close to where you plug it into the mp3-player. It makes handling of the whole system cumbersome.
I guess the noise-cancelling has to be built into the mp3-player to avoid this. I have not seen elegant in-ear headphones with built-in noise-cancelling yet.
If I’m reading the specs right it looks like their headphones are required. I’m guessing mic’s are on each side and offloaded to the player? Either way, I wouldn’t want to be forced to use their headphones.
I still have my original Clip+. The OLED display is showing it's age with dimmed pixels but it is still a great -stealth- recording device. It is also still my go to music player for long flights.
Absolutely the best, I use my phone these days as I have it on me but replaced the Sansa with another as I couldn't find anything as good even after it was discontinued.
$50 when new. Size of a matchbox -- not the car, the small thing that restaurants and bars used to hand out as advertising. MicroSD slot for storage. 20+ hours of playtime, recharged via USB. Appears as a USB Mass Storage device, too. 3.5mm headphone jack. Small 2-part monochrome OLED display. Physical buttons: D-pad, OK, Menu, power, and volume up and down. After a day you don't need to look at it to pause/play, skip a track, change the volume or turn it on and off.
With Rockbox installed (ten minute process), you can play FLAC, use a parametric equalizer, customize the display, change playback speed for audiobooks, and generally do a few dozen things more than the factory firmware.
Rockbox lets you do the same on a large number of devices, but the Clip+ is the best.