Post #2760443

@dangoodin@infosec.exchange smartphones largely killed the market, modern portable media players tend to be more premium models that support audiophile high-resolution/lossless formats like FLAC and can have terabytes of capacity, as well as exotic features like balanced audio outputs and enough power to drive full-sized headphones. At the top you have a South Korean company with the faux-Germanic named Astell & Kern, at more reasonable price points, the likes of Fiio. Sony still makes players under the Walkman brand. Then there is a bewildering variety of Chinese brands like Shanling, HiBy, iBasso, and Hidizs. Most of these don't handle Classical music properly, as they don't have the ability to browse by composer the way my old iPod did, or my now discontinued Onkyo DP-X1. The AI-driven RAMpocalypose and SSD-pocalypose will probably kill the affordable end of the market.