Topic: Alternative to iPod Classic? (Read 25332 times)

jgradisher · « **on:** February 03, 2016, 11:32:11 am »

Hi all,
I have a fairly large-ish mp3 collection and I have been using my iPod ratings to help me organise what I want to keep or put into playlists for syncing to other devices. I do all of my rating on the go as I have a big daily commute and this is a good way to kill time without having to lug my laptop and external drive everywhere.

My iPod Classic 160 is getting a bit buggy lately and feels like it may kick the bucket soon, and I'm looking for a replacement.

Requirements:
Large capacity >120G (happy to buy large capacity MicroSDs)
Ability to change ratings on the player
Ability to sync ratings back to MediaCenter

Not too bugged by sound quality, as I'm running it through an amp with a FiiO 30pin connector (so sounds a tad better than the stock Apple sound), but it would be a plus.

Any suggestions?

jgradisher · « **Reply #1 on:** February 06, 2016, 05:54:13 pm »

Must be the Holy Grail of players...

syndromeofadown · « **Reply #2 on:** February 08, 2016, 12:08:48 pm »

You could look at some players here:
http://www.headphonebar.com/dacs-headphone-amps-portable-audio/

Also look and Pono.

Sandisk is making players again
https://www.sandisk.com/home/mp3-players

1st gen Fii0 X5 is around 200 on amazon US, which is a very good price.

I don't use ratings and have never tried syncing them so I'm not much help with that.

jgradisher · « **Reply #3 on:** February 10, 2016, 02:45:20 pm »

Thanks for the steer, SanDisk is too low capacity, though, but I'm wondering if FiiO supports star ratings...

syndromeofadown · « **Reply #4 on:** February 10, 2016, 09:03:53 pm »

Quote

SanDisk is too low capacity

They take SD cards.

Quote

I'm wondering if FiiO supports star ratings

I have a FiiO X1 (has zero capacity without SD card) and it doesn't have ratings.

blgentry · « **Reply #5 on:** February 11, 2016, 08:29:04 am »

I'm rather disappointed by my FiiO X1. I wouldn't buy another one. Maybe their higher end players are more reliable and/or capable.

Brian.

Sparrow · « **Reply #6 on:** February 11, 2016, 10:35:42 am »

I would thoroughly recommend that you check-out the Fiio X5 v.2. I previously had a X3 v.1 and was extremely impressed; I immediately upgraded to the X5 v.2 when it came out last autumn. It plays pretty much all formats including up to DSD 128 and FLAC 24/192. I download or encode virtually everything in FLAC using MC21 and the sound is fantastic (especially over B&W P7 headphones), build quality is superb and battery life perfectly adequate. Some users don't rate the user interface and click wheel but I never really find this a problem. You can't add ratings to tracks but you can create favourites and playlists. Storage is 2Nr 128GB micro sd cards. I understand the new 200GB cards also work but I haven't got one to try yet!
At £289 in the UK it's outstanding value for money.

Have a look at: http://fiio.net/en/products/41

blgentry · « **Reply #7 on:** February 11, 2016, 10:54:32 am »

Until I get some assurance that this isn't the case, I'm going to continue to assume that the wheel on all FiiO products is trash. The wheel on my X1 started getting inconsistent at around the 3 month mark. Somewhere around the 10 to 12 month mark it became nearly unusable and remains that way today. I haven't logged very many hours on the X1. I've never used it in way that beat it around at all. It's either sat in a pocket in my car, or sat on top of a table connected to a home stereo.

The interface is ok; not horrible, not great. Something like a 5 - 6 out of 10. The player feels really solid. The wheel is the big problem for me. The screen is also REALLY small and not all that bright. Battery life is pretty good. I get something like 7 to 10 hours of FLAC playback on a charge.

So I would not purchase and X5 v2 without knowing that this problem has been corrected. Scratch that. I wouldn't buy the current X5 because the screen is the same size as the X1, which is too small for my use. I mean, it works, but it's TINY.

Brian.

jgradisher · « **Reply #8 on:** February 13, 2016, 05:52:01 pm »

Thanks, all,

But I'm still left with the ratings issue. Anyone know if the Sony Walkman line supports ratings, and does it sync with MediaCenter?

Music_Man · « **Reply #9 on:** May 05, 2016, 03:43:07 pm »

iPod Touch 6th.Gen 128GB
Expensive @ $399 and smaller than 160GB, but unlike the iPod Classic's hard drive, storage is not mechanical. Plus, it functions similarly to and has many iPhone like features.

cleeds · « **Reply #10 on:** June 07, 2016, 10:10:37 pm »

One thing I really like about the iPod Classic is the 160 GB of storage. Some DAPs - such as the FiiO X5 - could exceed that with up to 256 GB. But that would be split between two microSD cards. Does anyone know how those cards are seen by MC? If files in a playlist are spread across the two cards, will they play seamlessly? I have a lot of time invested in creating playlists, so this is really critical for me.

