Portable Music Player with Open Source Firmware and CAD Files (Now in production)

I see the appeal when your music gets constantly interrupted due to every fucking app wanting to send you notifications to remind you of its existence and those constant messages from work flooding whatever communications tool you’re using.

I also see the appeal for something for kids to give them music without giving them a fill on smart device.

Yes, a phone can do almost anything, but single purpose devices can and should be better for that purpose.

As someone who owns a digital audio player I can give some reasons:

• Since most phones don't come with headphone jacks anymore, it's nice to have a device you can just plug your wired headphones into. It also means headphone jack inclusion is no longer a factor when choosing a smartphone.
• Better audio quality depending on the DAC inside the device.
• Expandable storage. Most DAPs let you insert one, some even two micro sd cards. No need to stream anything, plus you have space for lossless files.
• No need to worry about data/wifi, your music is always there ready to listen offline.
• Some DAPs are really small (Shanling M0 for example), making them more portable than a phone for a lot of use cases.
• More headphone compatibility. A lot of higher end DAPs support more than a 3.5 mm jack. The Fiio m11 plus for example has a 4.4 and 2.5 balanced output jacks in addition to the standard 3.5 mm.
• Higher power amps to power hungry headphones. A smartphone can't power say a pair of Sennheiser HD 600s, a DAP can because it comes with a preamp (not all though, depends on the specs).
• Dedicated physical buttons. A touchscreen will never compare to controlling playback with physical buttons.

Though I will say, even as someone who owns one, unless you're really into carrying your music library with you it's generally not worth it. But they are nifty little gadgets and new ones come out every year to innovate the space.

It's similar to an e-reader as others pointed out. Sure, you can read on a phone/tablet as well but it's nice to have a device that's purpose built for one thing and does it really well. The same applies to a digital audio player. Yeah you can (and most people are fine with) play music on your smartphone, but a dedicated device does add some nice QoL to the experience.

This debate is so, sooo old, but after all these times I've wroten arguments for having a dedicated player, I feel I singled out the most important ones to me.

It is not my phone. I enter a different headspace when I use an e-book or a mp3 player, I mentally dedicate myself to use it and enjoy it. I don't switch between apps, see notifications popping up, for if I'm using it, I can turn the beeping fucker off and just have a good time with my tired old Walkman and Sleep's Holy Mountain album undistracted. And I know I can put on the plane mode on, but it feels like an important switch to my brains when I leave my phone for a dumb player. My intent to use it, leaving everything else behind, somehow makes me enjoy my time with music more. We're all wired differently, but maybe you can feel it too.

And I'm left amused by the impressions of W. Gibson, the cyberpunk daddy, when he had his first Walkman and took a walk. Him, having a personal music headspace for the first time, seeing all these huge banner adds for early tech wonders on the streets, gave him a lot of inspiration, made him feel like he is detached from this era and brought into some distant future. For some time, he felt like a character of his novels. In some sense, it was like carving your own room from out of nowhere with a click of a button while leaving in human hives of metropolitan areas. And the romantic vibes of it make me take it as another reason pro dumb players.

It's irrational, but I choose to like it.