Calling this buying guide the 'best MP3 players' doesn't really do it justice. Why? Because we're not talking 2007 iPod classic I still love any more. No, modern-day players can do so much more than store (and of course, play) your lossy MP3 files. All but one of the little beauties in this guide are high-resolution audio players and streamers with superior digital-to-analog converters. They are able to fully unlock the FLAC, DSD, WAV, MQA and ALAC files your phone can't (whether downloaded or streamed from Tidal, Qobuz or Apple Music, say) so you get to hear your music at its most detailed, fullest and lossless best.
Oh, and if you want clarification on the audio file types you're streaming and how you could do better, our audio file format explainer can help, while our guide to hi-res music and how to get it is the place to go if you're just getting into all of this. (Welcome, by the way. We're so happy you're here!)
Most of the digital audio players in this roundup (often referred to as DAPs) are chiefly meant for hooking up to the best wired headphones, though the majority of players now support Bluetooth too (including higher-res aptX or LDAC versions) for those who want the convenience of the best wireless headphones or best earbuds. Remember, wired is preferable, because even the newest Bluetooth audio codec compression algorithms cannot truly do justice to hi-res music files – and you're an audiophile now.
Again, there are no iPods here (Apple discontinued the last surviving iPod Touch in May 2022); instead you'll get the likes of Astell & Kern, Sony, and FiiO. Yes, many of these players are relatively pricey, but that's because they can do things with your music a smartphone simply can't do. That said, there are a couple of much more affordable debutantes in this list for July 2024 – and even better, one is an A&K subsidiary brand…
I've reviewed over 150 audio products since becoming a tech journalist, ranging from super-budget earbuds to high-end Hi-Res Audio music players. Before joining TechRadar, I spent three years at What Hi-Fi? testing everything the world of audio had to offer; before that, I was a professional dancer. My love of music ties it all together.
Recent updates
July 23, 2024
Added the Activo P1 as our 'best cheap A&K buy' and the FiiO M23 as our 'best overall' pick. Moved the slightly older Fiio M11S to 'best affordable FiiO buy'. Added the Majority MP3 player as 'best ultra-cheap' pick. Removed all old 'also consider' models.
The quick list
Want to cut the lengthy explanations and just find out which digital audio players are the best? We're here for it, have a quick roundup of our top picks. You can also jump to a more detailed review of each product, and click through to see the latest deals on your favorite.
Best for most people
FiiO's March 2024-release M23 offers a delicate yet muscular sound quality that's lavishly detailed. It's a little big for your skinny jeans pocket, but if you don't mind that…
Best step-up model
Whether this stunning little A&K player can be considered 'entry-level' isn't up for debate – it's too expensive for that. But if you can afford it, the SR35 is so, so worth it.
Best cheap 'A&K' buy
It doesn't look like an Astell & Kern player, and it isn't priced like an A&K player. But Activo is A&K's new subsidiary – so it is. Also, we've tested it and let us tell you, it sounds like an A&K player…
Best budget Sony
Sony' latest hi-res streaming player has quickly become the best option when it comes to value for money, despite supporting seriously high-end formats.
Best money-no-object
We gave the Astell & Kern SP3000T a rare 5-star review. It's very expensive, but sound is stellar and it goes an awfully long way towards justifying the asking price.
Best affordable FiiO buy
FiiO's M11S offers stellar hi-res sound quality and premium audio player features – and because it's been superseded by the M23 (above) it undercuts most of the competition.
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Best premium
Astell & Kern is known for delivering elite and beautifully made hi-res audio, and this is at the pinnacle. It's extremely well-specced, and sounds simply astounding.
Best A&K-branded affordable pick
The SR25 MKII's sound is as expressive, expansive and decisive as Astell & Kern's trademark brutalist aesthetic. It's not cheap, but it is the most affordable A&K-branded pick in our guide.
Read more below
Best for design
The Astell & Kern A&ultima SP3000 is one of the very best digital audio players there is. The good news? It looks lovely too, with a stunning rose gold finish.
Best ultra-cheap buy
Look, it won't play hi-res stuff and it's not got a touchscreen. But for a fuss-free, leave the phone at home music option, it does a job – and it's got a clip for your clothes.
