View Full Version : Portable Digital Player alternatives
I currently keep a copy of my iTunes library on two 160gb Classic iPods in my car. These are now full. Before I go and find a third iPod, are there any alternatives that will allow me to keep my full library in the car? ie is there a decent higher capacity player on the market (400gb +) or has anyone successfully added more storage to an iPod Classic? Any thoughts? Thanks John
Sherwood
30-10-2019, 02:04
I thought the iPod was out of production, but in any event, technology has moved on and there are numerous players on the market now with better sound, and much longer battery life.
A good micro sd card like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B07K3DVKLS/ref=psdc_1345826031_t1_B074RNRM2B can give you huge storage for a modest price
Thanks Geoff - any thoughts on what model of media player to put the SD Card into?
Sherwood
30-10-2019, 10:22
Thanks Geoff - any thoughts on what model of media player to put the SD Card into?
What is your budget and how do you plan to use the device?
Ive always hummed and hawed re buying one myself but could never convince myself of how good they are and how flexible etc. also getting them to work with pc's and phones etc..
So much conflicting info
When I go on a long car trip I typically just throw a bunch of albums on a CD in MP3 format which the CDP in the car can read (with metadata displayed on the head unit). Can get about 10 albums on a CD at the highest MP3 res of 320k. Yes yes, lossless may well be better but what with car noise etc MP3 320k is just fine. Blank CDs are about 20p each.
Occasionally I will stream Tidal from my phone to the head unit via an aux cable. I think there is a USB slot on the head unit as well but not bothered so far.
When I go on a long car trip I typically just throw a bunch of albums on a CD in MP3 format which the CDP in the car can read (with metadata displayed on the head unit). Can get about 10 albums on a CD at the highest MP3 res of 320k. Yes yes, lossless may well be better but what with car noise etc MP3 320k is just fine. Blank CDs are about 20p each.
Occasionally I will stream Tidal from my phone to the head unit via an aux cable. I think there is a USB slot on the head unit as well but not bothered so far.
Yup, ive a usb slot in car. I got a big one and filled it with my fav flac to find it didnt read:doh: had to go and convert a few to mp3 for it.
Sound is fine as you say in car.... TBH I mostly bluetooth books from my phone... dunno where i'd be without the mighty Flashman:eyebrows:
Yup, ive a usb slot in car. I got a big one and filled it with my fav flac to find it didnt read:doh: had to go and convert a few to mp3 for it.
Sound is fine as you say in car.... TBH I mostly bluetooth books from my phone... dunno whee i'd be without the mighty Flashman:eyebrows:
The bluetooth in my car can sometimes be a bit wonky hence the aux.
Never got into Harry Flashman but heard it is quite captivating. All derring-do.
The bluetooth in my car can sometimes be a bit wonky hence the aux.
Never got into Harry Flashman but heard it is quite captivating. All derring-do.
Bluetooth in the Toyota is very good I have to say. even in my pocket it works fine with the Sony phone.
Harry Flashman, yes the books are incredibly well written, although you do need a broad mind, and accept that they are written in 19th c style when the taboos of today hadn't been even considered for most part.
Historically they are bang on and you can listen to them round robin for ever as there are about 12.
Hi Geoff, just want to use with MP3s so I can have access to a full copy of my library to listen to in the car. Either use to replicate iTunes or happy to look at another system as all my digital files are on a NAS drive - but I want to fit at least 500gb on the player.
Budget up to £500.
Cheers John
Sherwood
30-10-2019, 12:57
Hi Geoff, just want to use with MP3s so I can have access to a full copy of my library to listen to in the car. Either use to replicate iTunes or happy to look at another system as all my digital files are on a NAS drive - but I want to fit at least 500gb on the player.
Budget up to £500.
