The problem is music streaming is so overwhelming better than managing music files that there’s no way 99.9% of the population is going back. I used to be a music library guy, those files have been gathering dust on an old HDD for years now.
I think it overwhelmingly feeds into FOMO, but otherwise most people would be much better off with personal music collections.
I pretty much grew up streaming music on YouTube, Pandora, and Spotify. About 4 years ago I decided to drop Spotify cold turkey, and have been building a music collection since. I have already spent less on music than I would have in the same period on a Spotify subscription on a collection of music I love enough to have specifically purchased. I will also never have this music taken away from me, unlike music on Spotify which may be removed against my will.
By the sound of it you’re a little younger than me. I grew up managing my music collection and growing it as you describe. It was a lot of fun. But it took time in my day that I no longer have between kids and work and whatnot. Finding and listening to good music is still something I enjoy but I don’t have all day to be preoccupied with it, manage metadata, set up a home server to stream it, etc. Spotify is a rounding error in terms of cost for me.
So the decision for me is not between “stream” or “have a personal collection”, it’s “stream” or “don’t have as much music in my life”. I suspect this calculation is similar for most
"Stream, but download your songs if you want" would be the ideal world, but alas, a LOT would need to change for it to happen. Meanwhile we can be happy with
"Pay us rent to hear the songs on our library, but only what the labels allow us to show in your country, which can and will change frequently. Also don't look for anything slightly exotic because it isn't there. Oh, don't be sad... here, have tons of covers by unknown and mediocre artists we used to pad out collection with."
It’s easier, but is it better? At what, exactly? For the past few decades people enjoyed collecting music, but it turns out that once you remove all friction of acquiring music, it no longer feels like collecting anything.
My physical music library is neatly organized and carefully picked. Meanwhile my streaming “library” is a mess. It’s made up from random bits and pieces of music that I liked at some point and absentmindedly clicked to add. It feels like we’ve optimized this problem to a point where it’s no longer really fun.
This is precisely why vinyl has seen and resurgence. Some folks like tangible collectibles. I did this once too, I called it hoarding because I refused to ever get rid of anything. It was a history of my past in a way. It took me longer than most, but nowadays streaming solves everything I need it too. I’m solidly in that majority that will never go back. It’s entirely subjective as to whether you prefer it or not as an individual but I think it’s pretty objective that’s now going to be the way most people interact with music going forward.
I actually dont think people enjoyed it a bunch back then. We just had more time to fill (without constant distractions of computers in our pockets) and we grew up conditioned to consume that way. Even though I stream now, I can’t stand shuffle modes. I like to listen to albums. It’s just how I was raised I guess. I don’t think it’s as prevalent amongst younger people theses days and I am only in my 40s! But I’m also at a point in life where my physical hoarding stopped 20 years ago my digital hoarding about 7-8 years ago.
Easier and better. I find new music I enjoy more readily than I ever did with radio + CDs, including obscure artists. As a bonus, it’s cheaper than buying albums where I may only like one or two songs, no ads, no physical storage space required, no CD swapping in the car, easy to create playlists at any time, including playlists defined based on metadata. The list goes on.
My niece and I were talking about this. She's older and has heard all songs she grew up with countless times, even to the point where any nostalgic value has been worn out. Many of those songs are in commercials, TikTok videos, etc. So easy access to the discography she grew up with is bland and uninteresting to her.
But weird, bizarre, interesting and novel stuff is all over YouTube, stuff with less than 50 views, stuff that isn't on Spotify. The same is true of SoundCloud and Bandcamp, and you even have the occasional mp3 shared on Discord by musicmakers that didn't bother to put it on any type of service. So she's all about the music library, because there is no way to know when that truly unique and meaningful stuff will disappear.
I'm desperately trying to get her to understand what she is doing is wrong, and I hope to succeed in setting her on the right path someday. Because there are plenty of legal avenues now, and an artist or company pulling their tracks from a service without warning is simply something we should all live with.
But managing music isn't hard. If you still know how to use folder structures and foobar2000 then it's absolutely not hard.
I don't bother with listening to music on my phone because it doesn't have a 4.4mm headphone jack on it and it doesn't have a headphone jack on it and while it does support my USB DAC it's kind of cumbersome...
Plus I set up a old laptop from 2008 that runs Windows XP and unofficial service pack 4 and a lightweight shell replacement with foobar. It's got my DAC amp hooked up to it and it can play DSD Or FLAC (I tested up too 192khz 24bit) straight over ASIO.
