I use one every day. I could probably write an essay on why, but one reason sticks out: tactile buttons. It's great to be able to skip a track without having to poke around on a screen to find the virtual button.

One of my kids has one, a little screenless one, specifically because it doesn't have a screen. That one kid in particular gets addicted to screens.

I've specifically gone for a AAA battery powered one so I can just enjoy music while I work on proofs.

Phones are ok, but sometimes it's just nice to be unreachable in a random room on campus where no-one can track you down to attend meetings.

Bonus points if students see you bopping to unknown tunes while you work and think you're crazy.

It’s probably worthwhile to differentiate between “MP3 Players” and DAPs (Digital Audio Players) that are designed to play high resolution music (mainly FLAC files) through high-end wired headphones. Companies like FiiO and HiBy make these and they sell for $500 and up. I have a HiBy R5 Sabre that has a balanced output for driving my decent Dan Clark Aeon headphones. This all sounds spectacularly good playing high res files or a service like Tidal. It runs on a special version of Android, so you can install apps, etc.

Having said all of that, I do 90% of my portable music listening through bluetooth earbuds driven from my Samsung phone, so not sure the money I invested in my DAP setup has been worth it, and I probably wouldn’t do it again.

studying with it in my local library rn

Considering moving away from having a smartphone and using an mp3 player and a little dumb phone for privacy reasons.

Does anyone else self-host their music? (I suppose this would also be a thing if you stream from Spotify) but my music device greatly benefits from having some form of Internet connection for when I want to update it.

I self-host, so when I add music to my server my phone sees it automatically. I wouldn't want to copy my music onto my server and onto an mp3 device, nor do I want to pay for separate internet service on an mp3 device.

I keep my 160GB iPod Classic on life support.

I think the clickwheel design is, in my view, the single best one-thumb no-looking-required input scheme for an MP3 player I think anyone has ever made. Plug it into, say, my car stereo AUX port and I can pick it up with a free hand to control volume, select tracks, and even navigate mostly by memory without having to look at the thing. I can just tell where I am based on the feel of the control. Infinitely better than a featureless flat slab of a touch screen that gives you no sensory feedback.

I like its solid build quality. Full metal chassis with that sexy anodized aluminum finish. I miss that. Despite having a spinning disk hard drive, it never skips, and I've never had read or write issues. Though I'd probably try to mod it over to some kind of flash NAND storage someday. There's also a USB-C mod available that I'd like to do someday, since Apple 30-pin connectors are an endangered species now, and even then, carrying around an outdated proprietary cable for only one device is something I'm eager to never need to do again.

I'm also pretty heavily conditioned to not have tens of gigabytes of music stored on my phone eating up all the precious space. But that's mostly a holdover from my previous phone, which had a 32 GB onboard memory limit and no SD card expansion slot. I guess now that I have a proper memory expandable phone and, and now that half terabyte microSD cards are relatively inexpensive, that's no longer a huge concern...

Also, Rhythmbox can sync to it. Maybe other software too. So I don't even need iTunes to use it.

Yes. I used an iPod classic forever but my newer car didn't play nicely with the old software. So a few years ago I bought the newest iPod touch 256GB from 2019. This software works much better through the USB cable so I can read and control the iPod through my head unit.

I just love having a dedicated music player always plugged into my car. Phones are a hassle to have to set up every time getting into the car and then my music getting interrupted by texts and whatnot. I also listen to a lot more podcasts than music on my phone while I'm at work. But I like the fact that I can hop back in my car at the end of the day and my music automatically resumes from where I left off earlier, no matter what else I had been listening to on my phone in between. That's the best experience for me.

I have an old SanDisk player with RockBox that I use for exercising outside.

Not having a phone with me is part of the good getting out to exercise does me.

I bought one for my car when Android phones started removing the headphone jack and SD cards. When I got a new car in 2021 it no longer had an aux port. I could still connect the mp3 player with Bluetooth but that was fiddly. The car has a decent ui for playing music off USB stick which is mainly what I do these days.