Cheers John
To be honest, I would not look to be spending £500 if you are only going to be playing mp3 files in the car. You simply won't hear the benefits of an expensive player capable of playing HD music. Also, I guess portability is not a crucial requirement either. At the budget end you might want to consider an android tablet. These typically have good sized batteries and if the wifi is switched off, can run several days on a single charge. I have an Amazon Fire HD8 tablet and the battery on this lasts for ages. If you want to use HD files over wifi it can deal with those too. Same with Tidal. You can actually download Tidal HD files to the device at home and play them back in the car over BT. Another option is something like the Moto G7 Power phone. I recently acquired one of these because I was fed up with my phone "dying" at the end of each day. The Moto G7 Power will literally run for days providing you are not playing videos over wifi all the time.
Coming to specialist mp3 players, I can recommend the Sony range. I have an earlier model but this model due to be launched soon looks as if it will meet your requirements (long battery life and good quality bluetooth). It will also perform well with good headphones on HD music files. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-NW-A55L-Walkman-Portable-S-Master-Black/dp/B07X3XD1BW/ref=sxbs_sxwds-stvp?keywords=sony+hd+music+player&pd_rd_i=B07X3XD1BW&pd_rd_r=bcfc2361-4103-4244-bc02-d1b5663bb692&pd_rd_w=bEQIH&pd_rd_wg=p3pND&pf_rd_p=7dc56c0d-8a5f-4d97-9143-7233b106859a&pf_rd_r=BECD4T104H297PJVBD4G&qid=1572440056
Sherwood
30-10-2019, 13:06
When I go on a long car trip I typically just throw a bunch of albums on a CD in MP3 format which the CDP in the car can read (with metadata displayed on the head unit). Can get about 10 albums on a CD at the highest MP3 res of 320k. Yes yes, lossless may well be better but what with car noise etc MP3 320k is just fine. Blank CDs are about 20p each.
Occasionally I will stream Tidal from my phone to the head unit via an aux cable. I think there is a USB slot on the head unit as well but not bothered so far.
I used to do the same: back in the last millenium. I was an early adopter and bought a Shuttle External CD burner in 1997. It was SCSI based and I had to buy a SCSI pcmia card adaptor (I still have it somewhere) to run it off my laptop. Burn failures where the norm (at least one in three failed) and the discs deteriorated after a while. I first used the discs with a Sony CD Walkman but then got a car cd player and I thought it was great. Seems prehistoric today!
I used to do the same: back in the last millenium. I was an early adopter and bought a Shuttle External CD burner in 1997. It was SCSI based and I had to buy a SCSI pcmia card adaptor (I still have it somewhere) to run it off my laptop. Burn failures where the norm (at least one in three failed) and the discs deteriorated after a while. I first used the discs with a Sony CD Walkman but then got a car cd player and I thought it was great. Seems prehistoric today!
Ah well Geoff, I'm so old school. :)
To be honest, I would not look to be spending £500 if you are only going to be playing mp3 files in the car. You simply won't hear the benefits of an expensive player capable of playing HD music. Also, I guess portability is not a crucial requirement either. At the budget end you might want to consider an android tablet. These typically have good sized batteries and if the wifi is switched off, can run several days on a single charge. I have an Amazon Fire HD8 tablet and the battery on this lasts for ages. If you want to use HD files over wifi it can deal with those too. Same with Tidal. You can actually download Tidal HD files to the device at home and play them back in the car over BT. Another option is something like the Moto G7 Power phone. I recently acquired one of these because I was fed up with my phone "dying" at the end of each day. The Moto G7 Power will literally run for days providing you are not playing videos over wifi all the time.
