If I wanted an MP3 player again, in 2023, and wanted to rip cds to it and put digitally purchased albums on it, as actual owned files (not inside an proprietary ecosystem where I pay to only listen to that track within that service) could I still do that? What would I need? I don’t own, and can’t afford, a “real computer”, but i recall having lots of compatibility issues at the time between my mp3 player and computer os anyway. I’ve got an ipad and a pixel. Is there any feasible, non-ridiculously-difficult way to do this? Do they still sell any mp3 players? Do any of the old ones work with modern tech? I miss hearing my music on a simple, quiet, offline device without ads or streaming services.
On my phone music takes up 14.95GB for 1,132 songs which on average is around 13.5MB per song. Great majority of it is 320K MP3s, but it is all over the place. The worst one is 32K AAC, and the best one is 24-bit 96kHz FLAC.