I can't stand streaming services for music it doesn't make any sense. I tried to make it work so many times. I got a really nice expensive Bluetooth headset that supports all the lossless crap and it's still doesn't feel right.
Sitting down knowing that my music is all there in two different places locally on that not network connected laptop and locally on my network attached storage so any computer on my network can get to it including my phone using a file browser app over SMB to transfer to the drive of my phone if I really need to play it on the go.
The only thing that makes some of my music gather dust is that it's so hard to justify in modern times being okay with sitting down in a room doing nothing except for indulging yourself with wonderful music. That might just be me and I might need to work on that but... "Managing" The library isn't the issue at least for me.
I'll also add that I guess for me music listening is about intentionality. I'm not a big fan of just having ambient music on with no intention behind it, no focus towards it. If I'm working on something and I want music on then yeah I load up my dedicated music machine and pipe that into my headphones while I'm working. But most of the time I like a focused approach to listening to an album. I'm going to sit down I want to hear this album right now and I'm not going to do anything else at the same time.
> I'll also add that I guess for me music listening is about intentionality. I'm not a big fan of just having ambient music on with no intention behind it, no focus towards it.
Yeah, I never understood the appeal of streaming services like Spotify. Usually when I want background music playing for working, I want to play things I already know very well so they don't distract me. For this, Spotify isn't great and has big gaps in its library - it doesn't even have all studio albums available of my favorite bands (with live catalog being hopelessly incomplete), and I'm talking about "huge superstar 80s rock bands" rather than "some unknown indie stuff". Also, I can't really put it on where network connection is spotty, like on a train.
And when it comes to listening to new stuff, I still have physical CDs waiting to be unpacked, ripped and properly listened to. Of course, some of them you won't find on Spotify either.
Maybe if you had a habit of listening to music on actual radio stations then Spotify may seem appealing. I never did, I started with portable MP3 players when I was a child. These days, when having hundreds of gigabytes of lossless music on my phone is just a matter of putting a cheap SD card into it and synchronizing between devices is a matter of single rsync call, I don't see why would I attach myself to some network service when all my music is literally here with me in my pocket.
Browsing the Jellyfin site, I don't understand. Seems like you still have to collect and manage your music.
I was a latecomer to Spotify and now I can't go back. I've discovered more great music via it than I would ever have imagined. No it's not perfect, but still beats the old way of doing it manually.
I've never felt need to try those - just put albums I've bought from e.g. Bandcamp into my Jellyfin music directory, they're automatically scanned and available in seconds.
The discovery is great, but when I add music to my library, I'd like it to just be there, and I'm not able to guarantee that with Spotify. On any given day, for any arbitrary reason (okay mainly licensing and geography), music may disappear from my library, so I end up having to listen to it on Youtube or Bandcamp or pirate it.
I do have some songs I'd like to ensure perpetual availability, but they're few in number enough that I may go buy them separately, but still use Spotify as my main consumption medium.
I've also found that I'm able to both discover and listen to songs in some genres via Spotify that I've historically found difficult to acquire anywhere else.
I picked up an iPod Video last year and could never go back to Spotify. What a mistake that was. With Rockbox installed I can play lossless codexs. With Bandcamp I can actually support artists. Without an infinite library I treasure what I have. When I want something that's not on bandcamp, like for example a live recording of a gig on youtube, theres yt-dlp. And otherwise CDs are cheap. All of this without distractions, without an internet connection, and without draining my phones battery. Spotify was a huge mistake.
I have a similar setup and love it! If you haven't already, check out Plex and Plexamp as a way to listen to your library on your phone & computer. Plexamp gives you lots of Spotify-like features including playlists, streaming & download management on mobile devices, keeping the mood going with similar music (via sonic analysis), etc.
Personally, I really just like listening to whole albums, rather than playlists or things of a similar mood. I know I'm old fashioned in that regard, but horses for courses.
I highly recommend looking for bome conducting headphones that have built in storage (usually the ones marketed for swimming). It is essentially a wearable iPod shuffle that can also be used as Bluetooth headphones.
I have a pair that I dropped my FLAC library on, and it has been one of my best purchases on the year.
A solution, funny enough, is to get a cheap android phone and don't connect it to a network. It's inexpensive, the storage is expandable, you can still get Spotify et.al. installed and running on it, it provides USB-C and bluetooth, and some models even offer balanced headset outputs (Moondrop MIAD01).