I still sometimes use the mp3 player because it sounds better and I have a lot of wired headphones but I no longer daily it.

Like some other people here I still use an iPod classic for all the music in my car. Haven't had iTunes installed to change the music on it for 14 years.

I would use one if I was still curating mp3 libraries. Honestly, the lack of tracking and spying makes going back to ripping mp3s and having a stand alone player rather appealing.

I do, they have better battery life, are lighter and smaller and actually have great sound quality (my alliexpress 20 dolar mp3 player have better sound than my desktop pc)

edit: I use it mostly for flac, not having so much going on electronically makes the sound extremely clear even on cheap devices with good headphones

Any Rockbox fans here? I got it running on my sandisk clip+, and it's still customizablento this day

My sister does. Her phone doesn't play nice with her car, but the player does.

Not quite what you're asking, but I still use my minidisc player.

I do. Just fixed an iPod Nano 6G via soldering in a new battery. I love to not have to carry my phone when doing sport and not have to buy an expensive smartwatch, just to be able to listen to music. Also the battery lasts 2 days worth listening to music. You don't have that with Bluetooth earbuds. The new battery will last year's, while wireless earbuds stop working after 1 or two years. It has aux which is just unreplaceable in my eyes.

I hate how we have downgraded to large phones...

They are called DAPs these days. Head over to any chi-fi online shop and you'll find plenty of them. They go from cheap to ultra high-end (thousands of dollars) for their features.

There's also the market for dongles which one can attach to their mobile for the sound quality and extra power and since a lot of mobiles don't have 3.5mm ports anymore.

I recently picked up an old LG V30 to use as a dedicated audio player. It’s got a great headphone jack, it’s got a micro-SD slot, and there’s a build of Lineage OS for it too. It’s been nice, I can use some pretty power hungry headphones with it without issues and having a dedicated device for music has been nice for focusing on the music.

I bought a 2 gen iPod Nano 8GB in 2007 and I have used this amazing device almost daily ever since. The original battery somehow still managed to hold a 5-6h charge last spring, but after the summer it can only do 2-3h of continous playback. I already ordered a replacement battery.

The jogwheel can be easily operated through your pocket fabric which makes it far superior to touchscreens.

I intend to keep using it as long as I can and I've already picked up a few spare ones in case it breaks beyond repair.

I still have my old iPod that somehow still works. I don't use it regularly, but it comes in handy if I'm gonna be out some place bored, waiting for a while. I don't like to use my phone for music because I just generally try to rely on my phone as little as possible. Kinda hate how much cellphones are the absolute center of our lives. That thing gives me anxiety

Up until a few years ago, I'd use my ipod almost exclusively hooked up to my car. Eventually I decided I wanted more space, so I swapped out for a USB with all of my music in it

I own a digital audio player (DAP), but it’s not limited to MP3s—I play a lot of Ogg, Opus, & FLAC files too. The device I use offers Bluetooth pairing in both directions as well as being a digital audio converter (DAC) via USB on devices where the built-in DAC is poor quality. I like that don’t have to wear down the battery of my phone for music, & while my phone has SD card support, 3.5 mm headphone jack, & a great quality DAC, there may be a future where these audio requirements are removed from all phones, laptops, & other devices on the market. My biggest issue with the device is being Chinese, they’ve made modifications to the Linux kernel which run on the device but don’t publish these modification which is a violation of GPL-2.0 (other smaller complaints are the UI uses flags for languages, the edges of touch screens do action yet the screens not big enough so if not careful you can exit a scrolling view, & it could definitely be lighter weight).

I have one as some work places you can't use your phone. Plus the sound quality is better, especially with FLAC files.

I don't, but there's still relevancy IMO, MP3 players are made for music, so most of them has really nice audio quality

I have an Astell & Kern SR25 MKII DAP (digital audio player) and I use it quite frequently. The sound quality far surpasses what my phone can produce when connected to any of my speakers or headphones.

