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Comment by chatbbb_i_cant_ | Hacker News Reader

extremely ironic comment considering there has been a Renaissance of personal music players lately, including ones with click wheels. look on Amazon for all the Chinese made ones. there is absolutely still a desire, perhaps a growing one, for dedicated devices, as everyone grows wearier of phones

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Also as phone bans start up in various schools there are often carveouts for mp3 players. A lot of summer camps too that have no-device policies allow non-internet-connected music players as well. The market both on the super low end and the high end is looking pretty strong. Hardest aspect, from my perspective, is gaining access to downloadable music when most consumption has moved to streaming.

There are like a dozen apps that just record the audio out channel from your PC. Think of it as the modern version of recording songs off the radio

> Hardest aspect, from my perspective, is gaining access to downloadable music

Yt-dlp for the win

And newpipe for android!

That's actually great to hear, as my first reaction to the click wheel was "man I wonder if I can still get one of these".

Somehow, with all the world's music a tap away I listen to far fewer albums now. I loved preparing my mp3 players, like packing a bag for a trip.

I’m happy that I still have my 3rd gen and classic 120gig in black. Man these players where just the best.

I got myself a couple. A Mechen M30 and a FiiO M21. First one is pretty low-end in terms of interface and firmware capabilities, but both sound superb, and being able to listen music without a connection to somewhere and not interrupted by notifications.

I personally never gave up standalone players. My MD is still alive and kicking for example, but I find myself reaching for them more and more for proper music listening.

Not my project, but I recently found out about Sprout: https://certainthings.studio/sprout/

It's a modern iPod motherboard replacement that enables the device to have bluetooth, Wi-Fi, UI improvements, etc. Surprised it hasn't gotten more traction on HN

I am not sure it is necessarily people growing wearier of phones. It is kind of a mix of gen z's weird nostalgia for things they never grew up with and the proliferation of AI music. I have a hard time trusting random playlists on music services because I don't know if it is genuinely new music made by real people, or ai the platform is pushing so they can make more money. Either way I don't want to be part of that. I don't personally own one of these devices but my listening habits have changed quite a bit in the last year.

> gen z's weird nostalgia for things they never grew up

Plenty of older Gen Z grew up with iPods - the iPod touch didn't show up till they were 10 years old, and it took the smartphone another ~5 years to fully kill off that whole product category.

yeah, I grew up on my dad’s old iPod and BlackBerry up until high school; a lot of people in my peer group also were exposed to “older” tech by way of parents, siblings, etc.

>the iPod touch didn't show up till they were 10 years old,

In America. My country, and 90% of the world, was noticeably behind, and "mp3 players" reigned.

For me it's about intention and decoupling core entertainment from algorithmic bs.

Do you think the renaissance is durable, or is it a fad? I wonder what percentage of high school kids are carrying a dedicated music player?

What is your favorite, easily wired or bluetooth loadable what ill call a personal audio playback and library device?

Zune

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