 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I don't know any modern device that requires active synching to move media, apart from Apple products.
These days phones, and their attendant expansion SD cards, usually allow for direct dragging-n-dropping (provided you have the proper drivers installed).
Most phones made in the past year or two have expansion slots that will take up to 64g sd cards. Even in the past three years, the slot will take up to 32g cards.
I think the cheapest/easiest solution for a high capacity player nowadays is to find a big, fat android device, buy it used or refurbished, and put as big a card in it as possible. for less than $300 you could have a player with up to 96g of memory- enough for 1000 ripped CDs.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well for example the Galaxy Nexus and the Nexus 5 do not allow for expansion with micro SD cards. Plus I don't want to use them as mp3 players because I like to save battery by having something else that I can carry around.
I could always drag and drop the music to the SD card true, but once you install it on this phone you have to open it up and remove the battery to get the card out so I would rather use a sync program. Plus I find it is usually easier to use a sync program to select what you want now that I have gotten used to them. That is I did until I realized that this sync program has some serious problems. It would be much easier if it let me use the Zune software instead.
Still I did manage to copy over around 10,000 songs give or take yesterday and so I should have plenty to listen to on this little phone now. I'll post more how it seems to be going once I try to go back and remove some things or add new things.
Is there not a third-party player for Windows phones?
Android offers a plethora of players. I'm partial to Winamp for music and VLC (finally avail on Android) for video. Even if this software hasn't been ported to Windows phone, there has to be something else out there.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
That is a great use for a cheap phone. I always keep my old phones to use as MP3 players if I can't get any money for them (my HTC One V was great for this). Now that the unlocked Fire Phone has been marked down to $200 I've considered buying it for a backup phone/MP3 player (doesn't have expandable memory though, but I can always stream my entire CD collection through Plex). One year of Prime included brings the cost down to $100 for the phone.
I just replaced the spinning laptop drive in my Creative Jukebox 3 with a 128g CF card using a little drive adapter card.
I like this player, but it is 14 yrs old and the synch/transfer software is only just barely working on Win 8 in Win XP emulation mode (it actually transferred 190,000 tracks (980CDs, ~62gb ) without skipping a beat. It took 40 hrs, but still...).
Of course, as soon as I spent the money to make this hardware change, Sony announced their $300 player. It was a calculated risk, I know- I could/would still use the CF card somewhere else eventually, but I prefer not to cast around from one temporary solution to another.
You could still work an android-phone-as-player for slightly less money than the Sony player, but sometimes it's worth it to spend the money on the right tool for the job.
I'm surprised someone like Sandisk (or maybe more likely a third-party) has not made a player that lets you bring your own memory: A player with no memory on board and just lets you plug in as big a card as you care to buy. And with a removable battery- when the battery on a Sansa player craps out, you are pretty much relegated to buying a new player
So: a player with no memory on board, removable battery and in three flavors- SD, micro SD, CF. Anybody?
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I found a solution to my high-capacity player blues.
A new segment of the music player market is for Hi-Fi, high-resolution players. Sony has a couple of very pricy models and Neil Young fronts for the Pono player. These play everything from mp3 to DSD files The upshot is they have and/or hold a lot of memory.
Fiio is a Chinese company that makes usb headphone amps and high-resolution players. They do not have any memory on-board. You add a micro-sd chip that best suits your needs and budget.
I bought the X1 for $100. It holds all my music, outputs headphone- & line- level audio, and plays an album then stops. Everything I was looking for in a player.
Two drawbacks-
-you cannot search alphabetically (I have to scroll through 900+ folders to find an album)
-the internal rechargeable battery does not seem to be easily serviceable.
Still, it's my new favorite gadget.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I found a solution to my high-capacity player blues.
A new segment of the music player market is for Hi-Fi, high-resolution players. Sony has a couple of very pricy models and Neil Young fronts for the Pono player. These play everything from mp3 to DSD files The upshot is they have and/or hold a lot of memory.
Fiio is a Chinese company that makes usb headphone amps and high-resolution players. They do not have any memory on-board. You add a micro-sd chip that best suits your needs and budget.
I bought the X1 for $100. It holds all my music, outputs headphone- & line- level audio, and plays an album then stops. Everything I was looking for in a player.
Two drawbacks-
-you cannot search alphabetically (I have to scroll through 900+ folders to find an album)
-the internal rechargeable battery does not seem to be easily serviceable.
Still, it's my new favorite gadget.
Using the X5 myself with x2 128GB cards. Blown away by the volume and amount I can now fit on the go, compared to my old iPod Touch. Yes they still have some tweaks to make for a better experience (i.e. multi discs in album mode) but the upside is they do listen to customer requests and integrate when they can (normally every 1-2 months).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
Posted: |
Jan 16, 2021 - 1:40 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Rameau
(Member)
|
I've been using my old iPod classic 80gb for around 15 years, & it still works fine, I use it mostly at home. When out I have a tiny 16gb SanDisc player, about the size of a badge, it has about 30-40 albums (FLAC), tons of volume & the battery last ages. If you look for mp3 players on Amazon & eBay, it's surprising how cheap they are now (I have a few odd designed players in a draw that I bought cheap out of curiosity). I notice that the expensive music players mostly don't have any memory, you have to buy a micro sd card, but they do support a huge memory, I see you can buy a 1 tb card now (thousands of CDs on a card the third of a size of a stamp!).
|
|
|
|
|
|
On the go, I'm always using whatever smart phone I'm using as portable music player, currently a Samsung Galaxy S20+ 5G with an added 512GB storage card, in combination with headphones (usually the Sony WH-1000XM3... I really came to appreciate the active noise cancelling). I use locally stored music, or currently Tidal.
I never used a separate music player, like MP3 players or iPods. I prefer to just carry one device, and I got my phone always with me.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Posted: |
Jan 16, 2021 - 5:28 AM
|
|
|
|
By: |
Rameau
(Member)
|
I hardly ever have my phone with me, & then it's just a phone, it's not on the internet or anything, & I hardly get any calls anyway, it's mostly texts. I know that's probably unusual these days. My nephew's whole life in on his phone, & I'm sure that's the norm.
Just to think of the "old days". I'd be walking around with my Sony Walkman, listening to a cassette, with maybe another one in my pocket, thinking, wow, I have all this music with me 
|
|
|
|
|
|
I use my phone as an "all in one device"; not just calls or texts; nowadays, I can even pay most places with my phone, open the doors to our house or garage, visit FSM (like right now)... it's my alarm and navigational device on business trips, my notebook, calendar... and portable music player.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Using the X5 myself with x2 128GB cards. Blown away by the volume and amount I can now fit on the go, compared to my old iPod Touch. Yes they still have some tweaks to make for a better experience (i.e. multi discs in album mode) but the upside is they do listen to customer requests and integrate when they can (normally every 1-2 months).
After about 2 years or so of using the Fiio X1 I also upgraded to the X5. I keep all my soundtracks on one card, and everything else neatly categorized on the 2nd card.
Both players take 250GB cards, though it's not in the written spec.
Both the X1 and X5 can do a search for the first letter of an album title, though I still have to scroll through a lot of 'The...' titles...
Fiio was well through the 2nd generation of their players by the time I got my X1, and in 2021 it's 4th and 5th gen models. For my money, the X5 sounds great and is a tough little player.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