It plays FLAC files and any other audio file type you can think of. And it acts as an offline music library when needed (64 GB of memory plus a 1TB microSD).

The better the headphones/speakers I use, the more it outshines anything coming out of my other electronic devices. I use it almost every day.

I don't use an mp3 player. It is inconvenient to carry two devices in your pocket at once. But phones tend to lack physical buttons to control music, and that's inconvenient.

I remember the times of push-button phones and special models for music: nokia music, sony walkman.

My iPod classic lives permanently on the DAC of my stereo

Yes, a waterproof one for swimming. It's life changing, but it means having to scour the seven seas for music as I don't buy CDs or have an mp3 collection any more.

Yes. Lot of apps on phone don't work well together. Watch a YouTube video, while using music player, then a camera video file... one will stop.

Phone is for internet, texting, games. Sometimes just want to listen to music, doing it on phone gets too complicated. My tiny mp3 player fits in pocket, just slide on, click once, music instantly plays. It can hold 100 gigs of music, trying to fit that on my phone, would have to sacrifice other files.

Yes I have a surfans f20 for a few years now. I'm a big music person and really like having a dedicated music device. A smarphone is like a swiss army knife. It does everything but doesn't do anything better than a real purpose built tool.

Welcome to the pretentious mp3 player owner in 202X gang, where we think were unique and cool for remembering what a mp3 player and rejecting streaming services in favor of downloading and owning our music, until we go online and find out yes other people do in fact like music on a dedicated device. Glad to have you

I still have and use a Sandisk Sansa with Flac files ('cause mp3 sucks).
I had 2 Zunes but they couldn't be reloaded with new music and the batteries finally crashed.

I absolutely hate having my phone. Most people will tell me things in person, or at the very least to check my phone. Plus, I have an amazing music library, which is fantastic but raises the question of how does one properly keep track of so many files. The answer to both of these questions is my trusty iPod, it does the one thing I bought it to do: play music (and sometimes podcasts). I no longer need to worry about my family group chat while out on a walk, and it has a headphone jack (which is the only way that the thing is gonna play music, I do get rather worried that I’m gonna play something embarrassing when I’m using Bluetooth headphones on my phone).

TL;DR: I love my iPod.

I use an old Note 8 as a music/podcast player because it connects to WiFi and I can download and manage content. No cellular connection.

For serious listening I have an Astell & Kern AK120 that sounds lovely, but the UI leaves me pining for Rockbox. I need to repair my old iPod Classic just to have Rockbox back for my dream machine.

The relationship I have work my phone is that I don't have phone I can use to listen to music with - I have a music and entertainment device I can use to call with.

Yes -- I buy MP3 player modules and make them into things like (otherwise mechanical) music boxes that support multiple songs.

I've also made little boxes that you can plug a headphone in, and press a button to play a single recording repeatedly. This is so a loved one can record a sound clip for someone on the autistic spectrum to play when they are feeling unwell, e.g. a song or just kind words. It has just one large tactile ON switch, and integrated battery rechargeable by USB-C. A phone can work for this too, but many don't have headphone jacks anymore, and the touchscreen is hard to use sometimes -- when things get difficult they may lose some manual dexterity and find the bright screen aggravating (this one was a special request).

Finally, an MP3 player plus an amp is a pretty cheap way to make automated public address systems, and robot horns. I'm partial to the horn noise the big alien machines make in the War of the Worlds film.

Also makes a great doorbell.

I use my phone for that but I plan on buying an mp3 player for swimming

I still use my iPod classic for jogging, and I have an iPod touch as backup. My watch can do emergency calls so I don't need or want a phone with me.

If I could find mine I would use it.

It has to compete with my portable CD player now tho.

I do! I have some regular playlists I use when I can't sleep. I don't want the Wi-Fi signal at my ear or near my body all night. Doing it old style sets me at ease.

Yes, I use it for white noise for sleep, I got it because my phone sucks for that for multiple various reasons.