Another way of asking this is: Are the two microSD cards seen as one drive in MC?

blgentry · « **Reply #11 on:** June 08, 2016, 10:20:46 pm »

I would expect that the SD cards are presented to the computer as two separate drives. I've just done 5 minutes of research and I can't find an answer either way. So I'm just speculating. I would also expect MC to see the cards as the OS sees them. But again, I'm not sure.

I have a Fiio X1, which seems to be similar. I would not buy another one for a variety of reasons.

As for playlists and files, I don't think you could easily get a playlist to span cards and have the X5 play the whole play list. It's all a matter of how the X5 views the cards internally. If they appear to be part of the same file system, then that's one thing. But I expect they will have different mount points like /Card1 and /Card2 . Which would mean that MC couldn't make a playlist span both cards.

Instead, you could sort of manually balance your large playlists among the cards. I sort of expect that you'd have to have 2 handheld sync definitions anyway, since you'll have two cards to write to.

Maybe read the manual on the X5 and/or some in depth reviews. Or maybe someone else will come along here that knows the X5 well.

Brian.

graham23 · « **Reply #12 on:** September 15, 2017, 07:18:48 pm »

so is that it iPod touch v 6?
Im keen to sync play stats and ratings back into my jriver library from my digital audio player. Currently using an ipod classic but it won last forever.
anything else???

markh56 · « **Reply #13 on:** September 15, 2017, 07:53:20 pm »

Gonna sound real low class but retired my ipods and just use cheap Sandisk Clip+s running Rockbox on them. Sync with MediaCenter perfectly, has SD slot, 1 inch OLED screen, not sure how large a card they can take. Uses little power, is about the size of that small apple shuffle (I think). Very little money. I think I bought them for about $35 each. Basically a throwaway if it breaks but none have yet. One's filled with favorites, another with country favorites and another with old-time tunes. The Rockbox software is pretty slick. Hardest thing to remember is which one has which flavor of tunes.

graham23 · « **Reply #14 on:** September 16, 2017, 02:53:34 am »

do they allow you to add star ratings?

blgentry · « **Reply #15 on:** September 16, 2017, 09:45:11 am »

As far as I know, MC can not sync ratings from any kind of portable player. It's a one way push from Media Center out to the portable device. There's no two way sync as far as I am aware.

Brian.

markh56 · « **Reply #16 on:** September 16, 2017, 01:59:55 pm »

I think you're correct. Never seen anything about two-way syncing. The lack of it includes no ability to update # of plays from a portable player too as far as I can tell. Not a biggie though, I can imagine the logic required to parse all that out every time a portable player is attached would be very difficult.

I do wish using the web interface that I could rate songs and delete them. Sometimes a track comes up and I wonder where has it been all my life and the flip side, who the "$*&%%(*" put that track on my PC. Maybe there is a method but I don't recall seeing it.

graham23 · « **Reply #17 on:** September 16, 2017, 07:23:03 pm »

Ipod classic works both ways. It pushes play count to jriver. I can rate music on the ipod and have that also push to jriver. New or unrated music can then be rated on the go. 4 and 5 stars for the best tracks, but more importantly 1 star rating for any rubbish that ends up on my ipod. Then when I sync I can find all of the 1 stars and delete them from my library

rsg · « **Reply #18 on:** October 02, 2017, 10:13:21 pm »

What about the Sony NWZ-A17 hi-res Walkman? With an SD card, you are up around 192 GB. The interface is not great but certainly more than adequate; in fact, I kind of like it. I combine this DAP with a FIIO E12 headphone amp for driving my Sennheiser HD 650's (the E12 provides a nice volume dial, too). The sound is great (I use ALAC files for all my music); it's around $300 (Cdn.) One thing: I much prefer the physical controls over on-screen...allows you to skip on to the next track with device still in your pocket! I was one who felt sore about missing the Ipod Classic around the time it was axed, but I'm glad I did as this Sony is the perfect thing. I don't do any syncing with JRiver...just copying albums on to the DAP via MediaGo.

See Review: https://www.innerfidelity.com/content/survey-digital-audio-players-part-1-sony-nwz-a17

holagato · « **Reply #19 on:** May 30, 2018, 10:19:20 am »

Hello,

I am new to JRiver and really want to make it my primary Media manager, so I am testing it out for the next couple weeks.

My iPod classic was recently stolen, so I am wondering if any new devices have been released in the last year that will transfer ratings.

Transferring ratings from a portable device is one of the most necessary things for me in a media manager. iTunes recently started filling in Album Ratings after rating a few songs in an album, which then puts a shadow rating on individual songs, which shows up as a real rating on the iPod classic. This drives me crazy and makes for a lot of work unnecessary work when organizing my tunes.

