Recommendations please for an MP3 player which will largely be used for road cycling (can be so boring without one), and some driving also. Before you all start about the dangers of listening to music while cycling etc, I'm mostly on the backroads away from traffic and away from too many other cars for a large part of the time.
Looking to replace my Fii0 X5 MP3 player (was lost or stolen on my last trip away recently, not sure which).
It was pretty good for most of my needs and ticked the boxes for riding as it had an old ipod style dial instead of being touch screen. The new version seems to be full touchscreen which is possibly a concern. But looking to stay around that 200 - 300 quid mark.
Not a fan of using a smartphone as a sole source of music, as it drains the battery along with other reasons - if anyone is thinking I should just spotify. 😉
Cheers!
That’s a lot of money for an MP3 player!
A lot of them are touchscreen - I’ve just gone from a gen6 iPod nano to a gen7 one to get Bluetooth for my headphones. Does the job and is pretty small / slim and works with my iTunes library.
Doesn’t work with Apple Music though without converting files.
That’s a lot of money for an MP3 player!
Actually, it's towards the modest / budget end of things, believe it or not! You can quite easily go into four figures.
Never been a fan of Apple! Had their ipods before.
Got to be a smart watch these days surely?
Apple Watch would be my choice paired with an iPhone but if you’re anti apple then there’s plenty of options which work well.
If you're happy with a standalone MP3 player, I'd take a look at Cowon. Their range isn't as large as it used to be, but they've always had great sound quality and ridiculous battery life (c90hrs from a charge for the M2).
The UI is... unique... but you get the hang of it pretty quickly. Given the expandability, size, battery life and sound quality, I've struggled to find anything to replace mine.
What do you get from a £300 MP3 player that you don’t get from a £50 one?
Sansa clip was great when I used such a thing.
FiiO X3 here, although it's a few years old now so there may be updated versions.
££ gets you better quality, as always. FiiO X3 will play uncompressed FLAC files, so not MP3 level but CD-quality music.
Sansa clip + wired afterzhokz is best I've found
If you’re cycling then you’ll have background wind noise so you could probably get away with a cassette player and not notice too much.....😝
Any reason not to just use a phone?
Any reason not to just use a phone?
Battery life mainly. Sound quality if you're bothered about that sort of thing. And possibly capacity.
I have a Filo X3 with a Filo A3 headphone amp for road bike and car duties
So much better sound quality than a normal mp3 player especially if you have flac files rather than mp3 files and the headphone amp does wonders to the car stereo
If you liked your X5 so much why not buy another 2nd gen non touch screen one?
I'm sure there are some 2nd gen ones out there brand new or a good condition 2nd hand one of eBay
How about a 2nd phone? Rather than an mp3 player?
Actually, it’s towards the modest / budget end of things, believe it or not!
No, I don't think you'll find it is.
You can't beat a Ipod Nano 6th gen. Lightest, smallest 16GB player out there. Apple Mp3 players are the best and have never let me down, but then I've never paid anywhere near £300 for one, so more fool me eh.
So...
I don't like the idea of just using my phone for music as sometimes I'd be on a 10 or 12 or 14 hour training spin, maybe a bit more. And I don't like the idea of maybe draining my phone battery, if I was to end up needing my phone in an emergency.
I've looked briefly online for a replacement X5 2nd gen and haven't seen any on eBay or Amazon or anything! I don't want to be waiting around long as training has started.
There was a brand mentioned by someone I hadn't heard of before, with really long battery life. I'll have to look into that thanks! And the idea of getting an amp has also sparked a thought, hadn't considered that before.
And regards the comment of what you get in a 300 quid mp3 player that you don't get in a 50 quid one, comparing a 900 pound mountain bike to a 150 pound one isn't a bad place to start 😉 .
You can’t beat a Ipod Nano 6th gen. Lightest, smallest 16GB player out there. Apple Mp3 players are the best
I'm no fan of Apple, 16GB isn't near enough, and MP3 is compressed, so nowhere near as good as FLAC. Apart from that, I agree with everything you said...
Phone and a £10 USB battery the same size as a packet of polos.
Sony Walkman NW-WS625. It is all built into the headphones, so no need for any separate device or cables, and is all waterproof. Does mean no screen, so can be a bit fiddly if you want to find a particular album or song etc. But the interface makes sense once you figure it out.
Ive had some Sony Walkman NW-WS625 built in headphones, poor sound quality compared to a proper Flac player, small storage size, if anything goes wrong with the ear bud part then they are scrap (Ive had two pairs die before)
The op wants a proper Flac player for use on the bike and in the car, Flac files are uncompressed music files (Free Lossless Audio Codec) Basically CD quality, unlike mp3 files which are compressed to make the file smaller and the only way to make the file smaller is to remove some of the content
Average mp3 file is 3.5mb
Average Flac file is 60mb
So if the Sony NW-WS625 could play Flac files (it cant) then its 16gb memory would only hold 266 Flac files where as a Flac player with 256GB can hold 4200 Flac files
OP here is a Gen1 X5 brand new for £145
There's very little point in spending more then £100 on an MP3 player, unless you're an audiophile and also spending more than £200 on some headphones to listen to the quality.
The features idea for exercise would be:
Small, easy to use physical buttons, good IP rating, good battery life. One of the biggest effects on sound will be the cable rubbing, get some wireless earphones.
The SanDisk Clip Sport with some Nuforce Be sport4 Bluetooth earphones would be ideal.
£44 for the player, and ~£80 for the earphones.
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“the only way to make the file smaller is to remove some of the content”
Not true at all. Lossless MP3 is lossless. The file is smaller but the contents are identical just using maths to reduce size. Lossy MP3 is bad news but avoiding compression is ridiculous. If anything lossless MP3 is superior since it will use less storage and power and is less likely to judder due to storage bandwidth.
Not heard of Lossless mp3, had a quick google search and couldn't find much apart from a few people saying it dosent exist
Any links to lossless mp3 so i can learn more?
I rode with a bloke that spent about £3000 on a needle for his record player. His entire collection was worth tens of thousands. This is probably 10 years ago before it became trendy. He swore the quality was far superior. He got annoyed with me when I said I really couldn't tell the difference.
When cycling the sound should be pretty low so you can still hear cars. If you are playing that loudly that you can tell the difference in sound quality then it's too loud and you are risking your life for music.
Lossless and FLAC for listening on the bike? hahahahaha! Marvellous. This place sometimes is so entertaining.
It's not just for riding. See first post.
Yeah, how's the acoustics in your car then?
Sandisk Clip for the bike and car is more than enough, my ancient iRiver is wasted on the car thanks to the constant rumble and bangs of UK driving today.
Just bought a Fiio M6, with a microsd card in it with 100gb of FLAC files on there.
Its a HiRes DAP but can use some streaming apps including Tidal/Spotify etc.
It uses Android and has wifi and bluetooth and I also have it running spotify and TuneIn (wifi radio). It can store spotify playlists and play them offline.
Early impressions - Sound quality is excellent through my bluetooth headphones (cheap taotronics and more expensive sennheiser). If you have expensive sony earphones it'll output LDAC as well as aptx variants. Screen is good and bright - whole player is size of a very small mobile phone. Only drawback so far is battery life a bit dissappointing - I suspect thats cos I've so far used it mostly on WIFI as spotify player with screen on, I reckon when screen is off and wifi switched off then battery life will be better although I dont think it will reach manufactures claimed 13hrs.
it does other DAC/USB/Bluetooth/DLNA/Airplay things I will never use
£135 - I got mine from AdvancedMp3Players
I used to run a Sansa clip and a Rio Forge back in the day..