In the high end Audio/headphone community many people still use them. Some of them are really expensive, too... However, as far as I remember, certain iPods are still considered some of the best portable players because their DAC is still really good.

Sorta-kinda: I have an old launch iPhone that I've held onto so I can use it as an overbuilt iPod Touch. No apps, no phone service, it just works for playing music and does it well. I don't use it super frequently, but every so often I just wanna play some music offline without having to worry about anything else, and it does a great job.

If I went out more not in the car I'd probably get another proper MP3/DAC player. Back in the day I had a Sansa Clip I bought as an impulse Black Friday purchase and that thing was absolute fire. Small, great battery life, showed up in Windows as a standard external storage device, even had an FM tuner built in. Only downside was that it only had 2gigs of storage, but that just made me be a bit more choosy with what I put on it. If the damn thing hadn't wound up going through the wash on accident I might still be using it to this day.

Yes, because it can last a week on a single charge, while being used hours a day. Phones battery life really limits how useful they are as an all in one device.

I've tried it. But quality of modern MP3 players really has gone downhill. I used to have a Samsung and later an Apple MP3 player and both were better than the stuff Sandisk sells these days.

If it weren't for the absolutely idiotic way the battery was built into my Ipod Nano and the quasi-exodus of supporting apps on Linux, I would still use it. Phones are huge/heavy, always connected, you get interrupted by messages and calls, and many of them force Bluetooth headsets.

Yeah, I bought a couple of iPods from a thrift store on a lark and restored them back to working condition. I use one of them in my car every day.

I have Sandisk Clip Sport for like 10 years of pretty much every day use. If it would break it'd be like losing a friend. Phones, headphones came and went but this thing stays the same.

Also Raspberry PI with a DAC and MOODE at home.

My dad uses one he has for maybe 15 years now

I wish, my iPod gave up the ghost many years ago. When it died - at the time I was way too broke to replace it - my interest in music kind of went with it too. I still listen to music of course, but I've never been passionate about it since.

Also, I still sometimes get the feeling like I forgot something when I leave the house because the weight distribution in my pockets isn't 'right' anymore lmao

Sorta, I have a 64GB third-generation iPod Touch full of music that I listen to while mowing. It still holds a charge for a couple hours at least, haven't tested how long it can last.

Yup! Been using a 1TB iPod for almost a year, and I've never looked back

Yeah. I have a shanling m3x.

Phones typically don't have an audio jack or sd slot any more...

I still have a Sansa Clip+ kicking around somewhere. Best portable music device I've owned, I wish they still made them.

I use a small Sandisk Clip for my audio books, I plug a mono ear bud and I get hours and hours of listening time

I've got an old ipod that's waiting to be wiped and refilled. I want it for when I'm riding my bike, so that my phone can stay out of the way, and not interrupt the music whenever it gets a notification.

I've got a cheap but decent set of wireless earphones too, so if I'm doing something where they might get damaged, it's not the end of the world.

I always have a couple sansa clip players around for skateboarding and snowboarding. My phone is just too valuable to use in those environments.

If there's something that can scrobble, I'd gladly switch to a MP3 player.

Have a Hiby r3 pro. I work from home so not a lot of reasons to use it normally but it is nice to bring on trips

I went through a few mp3 players and none of them were exactly what I wanted so I bought a Moto G7 Power and only ever use it for playing locally stored music via the BlackPlayer app.

I wanted something with Bluetooth and an aux jack, USB-C charging, and expandable memory. Tried a few different devices and none of them ticked all of the boxes, or else they had other issues that made me send them back. The only issue I have with the G7 is that it's a full sized phone, when I'd really prefer something smaller. The next time I go through an upgrade cycle, I've been looking at one of the little Unihertz models, but that might be another year or more so we'll see what's on the market by then.

Yep! I have one that I use for music when I go running. It's over 10 years old now, and still works fine. Phones are too heavy for that use case.

I’ve had a clickwheel iPod in my car for 20 years. Currently using 2 flash modded 4th gens, 1 flash modded 5th Gen, and an all original 5th Gen.