Coming to specialist mp3 players, I can recommend the Sony range. I have an earlier model but this model due to be launched soon looks as if it will meet your requirements (long battery life and good quality bluetooth). It will also perform well with good headphones on HD music files. https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sony-NW-A55L-Walkman-Portable-S-Master-Black/dp/B07X3XD1BW/ref=sxbs_sxwds-stvp?keywords=sony+hd+music+player&pd_rd_i=B07X3XD1BW&pd_rd_r=bcfc2361-4103-4244-bc02-d1b5663bb692&pd_rd_w=bEQIH&pd_rd_wg=p3pND&pf_rd_p=7dc56c0d-8a5f-4d97-9143-7233b106859a&pf_rd_r=BECD4T104H297PJVBD4G&qid=1572440056
was looking at that one myself actually. Looks to be all you need
Thanks Geoff - looks like a Walkman with a large capacity SD card is the way to go. Cheers John
dave2010
31-10-2019, 05:31
Over the last year I've had a bunch of hire cars. I noticed that many have a USB port, so I filled up a cheap memory stick with some mp3s, and tried that. In most new cars that works, though the interface is usually pretty crude - depends on the car. Not ideal, but it means I can move it between cars. The only slight snag is remembering to take it out of any hire car when the car is returned. So far I've managed.
Other people use their phones plus Bluetooth - which I don't think works on some older cars - even ones with Bluetooth (if the version of Bluetooth doesn't support audio from external devices).
Like a couple of others here, I have in the past burnt mp3s to disc, and kept those in our cars. As mentioned this allows the equivalent of several CDs to be stored on one disc. I think I usually managed to get about 5 CDs on one blank disc.
Mostly in the last few years I have bought CDs from charity shops, and been happy to use those in our cars - though obviously bulkier than having everything on a single device or disc. It's not such a good approach for hire cars.
I do have a Classic iPod, which hardly ever gets used. Partly the reason for that is that when I got it I foolishly connected it to a Windows PC, so it was formatted for Windows - and in the early days of iPods that restricted what it could be connected to. However, it has been used on some holidays in the last few years, as one of the people we go with has a portable system which can work with these devices if we load it up with music we want beforehand. I think most people who aren't antediluvian like me just use their smartphones these days.
We had a few older iPods, some of which didn't work too well. Ms D wanted one for her car, so we gave those to her. However the devices continued to be problematic so she eventually bought an iPod Touch specifically for use in her car about a year ago, and seems happy with that. She does a lot of travelling. I'm not sure if her recently purchased smartphone has now replaced the Touch. Perhaps not, as the car is old enough that I think it needs a wired connection to the audio system.
I use an old Motorola Moto X Play ( built for music and games, hence the 'Play') smartphone with 128gb mSD card in it. It's all you need. Not tried it with a larger mSD card but might work fine.
Excellent audio quality, better than my iPad, my Fiio DAP and iPod that I've used.
Great battery life too. Pick one up for peanuts
Motorola Moto X Play https://g.co/kgs/WwRsS8
dave2010
31-10-2019, 05:54
Great battery life too. Pick one up for peanuts
Motorola Moto X Play https://g.co/kgs/WwRsS8Your peanuts are expensive!
Your peanuts are expensive!£40-50 second hand for a Smartphone, compared to some of the latest smartphones at £700-800 I don't it's too bad.
And way way under the OPs budget of £500
The link was just to show the phone [emoji6]
dave2010
31-10-2019, 06:17
£40-50 second hand for a Smartphone, compared to some of the latest smartphones at £700-800 I don't it's too bad.
And way way under the OPs budget of £500
The link was just to show the phone [emoji6]OK - though does one really get the benefit of the quality you mention in a car environment? I suppose it doesn't have to be only used in a car. Perhaps many of us just use gadgets we've already bought and maybe put in drawers to gather dust, as technology moves on.
One snag with smartphones is the need to keep charging them. Some last a while now, but my Sony (which I hardly use) runs down in a day usually. I have thought about buying a second hand iPhone just for use as a camera. There are some quite decent smartphones for around £300 - and indeed the Moto phones which you linked to are relatively cheap even new - if you happen to want one.
OK - though does one really get the benefit of the quality you mention in a car environment? I suppose it doesn't have to be only used in a car. Perhaps many of us just use gadgets we've already bought and maybe put in drawers to gather dust, as technology moves on.
