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Hi y'all

My 160GB iPod Classic is dying. It's given me many good years of pleasure. It's my car radio replacement, and it's taken me from Florida to Canada and back a few times, plus it goes on all my daily errands like grocery shopping, music store trips, day trips for fun, traveling to gigs, etc. It's even lasted longer than a car or two. But all things have an end date, and it's near.

It's been flaky for a while, and now it tells me the database is corrupted and shows no songs. I'm going to try to fix that, but in any case even if I can fix that, I'll probably need to get a new one.

The radio stations around here are not what I want to listen to. Too many ads, too many songs repeated, and too many songs I don't care to listen to.

The classical station is classic lite and usually will only play single movements from old symphonies (I recall a DJ playing the 3/4 movement from Beethoven's first symphony saying "Here is one by Beethoven before he got too wild"). The pop, country, and classic rock stations talk for about 20 minutes per hour and you hear the same songs every day and the same ads again and again and again.

I tried Sirius, but they talk too much and there is no variety station that compares to what I have on "Radio Bob" (rock, blues, Musica Latina, Caribbean, Classical, jazz, pop, standards, world music, country, and dozens of other genres).

I have about 10,000 songs on my iPod, culled from my LP and CD collection plus some purchased mp3s. Fortunately I have them all backed up on my hard drive.

So I'm looking for a pocket sized mp3 player with an earphone jack that has a huge hard drive.

I can buy a discontinued iPod classic on-line, but I wonder if there is something newer and better out there that doesn't need iTunes or a 3rd party replacement.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Notes

Last edited by Notes Norton; 01/10/17 06:41 AM.

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We stream Apple Music for $9.99 a month. We have access to our 8,000 iTunes song library and the millions of songs from Apple Music. Play what you want when you want it. We stream every time we get in one of our vehicles and the effect of audio streaming on our data plan is very minimal. We don't make a dent in 5g a month. We also stream in the home to our audio system. And if you are in an area or traveling to an area where streaming is practical you can physically download any of the songs to your device.

The human curated "for you" playlists are excellent as are the genre based "radio stations." For us it's an amazing value for 33 cents a day.

I kept my old iPod and just use it to stream with in the garage to Bluetooth speakers...but most times even there I just us my phone and Apple Music. Hope this doesn't appear as a hijack but it is an alternative.

Bud

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^^. What my son did when his classic died as well. I can vouch for Sandisk Sansa players and some of them will take pretty big micro SD cards. I think you could get pretty close to the size of your classic with one of those and a big micro SD card for much less

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Last time I tried to buy an MP3 player (and couldn't find one) the salesman advised me to buy a cheap phone and just use it for music.

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Bob -

If you are willing, you can find sites that teach you how to buy and replace the hard disk, as well as the battery. I've got a 160GB iPod also and love it, but it glitches occasionally as well. When mine finally dies, assuming I can still buy the appropriate Toshiba hard drive for it (you have to get the right one for your model and edition - they're not all the same), then I'll probably try to get a little more life from mine.

When Apple took them off the market, the prices skyrocketed (even used ones on eBay). Don't know if that's settled down yet, but that's another possibility.

The other thing to consider is if you have a smart phone, and are planning to upgrade, to get one that supports micro SD cards. While you can't find it in that size, my smart phone supports micro SD cards up to 2 TB. I currently have a 128GB card (but looking to go to 256GB), which is more than the 160GB iPod.

I also have a Sansa Fuze+, which can support micro SD cards, but only up to 32GB; however, they are pretty cheap, so you can use multiple cards (obviously not at the same time).

I've got about 25,000 songs on my 160GB iPod Classic.


John

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I hate it when mine dies..... I've been through several over the years. My current one is a real booger now. It white screens and I can't navigate the menu until it decides to cooperate. I also have to hold the headphone jack in the right position to get both sides of the music.

I have music on my phone but the app that runs the music is so cryptic....maybe I should just get a new app on the phone and forget the Sansa.

I bought one for my wife to use but she doesn't use it....and when I loaded my music on it.... I couldn't figure it out easily so I put it back in the box.... I think it's still around here somewhere.... maybe I should ask her and see if I can get it to work for me.....

Last edited by Guitarhacker; 01/09/17 03:27 AM.