The downside is that you're carrying an extra device with very little real utility outside of playing music... which almost every phone can do. And since I already have a phone as part of my EDC, I sold the MIAD01, which did made me sad because I loved the idea but I never really found a usecase for it. Even the balanced headset outputs were done as well by a FIIO bluetooth headset adapter.
Yeah, it's about usecase, and some people find one, others do not. The separate device is just golden for leaving next to the speaker in a shared trusted space, and people can go up to it and change the music if you're not there and the album finished our whatever. Not everyone finds themselves in that position frequently.
I picked up a Hidizs player on Amazon as my modern iPod equivalent. Biggest use case for me: I don’t want a phone or device that does stuff other than music. Some moments I want something that doesn’t tempt me with distractions, apps, or the internet in general. Plus, I’m not always online: flying or out in the middle of nowhere, I can’t rely on streaming. Lack of connectivity happens just frequently enough for me to be annoying. The UI on the Hidizs device is clunky, but it does the job.
This is what I love about my watch: it plays music on my runs, it has a cellular modem so I can stay in touch with my wife, and it has minimal distractions compared to my iPhone.
I had an original iPod and loved it, but can’t imagine ever going back to one again.
From a technical perspective, the iPod made more sense twenty years ago. Mobile data was measured in the kilobytes per second and priced in the dollars per kilobyte. You can download your songs on a wired connection, load 'em up, and take it with you. Today? Wireless data is pretty cheap and abundant. Less trouble managing your music library, more picking stuff from an always-available convenient menu.
What I want is not an iPod for my pocket, but an "iPod" for my home: a dedicated music playing device that connected to my streaming service, but really elevates the importance of browsing and albums.
Something to bridge the gap between the ocean-of-songs and radio stations of streaming with the more browser-you-own-collection experience of physical albums.
I could even go for some skeuomorphism: bring back Cover Flow and the virtual shelves of iBooks.
This way, I have my physical CD collection in my living room, I can have them play in every room. And if I want to use a streaming service it works the same.
It's not exactly HiFi quality but gets the job done and I'm so happy with it. If you use CDs like me and want HiFi sound I'd do:
Living room: Dvd Player -> WiiM Pro (digital toslink input and output) -> DAC -> Class-D Amp -> Speakers
Office and bedroom: WiiM Mini -> DAC -> Class-D Amp -> Speakers
This way the digital-analog convertion and the amplification is done by dedicated device and there are less digital-analog convertions than my current setup. Also you can use any speakers. For the DAC I'd use something like a SMSL SU-1 and for the Amp probably Fosi V3. You could use a full receiver with toslink input but they are bigger machines and if they're cheaper they most likely have a worse DAC.
I have some Wiim amps, but the streamers aren't like what I'm talking about. I want a big, bright, touch screen. It should display nearly full-size album artwork.
20 years ago it did. People (kids, at least) made a real distinction between an "iPod" and an "MP3 player" even though one is obviously a subset of the other because Apple is a named luxury brand. It was basically the blue bubble controversy of its time and especially frustrating for socially-awkward, self-important 14-year-olds that had superior products like the Creative Zen Vision:M who had to endure ridicule from their friend group in sixth period lunch because their music player didn't have a click wheel :-).
I agree with some of this article - particularly the best tool for the job bit around cameras and gaming consoles - but there's no reason the iPhone can't be that tool, it just probably isn't through Spotify or Apple Music. Apple isn't going to put a remarkably better DAC in an anniversary iPod that they put in the iPhones (if it varies at all), so the quality bit is a rough sell. Then it's just quality and content of the library, to which I'd suggest something like Plex to manage a library they curate, instead of pushing that through iTunes/Apple Music. I'm not in the camp that Apple Music is awful (though also not an apologist), but I'm always going to get the copy I want at the quality I want if I manage the library myself. And if I forgot or don't have something I really want, I am holding an Internet-capable device that can still stream whatever content from whatever provider I want.
I've given a ton of thought to buying an old iPod and setting it up for modern usage, largely inspired by this blog post: https://ellie.wtf/ipod/
The author is a bit wrong about one thing, in that you can add Bluetooth capability, though it does require a headphone jack to Bluetooth adapter.
In the end I didn't go the iPod route, but instead repurposed an old Samsung S9 with the sim removed. It's got an SD card slot so it can go about as big as I want it, and I can use apps that are better tailored to what's at end, such as podcasts, audiobooks, or music.