I would love to never purchase anything apple ever again in my life, so any suggestions out there for a device that transfers ratings?

BryanC · « **Reply #20 on:** May 30, 2018, 02:35:22 pm »

Quote from: holagato on May 30, 2018, 10:19:20 am

Hello,

I am new to JRiver and really want to make it my primary Media manager, so I am testing it out for the next couple weeks.

My iPod classic was recently stolen, so I am wondering if any new devices have been released in the last year that will transfer ratings.

Transferring ratings from a portable device is one of the most necessary things for me in a media manager. iTunes recently started filling in Album Ratings after rating a few songs in an album, which then puts a shadow rating on individual songs, which shows up as a real rating on the iPod classic. This drives me crazy and makes for a lot of work unnecessary work when organizing my tunes.

I would love to never purchase anything apple ever again in my life, so any suggestions out there for a device that transfers ratings?

I'm almost positive that MC only supports play stats and ratings from iPods. You could rate songs via Gizmo if you are willing to use a small android device as your new player. You could look at the Jelly or Jelly Pro, for instance.

JimH · « **Reply #21 on:** May 30, 2018, 05:59:31 pm »

Maybe you could find a classic on ebay.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #22 on:** May 30, 2018, 08:42:57 pm »

Quote from: BryanC on May 30, 2018, 02:35:22 pm

I'm almost positive that MC only supports play stats and ratings from iPods.

I haven't checked if the functionality actually works, but the "Get Play Stats from Handheld on Connect" setting is available for my Android phone, so theoretically if I use an App on my phone to rate songs, MC should pick up the ratings on the next handheld sync. If the App also updates the play count, then MC would pick that up as well. I can't test this as my Sony Music player doesn't support rating or play count updates.

I think an Android phone is probably the best replacement for an iPod Classic. At least Android is supported and will be into the future, there are lots of players available for it one or more of which may update play stats, and capacity is really no issue these days as SD Cards get bigger and bigger.

Android is where I would be looking. Just do your research on what will and what won't work first.

Other than an Android phone, or an Android powered device, Pono is dead but there are some high end, expensive music players still out there, last time I looked.

Note: The Handheld Sync functionality is now working in MC24 64bit, but there are still a few anomalies in how it works. But if you were happy with the functionality with an iPod Classic, you should be happy with it for an Android device. I think. Each device type functions just a little bit differently.

holagato · « **Reply #23 on:** June 02, 2018, 03:00:44 pm »

Thank you so much for this response and all the others!

I have never used an android phone, so when you say "a lot of players available", are you talking about music playing apps that I'd download from the Google Play store?

I am thinking of buying a cheap old android phone or tablet just so I can test the ratings transfer functionality before investing in an android phone that would be my primary device. Using my phone as my main portable music player is an ideal situation. The iPhone used to have an awesome ratings feature, but then they changed it so only Siri needed to rate the songs for you, which then also turn on the album rating for all unrated songs on that album.

RoderickGI · « **Reply #24 on:** June 02, 2018, 08:38:06 pm »

Quote from: holagato on June 02, 2018, 03:00:44 pm

I have never used an android phone, so when you say "a lot of players available", are you talking about music playing apps that I'd download from the Google Play store?

Yes. There are a huge number of players listed when you search for "Music Player" on Google Play Store. Check them out carefully before picking one. Some are old and abandonware. App ratings aren't always a good indicator of functionality, reliability, and support.

There was a new player mentioned in a thread recently that sounded good, but I can't for the life of me find the reference or remember what it was. Maybe someone will speak up. Or you could start a new thread asking for recommendations.

Quote from: holagato on June 02, 2018, 03:00:44 pm

I am thinking of buying a cheap old android phone or tablet just so I can test the ratings transfer functionality before investing in an android phone that would be my primary device.

Just make sure it is running at least Android 7 if you can. Some of the cheaper ones, or secondhand ones, might be running older versions of Android. The best players will require V7 at least.

Of course, you can also stream from your server to an Android device using JRemote, Gizmo, Panel and a many third party Apps. Many of those Apps can update track ratings and play count. A new one that is interesting but I don't think can play local files is "MO 4Media". Have a read at https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,114964.0.html I haven't played with it much yet, but probably will at some stage.

EOS is still out there as well, though it has been a while since it was updated. Maybe it is perfect already? https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,89392.0.html

holagato · « **Reply #25 on:** June 04, 2018, 11:56:15 am »

Thank you again for the nice response.

I will research JRiver and Gizmo to see if I can stream from my home PC to my phone while out and about (over 4G).

INTERACT FORUM

Author Topic: Alternative to iPod Classic? (Read 25332 times)