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Originally Posted By: Janice & Bud
We stream Apple Music for $9.99 a month. <...>

Bud

Thanks.

Streaming doesn't sound like a good answer for me for a couple of reasons (1) when I drive to the Everglades National Park there are a lot of places with no cell coverage and (2) I don't think I could find a streaming station with enough variety. For example Tchaikovsky's "Marche Slave" might be followed with a Muddy Water "Cross Eyed Cat" followed by "Raiz" by Simentera (Cape Verde Islands) followed by Mark Murphy doing Joni Mitchell lyrics to Charles Mingus' "Goodbye Pork Pie Hat" followed by Something from Led Zep III followed by some Bob Marley then Sinatra, then Elvis, then Hillies, then Dvorak, then Luis Bonfa then Stan Getz, then Queen, then Gilberto Santa Rosa Orquesta, CSN, Pitney, Miles, Hendrix, Andrews Sisters, Beatles, Blue Cheer, Aretha Franklin, Caterina Valente, Celia Cruz, ZZ Top, Richie Cole, Charlie Parker, Buddy Guy, Beach Boys, Clovers, Dave Frishberg, Buddy Greco, Various Motown greats, Tuvan throat singing and so on.

I have really varied and sometimes weird tastes

Originally Posted By: rockstar_not
^^. What my son did when his classic died as well. I can vouch for Sandisk Sansa players and some of them will take pretty big micro SD cards. I think you could get pretty close to the size of your classic with one of those and a big micro SD card for much less


Thanks. This looks good. I think I can put a 128G card in one, I've written to SanDisk.

Originally Posted By: Pat Marr
Last time I tried to buy an MP3 player (and couldn't find one) the salesman advised me to buy a cheap phone and just use it for music.


An alternative. I don't know if any of my old phones have 160G of memory though. I'll check that out. Thanks.

Originally Posted By: jford
Bob -

If you are willing, you can find sites that teach you how to buy and replace the hard disk, as well as the battery. I've got a 160GB iPod also and love it, but it glitches occasionally as well. When mine finally dies, assuming I can still buy the appropriate Toshiba hard drive for it (you have to get the right one for your model and edition - they're not all the same), then I'll probably try to get a little more life from mine.<...snip...>

I've got about 25,000 songs on my 160GB iPod Classic.


Thanks.

There is a corrupted file, the battery and disk seem OK, I can access everything in Windows Explorer. I got it to load in iTunes, took all the music off, replaced it all with my backup, and the problem persists. "The library on the iPod is Corrupt" - whatever that means.

If the SanDisk can hold a 128G card, I'll go with that. Ditching iTunes or the alternate CopyTrans and being able to use drag and drop from Windows File Explorer sounds like a good deal to me.

Thanks again,
Bob


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Everything was good until you hit that Tuvan throat singing.


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Quote:
Everything was good until you hit that Tuvan throat singing.


I was in Washington, DC, during the Smithsonian's annual Folk-Life Festival where China was the highlighted country (we had a good friend who worked with the Smithsonian and got us VIP passes to everything) and we got to see Tuvan Throat Singing up close and personal. Very weird sounds, but the folks that do it spend their whole lives perfecting it. It is hard to sing two notes at the same time. It was pretty cool having it explained to us as several of the guys would then do it.


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I have been waiting for someone to make a portable that size that your can just plug a thumb drive into. I haven't looked at that kind of stuff for years so maybe somebody does and I am just not aware, but it would be so great to be able to change the library around without the bother of iTunes. I have my 128gb thumb drive about 1/2 full and if I ever fill it up I calculated that I could drive to LA and back to Ohio and never hear the same song twice. Be nice if it was Bluetooth too.

What I REALLY want is someone to build a car stereo system with wireless that I can connect to from my desk and change the songs remotely, like with FTP. I knew one geek friend who used to have a laptop mounted in his trunk and when he was going anywhere distant he would run his music from there. A player playing a randomized setting on the laptop that had power coming from the battery and audio coming to the aux input. This was back before Bluetooth was big or he probably would have had a Bluetooth dongle on it.

Wasn't exactly portable, though. LOL!