One snag with smartphones is the need to keep charging them. Some last a while now, but my Sony (which I hardly use) runs down in a day usually.
Battery on the Moto X ( if used as a music player ) wil outlast most DAPs on the market bar Sony.
Sound quality is excellent too, read my post to see what I've compared it to [emoji6]
Only drawback might be memory capacity of mSD card as I only tried it up to 128gb so unsure if could use anything larger.
To be honest if I was thinking of getting all my music into the car it would be via a portable USB drive into my car stereo via USB ( if available ) and power it with a USB hub if necessary.
Edit: battery usage in the car isn't a problem as it can be kept in charge the whole time via USB if power output is there.
dave2010
31-10-2019, 06:33
Battery on the Moto X ( if used as a music player ) wil outlast most DAPs on the market bar Sony.
Sound quality is excellent too, read my post to see what I've compared it to [emoji6]
If I were in the market for a new smartphone I'd certainly consider that one - which has been pointed out to me by several people. It was one which I mentioned to Ms D when she wanted a new one, but she found something more expensive which apparently does everything required, yet is considerably cheaper than the Apple and Samsung top end models.
If I were in the market for a new smartphone I'd certainly consider that one - which has been pointed out to me by several people. It was one which I mentioned to Ms D when she wanted a new one, but she found something more expensive which apparently does everything required, yet is considerably cheaper than the Apple and Samsung top end models.Perfect choice by your wife, I tend to stay away from the mainstream phones too although this time I'm using a Google Pixel 2XL but only because I wanted the camera and Google support with Android.
Thing is I wouldn't choose the Moto X as a phone in today's market as it is a a bit outdated, I was only recommending it as a DAP, however saying that my granddaughter is currently using it as her Samsung S8 is dead and I've heard no complaints
dave2010
31-10-2019, 06:48
Perfect choice by your wife, I tend to stay away from the mainstream phones too although this time I'm using a Google Pixel 2XL but only because I wanted the camera and Google support with Android.
Not actually my wife! Younger than I am by quite a long way, but related!
I think the phone she bought was actually a Galaxy A70 - looks good to me.
I'm afraid the mobile phone I use most (if at all) is this one - https://smile.amazon.co.uk/Sony-Ericsson-W810i-Black-Megapixel/dp/B000GE2NMS/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=sony+ericsson+810i&qid=1572504804&sr=8-1
I'm amazed it's still nearly £80 at Amazon. When I bought it that was state of the art - now it's state of the ark!
Not actually my wife! Younger than I am by quite a long way, but related!Oops I read it as Mrs sorry
dave2010
31-10-2019, 07:09
Oops I read it as Mrs sorryNo probs!
Sherwood
31-10-2019, 09:40
My sim free Moto G7 Power cost me £159 from John Lewis (with 2yr warranty included). I have been delighted with the results. It typically lasts for 4 to 5 days on a single charge. Admittedly this is with light use, but includes wifi on around the house. No regrets about "downgrading" from earlier android phones.
Nice to see I'm not the only one who likes Motorola phones. Great Android phones with minimal bloatware, and very affordable.
Nice to see I'm not the only one who likes Motorola phones. Great Android phones with minimal bloatware, and very affordable.
still got an old razr of theres. still works too tho not been used for years. use a sony phone now
I use a usb stick in the car which plays through the car stereo with the album, artist and track showing.
You won't be able to find a 500 gig usb and a car system wouldn't be able to cope with the data.
It depends what stereo and sockets you have available as to what might work.
I converted my IPod classic to memory cards as it had a problem with the hard drive. It can go utpo 1TB
https://www.iflash.xyz/ipod-and-sdhc-sdxc-cards/
Thanks Dave, this is what I would like to attempt. Did you convert it yourself and if so any recommendations/tips etc? Cheers John
Yes did it myself. Just watched a video on how to open up the ipod and it was just plug and play from there.
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