It’s a Creative Zen Stone that I got as a Christmas gift in 2008. I just found it in a drawer, and it’s still holding charge. The last thing I put on it was The Life And Times Of Scrooge by Tuomas Holopainen, in 2015 – I don’t know why, at that time I definitely had a smartphone.
It has a headphone jack, which immediately makes it better than every smartphone produced in the last several years, and it can easily drive my 80-ohm Beyerdynamic. The audio quality is as good as one can expect. The only drawback is that it only holds 1GB… my old CD rips had to be compressed to hell and back.
Let me reiterate that this has been sitting untouched for a decade and was immediately ready for action. No login, no annoying software updates, expired subscription, or remote bricking by the manufacturer. Eat my shorts, Spotify Car Thing.
P.s. A Lifetime Of Adventure is a banger. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JWwSVOo5K_k
I have a Rio Volt SP-250. A CD-MP3 player I’ve had since 2001. The in-line remote died somehow but the unit itself works flawlessly and is in excellent condition. It runs on AA batteries; originally they were rechargeable but they were Ni-MH cells. I don’t know where its charger went, but I can run the thing on Alkaline batteries or charge Eneloops in a separate charger.
It long outlasted the iPod it replaced and is still serviceable to this day.