No but I still have some mp3s saved in cloud

Old Nokias used to come with mp3 download from their store and I kept my files.

I saw someone listing to an ipod nano the other day

I don't even use the mp3 format anymore.

Late reply but whatever

I have a few iPods I still have kicking around. I have a 4th gen classic that I've done a flash mod to. Now it has 60GB of reliable storage as opposed to the 40GB it came with. Still works amazing.

Also have a 2nd gen Mini with a 128GB flash mod and a 5.5 gen classic still running the original hard drive.

no, but i have a plan to buy bluetooth speaker with sdcard support

I want to get one that can play flac and Spotify. I try to use my phone for music but I just get distracted.

No, but I was considering switching back to having one. I had an iPhone + Linux laptop combination for a while, which makes getting your music on your phone impossible. Now I've switched to a phone with CalyxOS, getting my FLAC & mp3 files on my phone is doable again, so I might not go the route of getting a dedicated mp3 player.

I have two that I use to transfer files from one computer to another. I did think about using one of them for actually listening to music again but the device keeps crashing, the battery doesn't last very long anymore and I lost the software required to convert videos and I think it's too old and obscure to find it again.

I did until I left it out in my car in -30f and the battery stopped working :(

Yes, I still have my Fiio X1. Honestly, I wish I'd bought a few years later, as the UI quality of reasonably priced DAPs went up a lot.

But I love the fact that I can just dump down a copy of all the music I own onto it, and know that it'll just work. Plus the audio quality really is good.

I own a digital audio player (DAP), but it’s not limited to MP3s—I play a lot of Ogg, Opus, & FLAC files too. The device I use offers Bluetooth pairing in both directions as well as being a digital audio converter (DAC) via USB on devices where the built-in DAC is poor quality. I like that don’t have to wear down the battery of my phone for music, & while my phone has SD card support, 3.5 mm headphone jack, & a great quality DAC, there may be a future where these audio requirements are removed from all phones, laptops, & other devices on the market. My biggest issue with the device is being Chinese, they’ve made modifications to the Linux kernel which run on the device but don’t publish these modification which is a violation of GPL-2.0 (other smaller complaints are the UI uses flags for languages, the edges of touch screens do action yet the screens not big enough so if not careful you can exit a scrolling view, & it could definitely be lighter weight).

I still have a Sony Walkman with sensme. I loved being able to set a mood and set it going.

These days you can no longer get sensme in any way, there are no android/ios music players with that functionality and cloud based music services offer a sort of skewed version of it but it isn't really constrained in what music YOU like and tbh most of my local stuff is a mix of game/tv/film music and chip tune stuff which you don't really get on cloud music services anyway.

I really wish there was an android app that did same thing as nothing fills that niche and I've tried making complex playlists etc but it's a massive pita when you have gigs and gigs of music.

I used to use my sister's old ipod touch 4 when my phone had only 64gb of storage. My phone now has 256 + a 128 gb SD card so I can fit all my music library there now

Ehhh, yes and no. I do have a dedicated music player, a fiio. But that's for me kicking back with headphones and sinking into music, which isn't something I often get a chance to do. For more general use, I have my lgg7, which is pretty much on par with the fiio, sound wise, but has gps and whatnot for car travel. Then there's my actual phone that's okay sound wise, but has data and such, which makes it my primary device even for music unless I'm at home.

But, yeah, I had one of the second gen ipods that I carried everywhere for years until it died. When it did, I used one of the whatchamacallits that was popular. Can't pull up the brand name in my head because the teenager is being a twat waffle, but I doubt anyone cares about the brand lol

After that died, I had an lgg3 as my phone and they were decent enough as a music player if you had an extended battery and poweramp.

When I was forced to move over too a 5g phone, I decided "fuck it" and saved up for the fiio since I was tired of being limited to the mid tier phone sound quality PDQ.

im very tempted to, spotify has been kinda shitty lately

That’s why I have an xbox instead of a gaming computer. I like having a device dedicated to video games.