Portable music player

[bingefeller]

What are some alternatives to the ipod that are £500 or less? I would like something that can play wav and / or flac files. Playing games or watching vidoes is not important and having Wi-fi connection isn’t important either.

As long as I can transfer my m4a files from iTunes (although I will probably need to convert to play them on a third party player).

 

[Roadstar]

As long as I can transfer my m4a files from iTunes (although I will probably need to convert to play them on a third party player).

Unencrypted m4a files should play on anything that even remotely resembles a modern player. It’s not a proprietary format and as Apple dropped their iTunes DRM years ago, too many protected m4p versions shouldn’t hopefully remain thanks to Apple’s conversion offer that also doubled the bitrate.

 

[pika2000]

What are some alternatives to the ipod that are £500 or less? I would like something that can play wav and / or flac files. Playing games or watching vidoes is not important and having Wi-fi connection isn’t important either.

As long as I can transfer my m4a files from iTunes (although I will probably need to convert to play them on a third party player).

Simply find an Android phone with an SD card slot that supports large capacity SD cards (most cheap Android phones only supports up to 32GB SD since anything higher requires some royalty to Microsoft). If you don't need anything larger, there are so many more options on the market. And you don't need 500 pounds. The cheap Xiaomi Redmi 6A already supports up to 256GB SD.

WAV, FLAC, and non-DRM m4a all should be playable on Android. For the app, I myself use Rocket Player.

 

[Klyster]

Sony's Walkman NW-ZX300 looks like it ticks all the boxes.

 

[bingefeller]

With regards to non-DRM m4a files - any m4a files I have are from my own CDs that I've ripped, am I correct in saying those won't be DRM protected?

Simply find an Android phone with an SD card slot that supports large capacity SD cards (most cheap Android phones only supports up to 32GB SD since anything higher requires some royalty to Microsoft). If you don't need anything larger, there are so many more options on the market. And you don't need 500 pounds. The cheap Xiaomi Redmi 6A already supports up to 256GB SD.

WAV, FLAC, and non-DRM m4a all should be playable on Android. For the app, I myself use Rocket Player.

How is the battery life on using an Android just for music?

Sony's Walkman NW-ZX300 looks like it ticks all the boxes.

I had no idea Sony still made the "Walkman" line! That takes me back... I will have a look into some of those models, read reviews and so on.

 

[max.ine]

+1 to the Walkman line. Sony still does a great job with those things.

 

[Oohara]

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/ is full of well written and informed reviews of music listening gear, including digital music players. Just be careful going there if you have a thing for ultra high quality but also price music gear...you have been warned...

Haven't used it myself but at $70 this recently released player seems to be quite a steal: https://www.fiio.com/m3k

 

[max.ine]

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/ is full of well written and informed reviews of music listening gear, including digital music players. Just be careful going there if you have a thing for ultra high quality but also price music gear...you have been warned...

Haven't used it myself but at $70 this recently released player seems to be quite a steal: https://www.fiio.com/m3k

Never heard of that Fiio line. Looks perfect for me, especially since I prefer lossless music and often find myself in need of a mic. Might consider buying one myself...

 

[bingefeller]

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/ is full of well written and informed reviews of music listening gear, including digital music players. Just be careful going there if you have a thing for ultra high quality but also price music gear...you have been warned...

Haven't used it myself but at $70 this recently released player seems to be quite a steal: https://www.fiio.com/m3k

that does look good....

 

[pika2000]

How is the battery life on using an Android just for music?

Put the phone into airplane mode and disable wifi, and that would be what it's like.
From my experience, phones in this mode (with unneeded apps disabled) can easily last 2 to 3 days on a single charge.

 

[Breaking Good]

How is the battery life on using an Android just for music?

I'm not an expert on this, but I imagine that the difference between a smartphone and music player is that a smartphone will go into standby mode when not in use and a music player will just turn off.

If you put the phone into Airplane mode you should be able to get five days on a charge in standby. The thing would probably give you ten hours of continuous music playback.

 

[pika2000]

I'm not an expert on this, but I imagine that the difference between a smartphone and music player is that a smartphone will go into standby mode when not in use and a music player will just turn off.

If you put the phone into Airplane mode you should be able to get five days on a charge in standby. The thing would probably give you ten hours of continuous music playback.

5 days is a stretch. For some reason, Android just don’t have good standby battery life, so the battery is still depleting on standby. 2 to 3 days for sure, but 5 days is tough unless you have a phone with huge battery.

 

[Oohara]

I'm not an expert on this, but I imagine that the difference between a smartphone and music player is that a smartphone will go into standby mode when not in use and a music player will just turn off.

If you put the phone into Airplane mode you should be able to get five days on a charge in standby. The thing would probably give you ten hours of continuous music playback.

Yeah battery life definitely is one of the big advantages of using a standalone music player. From a review of the Fiio M3K player I mentioned above: "Its battery life is excellent; Fiio claims up to 26 hours of playback and 38 days of standby and we believe it, since we were able to go through the entirety of our testing over two weeks on a single charge."

Another advantage for me as an iPhone user is that I don't risk forgetting to bring my headphone dongle and not being able to listen to any music at all, or in any case not being able to listen to music while charging the phone...

 

[Klyster]

Put the phone into airplane mode and disable wifi, and that would be what it's like.
From my experience, phones in this mode (with unneeded apps disabled) can easily last 2 to 3 days on a single charge.

I get nine on the note 9
I'm sure using it would diminish that number though.