Best digital audio players 2024: the list
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The best MP3 player overall
FiiO has become an audio specialist we're so used to applying the phrase "great value, high-performance portable audio electronics" to that the M23 could almost be seen as a run-of-the-mill player. Almost. Because it's simply not. The company has thrown absolutely everything it can at this high-resolution audio player in terms of specification; we've yet to find an audio file type it won't accept, handle, unpack and celebrate. Also, the design is solid but classy (if a tiny bit big for your skinny jeans, at 299g), it's snappy in operation and, unlike some smaller players, its touchscreen is easy to use.
How does it sound? Minor (and certainly sporadic) audio playback trip-ups aside, this is an absolute audio beast of the highest caliber. In every single circumstance and with every file-type and size we feed it, the M23 sounds assertive, muscular, lavishly detailed and vaultingly dynamic – but also refined, nuanced and subtle. It's even prepared to tolerate lowly sub-16bit/44.1kHz content if you simply must, although if you're investing in this player, you really should also invest in a good music streaming service subscription – oh, yes, it works on amended version of Android (Android 12 in this instance) and will happily load up your Tidal, Apple Music and Qobuz subscription apps via the Play Store.
It seems basically impossible to throw FiiO out of its positive, confident stride these days – and this excellent March 2024-issue player is further proof.
Read our full Fiio M23 review
The best step up model
Look, however much Astell & Kern wants to believe this is an 'entry level' player, it's not – it is really quite expensive in anyone's money. Astell & Kern doesn't typically budget options, and it's $100 (or around £150) more than the FiiO option above.
But the good news is that the premium nature of the SR35 applies to the specification, the sound quality and the user interface as well as the high ticket-price. It's an exceptional player. It's about the size of a deck of cards and at 184g it isn't the lightest DAP on the market, but believe us when we tell you that the four onboard DAC filters and new amp circuitry are worth a few extra grams – and if you can afford it, the more-than-few-extra dollars you'll pay.
Also, while the SR35 deserves the best standard of content of content you can afford to load up onto it, it’s less fussy than many rival players. So while you should really be giving it all of the 24bit/192kHz FLAC files, this particular Astell & Kern will readily tolerate and deliver 320kbps Spotify streams better than most.
Whatever you're listening to, the sound this player is capable of is deft, detailed and fun like you wouldn’t believe. Even the shortest listening sessions will become lengthy deep-dives into much-loved tracks, to see what this beauty of a DAP can do with them.
Read our full Astell & Kern A&norma SR35 review
The best cheap A&K buy
We'll speak plain: we really (really) like this July 2024-release player, from Astell & Kern's new audio subsidiary brand, Activo. We think the things more expensive A&K players can do, that the Activo P1 can’t, aren’t really noticeable to the majority of us – and probably don’t justify spending more unless you’re really (really) far into your audiophile journey.
It doesn't look quite as expensive as its parent brand's angular, dark metallic players but it's what's inside that counts, and under the hood the P1 is very good indeed: it's got the same amplification as more expensive players and an ESS ES9219Q SABRE Dual-DAC.
Of course, the most important thing is how this player sounds, and in that department it is more than deserving of the full five stars: it sounds outstanding as a player and in DAC mode it's a useful audio upgrade for your computer. You can craft complex EQ curves with the equaliser, but during our testing we tended to leave well alone – the P1 sounded so good without our tweaks.
In addition to its local playback, the P1 also works with the best music streaming services and includes full Play Store support. Any downsides? Two: it runs a little hot, and it is a little slower to start up than players selling for double, triple or quadruple the price. But if those small shortcomings don't worry you, this is a great little player.
Read our full Activo P1 review
The best budget Sony buy
Not only is this plucky little player part of Sony’s new (but old… but new!) Walkman lineup, it’s built to handle incredibly high quality audio files for a price that is much more palatable than most of what’s currently out there. The Sony NW-A306 was released in 2023 and we’re so thankful that Sony decided to make a comeback with this admittedly nostalgic audio device – the tape cassette interface is a gloriously retro touch.
Where the NW-A306 is let down is not in its music-playing skill, but in the slight niggles with its all round usability. The menu can be a little unresponsive at times, the battery longevity can vary and surprisingly, it occasionally struggles when playing a standard 128kbps audio file, which is why we we forced to adjust our star rating under intense review (by half a star to be exact). But there’s no denying that the positives vastly outweigh the negatives here – especially for the money.