I smashed the hell out of my car today. When the cops came I told him "Officer, that guy was BOTH texting and drinking a beer." The cop said "Sir, he has every right to do that. I mean, it's HIS living room..."
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Looks like the SanDisk is too small. Tech help says 64G is tops, and it doesn't perform that well with that much.

Saw a Sony NW-ZX100 out there, but it's almost $700. It is more than I need for the car. The hi-res audio will be wasted on my mp3 files and even if they were 24 bit, I'm listening in the car.

Still, if I can't find anything else, it might be a keeper.

There are new old-stock iPod 160s out there for $400, but I doubt they would carry the warranty - and I could get a lemon.

I downloaded an app to fix the iPod (cost $30) but it doesn't seem to be working. It was worth the try though. I might let it run all night, right now it seems stalled - the progress bar hasn't moved in an hour or so.

I found a few mentions of phones, but I don't know how much memory I could put in an old phone. 128 Megs?

I might find an old phone and try.

Meantime, I'll keep looking.

BTW, on my Tuvan album, there is a guy who does 3 notes at once. I wouldn't want to listen to this all the time, but a dozen cuts in 10,000 or so songs seems to be just the right mix.

Thanks again for all the help.

Insights and incites by Notes


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OK, it ran all night, and didn't fix the errors. It had a time out message. That repeated this morning, so I don't think the $30 I spent on a repair program was a good expenditure. It was worth the try though.

So now I'm thinking about one of those old-new stock 160G iPods on Amazon.

Paying 700 for the Sony just seems like a lot of money to play low-fi tunes in the car.

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Solved:

Sony Walkman NWZ-A17SLV 64GB with a 128GB microSDXC Memory Card and I have more memory than I had before. The nice folks at B&H helped with that.

Unlike the iPod, I won't need iTunes. I'm not a fan of proprietary software and prefer things more universal if possible.

And like the new iPod touch replacement, there is no front and rear facing camera or chat and other bloatware apps that are unnecessary for a player that is only going to be a car radio replacement.

Free shipping and no tax.

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1081866-REG/sony_nwza17slv_64gb_walkman_digital_music.html/prm/alsVwDtl

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Glad you got it sorted. Now that I see there are still some alternatives besides sandisk, I will return to that site. I will consider the FiiO player when my Sansa eventually dies. https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/1288014-REG/fiio_fx1221_sliver_x1_gen_2_portable.html/prm/alsVwDtl Their small form factor headphone amplifiers are great.

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That looks like a good choice as well.

I'm glad those of us who don't need a touch screen, cameras, chat apps, facebook, and who knows what else can buy a player just to listen to music with and still carry along thousands and thousands of songs.

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The folks at head fi are very serious about their portable music players. That's another place to reference. I use an iPhone 4s 16GB for a combo podcast player and portable recorder. No photo e service, everything via wifi only.

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Follow up:

The Walkman sounds much, much better than the iPod ever did. Both Leilani and I immediately heard the difference.

The individual instrument/vocal parts are easier to distinguish, the overall sound is both cleaner and tighter, and the balance is better so I don't need as much EQ on my car's system.

I only play it in the car, with a cable hooked from the earphone jack to the aux in of the car's system so I don't know how it works otherwise.

I'm glad the iPod bit the dust.

Other details. The battery life is great ... I can drag and drop files with Windows File Explorer as if it were an external hard drive (good-bye and good riddance iTunes) ... it's very small and portable ... no screen swiping (which isn't good in a moving vehicle) and all the controls have a positive feel to them so they can be manipulated without taking my eyes off the road.

The only con so far is that the song title and artist on the display is with a very tiny font. I guess that's the price of the small size.

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Nice, nice and nice. Every point you mentioned is an upgrade.

The small type, well, I find that every year, that extra candle on the cake (though nobody bakes me a cake) makes the type a little smaller.


I smashed the hell out of my car today. When the cops came I told him "Officer, that guy was BOTH texting and drinking a beer." The cop said "Sir, he has every right to do that. I mean, it's HIS living room..."
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Bob, thanks for reporting back in on your purchase.

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I found one more con on the Walkman, if I want to buy a spare charging / data transfer cable, it's proprietary and a bit expensive.

Definitely not expensive enough to be a deal breaker though, just a disappointment.

Notes


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