The only problem is that the battery isn't as good as an iPod would be. But with no data connection, I can still get a few days when I'm using it on a long trip, and I just use the same charger as my phone.
I installed Opal (https://www.opal.so/) a week ago, and my daily average phone screen time has fallen by ~53%
When I installed the app, it told me that I'd be wasting another X years of my life on the screen. If I limited myself to 1 hour a day, I'd only waste something like 7 years. Those numbers sound so depressing and it brings back the big picture. Even if the warnings are positively phrased, suggesting I enjoy life, being outside and such, I'm just still shocked at how much time I'm wasting.
The only entertainment app I exempt from the Opal block beyond 1 hour is my music player.
Downside is it doesn’t allow mp3s. I’ve been making my own meditation mp3s using AI tools and wish I could listen to them when I’m on my walk with mighty and no phone.
I bought one of these: https://www.iflash.xyz/store/iflash-quad/, four high endurance 256 micro SD cards, and an iPod 5.5 off eBay a while ago. I converted all my FLAC files to Apple Lossless and loaded it on that. I plug in wired with Focal Batys. It's a dream on a long flight.
Only downside is I now have to carry around a 30 pin iPod cable or a USB-C to 30 pin adapter now to charge it.
This is like manual transmission cars, or the iPhone mini. It interests a small set of enthusiasts that would not be profitable given the expenses for an additional SKU.
"the audio players available on the market today reflect that. They’re geared towards the audiophile niche and are often prohibitively expensive—even “affordable” picks from Sony or FIIO can run into the many hundreds of pounds."
That's not true. There are tons of "mp4" players on amazon that are under $50. They may n ot be as nice as an old ipod but cheap ones aren't exactly rare.
Some states in the US have banned cell phones or other devices that can connect to cell networks. In our school district at least can connect is the key. Teachers aren’t going around testing if old iPhones have SIM cards so all iPhones are banned. (To be clear, I don’t except them to do that.)
Seems like a lot of kids would love iPods to listen to music at school like we did when I was in high school.
This is a very surface level response without wondering why the Clip Zip would be a standout. Doubly so if you actually dive into how many dupes and how crappy most of the 78 results likely are.
The direction hardware development has gone for MP3 players since the Clip Zip (specifically regarding the amount of memory built into the SoC) means it running Rockbox (a well-regarded custom firmware for MP3 players) is likely to be drastically better than all of these that are remotely close to the same form factor. Sandisk's own successors to the Clip Zip are universally inferior and the superior alternatives weigh three times as much at multiples of the Clip Zip's RRP.
The modern replacement for the Sansa Clip Zip is a USB C mod and putting a new battery into your existing Sansa Clip Zip.
It's not just about form factor though, it needs to be able to do the same function or suitable replacement operations as well as the older device did.
A piece of junk that looks the same, has USB C and functions worse in every other way isn't a modern replacement for an extremely well regarded device amongst audiophiles.
If I'm using something other than my phone for music I like it to be an actual physical medium like tapes or a record collection. Is the iPod really that good of a middle ground compared to downloading songs on your phone or something?
I recently went through something similar. The kid wanted to listen to music on a smaller device that wasn't her phone. I hadn't bought a device in years, but figured they still existed like the old Rio/Zune/Sansa.
The entire market for music only devices seems to have hit the bottom of the barrel. All I could really find in my cursory search was two or three cheap devices of questionable quality, all rebranded tens of times with random Amazon names as usual. There were a couple high quality ones, but priced at a point I wasn't willing to pay. The 'decent middle ground' seems to have evaporated.
I don't know what I expected there I guess, it makes sense that the market for such a device would be pretty small by now. By reading reviews, it seems that mostly runners buy them, as a lighter weight alternative to having a phone strapped to your arm.
This very much resonates with my recent experience. I've searched for a tiny, battery efficient music player for exercising and backpacking trips, and there's just nothing of reputable quality out there made today. All low quality Amazon junk. I miss my Sandisk clip from ~10 years ago!
My kid still uses an iPod nano. It's amazing how many features are packed it in. But I would never use one as A) Loading music via Apple Music sucks. B) it's tied to a single Mac for syncing.
yikes - Tim Cook needs to hire you right away - what an awesome strategy for Apple to nichify the market and monetize a whole zoo of compatible devices