If you’re looking for a dedicated hi-res audio player, the Sony NW-A306 boasts an impressive spec sheet straight from the box. It supports audio files far above CD quality – and more than that, it really shines with them. It also has a slim design that can fit in your pocket, which is not true of many hi-res players in this list.
Read our full Sony NW-A306 review
The best money-no-object MP3 player
We awarded the Astell & Kern SP3000T a rare 5-star rating in our review. Because despite the fact this is an incredibly expensive MP3 player, it's one of the best we've ever tested.
As you might expect, the Astell & Kern SP3000T sounded incredible. In our review, we wrote that it delivers "an energetic, entertaining listen that prioritizes the enjoyment of music over the minutiae of how it’s been recorded." It's also worth mentioning that although the biggest audio files perform the best, this MP3 player makes the most of the files you give it and the headphones you use.
Not only does it sound fantastic, the Astell & Kern A&ultima SP3000T looks premium. It’s made from silver-plated stainless steel, controls are beautifully implemented and it has a stable and logical operating system. Everything about this MP3 player delivers a premium experience, from the way it sounds and handles to how it looks. If money is no object and you want only the best sound, this is the MP3 player you need.
Read our full Astell & Kern A&ultima SP3000T review
The best affordable FiiO buy
You don’t have to listen long, hard, or through particularly talented headphones to realise the M11S is the genuine article. In every meaningful music-making respect, it's got skills – and in some areas, it’s a certified expert. It's been superseded by the M23 at the top spot in this list, but what of it? In hi-res audio, things move a little slower.
The M11S is intuitive enough to make trifling or often transient information apparent, and it can relay the most nuanced, delicate and dynamic variations in a solo instrument with ease. It has more than enough headroom to dispatch bigger shifts without issue and when called upon, it faithfully describes big, wide and properly defined soundstages. The treble is perhaps a little on the bright side, but not so much that we'd consider it a fault – moreover that it's our job nitpick and here, we have noted it.
There's lots to love here including an Android 10 operating system, a touchscreen that's smooth and responsive, a punchy yet controlled and detailed sound and a resoundingly classy build.
The Fiio M11S does an excellent job of gently undercutting its closest rival, the Astell & Kern A&norma SR25 Mk II (also in this roundup). Not to nudge you either way, but it's easy to look at the saving you'll make here and decide it's worth putting into a nice high-capacity microSD card, instead of its pricier rival.
Read our full Fiio M11S review
The best premium MP3 player
The Astell & Kern A&ultima SP2000T is one of the best portable music players you can buy right now if money is no object. Yes, it's expensive, but it has recently been superseded by the SP3000 and SP3000T (both listed here), so if you want a premium digital audio experience that might now be available at a slight discount, know that the SP2000T is still in A&K's current lineup – and it sounds superb.
Two amplifier stages offer seven distinct options, while no fewer than four DACs are deployed to handle two channels of audio information. The SP2000T is unconcerned by digital audio file size or type, and it will happily power any headphones you care to mention.
The control interface is clean and responsive. As for the player itself, it is not so much built as sculpted – hewn or forged, even! – though it is too large to slip into your jeans pocket. Astell & Kern has continued this design with the SP2000s successor, the SP3000 (above), which also comes in a limited edition 24k gold casing.
Read our full Astell & Kern A&ultima SP2000T review
The best A&K-branded affordable pick
Give this A&K your music, sit back and relax – if it doesn't wow you, we don't know what will. (Well, maybe the SP3000T.) The A&norma SR25 MKII is a gifted digital audio player that will reignite your love of music. And unlike many of the A&K's more pricey players, this one is small enough to put in a pocket and will keep you streaming, pinging or downloading once-treasured songs to it, just to see what it makes of them. This is why it's our top pick if you're looking for a more affordable Astell & Kern option.
As well as the new-for-June-2022 4.4mm headphone jack, the MKII unit (an update on the A&norma SR25) also boasts a new Replay Gain function to uniformly adjust volume playback from sound sources up to 24-bit/192 kHz. You're also getting AK File Drop (first introduced in the pricier A&futura SE180 player) for easier wireless file transfers; BT Sink function for simpler connection of the SR25 MKII to an external Bluetooth device and extra internal silver-plated shielding to protect from electromagnetic interference.
