[trencedamp]

That would be "some sort of enthusiast audiophile flac player thing that costs way too much"

The entry level Walkman is $400 and only has 32gb internal storage. It's all about flac and hires audio but you're paying through the nose for the brand

[SpecialistK]

They had models like the A55L (https://www.whathifi.com/reviews/sony-nw-a55l) which were more affordable, but the venn diagram of "cheap" and "niche audiophile gear" is two separate circles. Those who want nostalgia get iPods and mod them with SD cards and new batteries. Those who want Android and a headphone jack have older used phones or new budget ones (Moto g Power 2024 is US$129) and the market for cheap "nuggets" is not wide enough nor would there be enough margin to justify continued production.

That product category simply isn't worthwhile for big brands anymore.

[phire]

I guess there just is no room in the current market for a mid-ranged product.

The segment is being squeezed on at least five sides (probably more):

- Cheap low-end no-name players;

- Audiophile products like the Sony walkman stuff;

- People who are happy using their phones;

- (for the exercise "phone too heavy" use case) A smart watch, paired to bluetooth headphones;

- Second hand iPods from the 2000s, often refurbished and/or modded;

Maybe one of the low-end no-name players meets your needs... But how could you find it wading through the crap?

[tgv]

I had an ipod, but the battery is dead, and it still had a rotating hd, so I thought: I liked Sony Discman, back in the day, this new player must be good. I was wrong. It sucks in many different ways. I've described some of the problems before and copied them here:

My iPod Classic was in a terminal phase, and since I like to carry my music around instead of streaming arbitrary stuff, I bought a Sony Walkman mp3 (+ other formats) player. It's bad. It takes a long time to boot, the battery life is mediocre, the UI is mainly lists of things, searching always misses tracks or albums, the volume defaults to a pretty low level, and when you increase it, it interrupts you asking if you're sure.

And when I started copying my itunes collection to the "walkman" (it is branded Walkman, but not worthy of the name), it would constantly stop copying. The included software was useless, and wouldn't copy a single track, giving up after 5 to 10 minutes of scanning. I had to write a Python script to overcome problems with long directory and file names and copy them to the proper directory.

Worst of all: there's a very loud click when you stop a track (using wired headphones). It's as if they never even used it.

[jazzyjackson]

Refurbished iPod is the way try go, I have a 2006 model with new battery and 128GB flash memory, it’s great for leaving plugged in in the car

[Melatonic]

Probably have the same model - what battery did you use ?

[phire]

There are so many 3rd party parts available for iPods.

Pry it open, replace the battery, swap the HDD for something like the iFlash.

[ChoGGi]

Are they useable on Windows for loading music?

[ndiddy]

You can use iTunes on Windows to load music on the stock firmware. If you load Rockbox onto it, it works like a standard MP3 player where all the organization is done at the filesystem level. Note that I don't really see a point in buying an iPod to load Rockbox onto because you can get lots of other standard MP3 players that aren't well over a decade old, such as the Hifi Walker H2. That also gets you other modern features like bluetooth audio, expandable storage, and USB-C charging. It really only makes sense to get an iPod if you use iTunes to manage your music.

If you're running the stock firmware, one other thing to keep in mind regarding storage mods is that the main limiting factor for how much music you can keep on an iPod is the number of songs, not the amount of storage you can cram into it. One optimization Apple used on the iPods was to keep the entire music database in RAM. This made the player a lot more responsive and more battery efficient, since you could browse through your library without needing to spin up or seek the hard drive. However, it also means that having too many songs will make the iPod unstable because it'll keep running out of RAM and crashing. The limit is around 20,000 songs on the 5th gen and 45,000 songs on the 6th/7th gens. This means that it's not really worth putting a crazy amount of storage in your iPod unless your library is all lossless.

[trencedamp]

> You can use iTunes on Windows to load music

Yuck

[SpecialistK]

I just thought that maybe this is something for a personal Pi 0 project. DAC + microSD card + off the shelf display + 3D printed case + battery.

[phire]

Or even the Pi Pico.

You really don't need that much processing power to decode mp3s and FLACs.

[SpecialistK]

I was looking at the Pico first when writing that, but you would need a SD card header. Small issue - I use one for my Dreamcast controller Maple>USB bus.

[phire]

You already need to add a decent quality DAC/Amp, might as well add a SD card slot at the same time.

On top of the lower power consumption, another advantage of the pico is that you can actually buy the raw RP2040 or RP2350 chips (for roughly $1) and make your own custom PCB.

[SpecialistK]

I was investigating this further and found Tangara (https://cooltech.zone/tangara/)

You may need to build it yourself, but it looks like everything a HN-using MP3-buyer would want.

[ndiddy]

In 2005 the iPod with 30 GB of storage was $299 ($511 in today's dollars) so the entry level Walkman is actually fairly comparable to Apple's pricing from back then. You can use some of the $100 you're saving to buy a 256 GB MicroSD card to load more music onto.

[NewsaHackO]

You have to apply equal opportunity inflation. The worth of 30gb portable memory in 2005 is not the same as the worth of 30gb in 2026. During that time, when I was in school, I remember my dad getting antsy about lending me his 64mb flash drive for school presentation because he paid $60 for it.

[trencedamp]

The 2005 iPod was state of the art and you couldn't buy a memory card for it. 300 for something with 30gb storage today is a joke