Topic: Need recomendations on a good portable music player

[OldNeumanntapr]

I bought the Sony Walkman from Crutchfield and it's working out pretty well so far. I have to have the date of a show at the start of the album box tag, otherwise it alphabetizes the venues. My iPod didn't do that and would read the date tags from xACT. The Sony lists the xACT date tags as 'year released' under aditional info, and only lists the year, not the complete date.
 
Sound quality is on a par with the iPod Classic and not as good as the Fiio X3 but hoipefully the Sony has better longevity. My Fiio died not quite two years after I bought it.

Thanks to everyone for their input.

ONT-

[rocksuitcase]

I also find the folder/file structure on the Walkman to be a bit lacking. I have figured out how to get photos on it for each "album. I use foobar tagging which gets picked up relatively well, but "Album" gets filled in as:< yyyy-mm-dd Venue Name City Name State >

I think the sound quality is much better than my Subaru mp3 only stereo  so no other player to compare with.

Downside is the proprietary Sony connector to USB cable

[Dan33185]

You might want to consider a cheap android phone (without cell service) with a micro sd card slot. The phone will have bluetooth and wifi for uses in other cars or at home and a lot of the new phones can take 256, 512 or 1TB cards.
Xiaomi makes great phones with good specs for cheap.

For example
https://www.amazon.com/Xiaomi-Redmi-9A-Display-Unlocked/dp/B08CH6X6M5/ref=sr_1_17?crid=9CDZ7QG4G3QV&keywords=xaomi%CC%87&qid=1641847284&refinements=p_n_feature_twenty-one_browse-bin%3A21596696011%2Cp_89%3AXiaomi&rnid=2528832011&s=wireless&sprefix=xao%2Caps%2C1005&sr=1-17

That's what I do, I just buy one of those Boost Mobile type phones and never activate it, and add a 128 GB Micro SD card. All total, I paid like 55 bucks (40 bucks for the phone, 15 for the card).

[robeti]

Exactly.

I installed Foobar2000 on my samsung a71 phone.
Plays FLAC 24/48 files gapless playback.

Works perfect

[jlykos]

Shanling M0. Does it all in a tiny player for $100. Great audio quality!

[robeti]

I've bought a fiio m17.
Not cheap, but very beautiful gear!

[jbell]

Does it have a digital out?? 

I've bought a fiio m17.
Not cheap, but very beautiful gear!

[robeti]

yes.
SPDIF digital output

Does it have a digital out?? 

I've bought a fiio m17.
Not cheap, but very beautiful gear!

[Chilly Brioschi]

If you can find one, the Japan Onkyo DP-X1 is a bargain.
It's well made & sounds great:

https://www.intl.onkyo.com/products/portable_audios/digital_audio_players/dp-x1a/index.html