Best MP3 Players for 2024
Sony is still making new Walkman models.
Audiophiles have long looked down on digital music because the sound quality was noticeably inferior to listeners with golden ears and discriminating tastes. The development of lossless file formats (such as FLAC) and cheap, large multi-gigabyte storage have made portable high-fidelity music a reality.
At the moment there are really only two major players in the high-end portable music market: Astell & Kern and Sony (where the Walkman brand still lives on). We used previous versions of each brand, but not the current models.
If you’re one of those people who has hard drives full of uncompressed music files and can hear the difference between those files and relatively low-resolution MP3 and AAC files, then you can safely pair one of those players with a pair of wired headphones of your choice.
Virtually all music streaming services now offer lossless playlist or high bitrate options. This is true for virtually all the major players, from Tidal and Qobuz to Amazon and Apple.Spotify HiFi(…strangely enough, still doesn’t show up.)
If you like what you hear, consider upgrading to a decent headphone DAC (that is “digital to analog converter”) like the Audiofly Dragonfly and a serious pair of wired headphones. Then you have a solid audiophile option that’s good for on the go, without the need for a separate music player.