Although it hasn't been shouted about, four new and quite different-sounding DAC filters are also onboard, which will work if listening in 24-bit/192kHz or less PCM (although they won't work in MQA and DSD formats) and they certainly add value and scope for customization at the level. If your budget stretches to this player and not a penny more, you won't be disappointed.
And the final important touch is its unique design, with an off-angle screen and the looks of a deck of cards that's been twisted. Everyone will want to hold it and play with it.
Read our full Astell & Kern A&norma SR25 MKII review
The best MP3 player for design
The Astell & Kern A&ultima SP3000 is one of the priciest DAPs in A&K's arsenal of expensive DAPs. It’s uncompromisingly specified (six DACs and full independent balanced and unbalanced audio circuits are just two of its highlights) and you'd be forgiven for filing it under 'high-end jewelry' in its press shots. But if you think you're basically paying a premium for the impressive design and casework here (it's available in Black, Silver, Copper or Gold) you really must think again.
What are you paying for? Simply put, your money's going on the way it sounds. Oh, and its big, beautiful touch-screen. It supports every worthwhile digital format going and the ground-breaking independent audio circuitry (it is the only player to boast it yet) keeps the signal path for the balanced and unbalanced outputs entirely separated.
It is abundantly clear that Astell & Kern decided not to compromise where technical specification was concerned with the A&ultima SP3000. And that’s before we mention the bespoke A&K-designed 'Teraton X' processor that nixes power supply noise and any conceivable audio nasties derived from the numerous DACs. The result? The SP3000 delivers both amplification and sound quality that’s cleaner and more efficient than any digital audio player we've ever heard.
Read our full Astell & Kern A&ultima SP3000 review
The best ultra-cheap MP3 player
OK, so this player cannot reasonably be compared to the options listed above – for starters, the only officially supported file type is lowly, lossy, easy-to-store MP3 quality. And it's less than one tenth of the price of even the next-cheapest DAP here. Got it? Good. Also, there's no touchscreen, it only holds 16GB natively (although that's around 4,000 MP3-quality songs so, you know) and even if you wanted to expand on that with an SD card, your maximum storage is 128GB – or even more low-res songs! – before it can hold no more.
It won't stream over an internet connection, so no downloading from your favourite music streaming site, and it'll only accept your 3.5mm-terminated headphones (no 4.4mm or 2.5mm ports here) unless you want to ditch wires and hook it up to your wireless earbuds, which will impact the otherwise very-good 34-hour battery life.
So it's an MP3 player which you'll have to manually download song to – like the olden days. And now we've mentioned everything it can't do, let's talk about what it can manage: your music, especially if you're a runner. This thing is tiny, and it has a lovely strong clip to attach it to your clothes. If that's what you're after – and handily, there's also a stopwatch if you're looking to beat your 10k PB – you've found a cheap and cheerful solution. To clarify, audiophiles will need to look at any of the nine other options within this buying guide. But maybe you're not one of those, and that's just fine with us.
Read our full Majority MP3 player review
How to choose the best MP3 player
Pair one of the devices in this buying guide with a set of the best wired headphones you’ve got the ultimate in premium, portable music: high-quality sound ready for your road-trip.
So how do you select one? Well, you're in luck. Because the market is increasingly geared towards the audiophile (the kind of people who won't touch Spotify's lossy streams), firms are constantly innovating. These days, ever improving sound quality in the wired and wireless realms, hi-res audio support and seriously impressive built-in DACs (Digital-to-Analog Converters) are making already impressive players even better.
And there's style to match the substance, with manufacturers also vying to deliver players that look as good as they sound. Fan of brutalist architecture? Astell & Kern is the name for you. Something a bit more colorful? See SanDisk or Sony. Want something about the size of a matchbox? Cowon's Plenue D3 is the badger – see them all in our guide above.
Why do people still use MP3 players?
There are lots of very good reasons to use a dedicated digital audio player. The biggest one is arguably sound quality: depending on the device, you can listen to much higher quality versions of tracks than anything you'll be able to stream from your phone – especially if your device has a headphone jack, which most mobile devices lack. For serious music fans, this is a major consideration: Bluetooth audio quality is getting better, but for full hi-res audio you still need your headphones to be wired. Even Apple's most expensive headphones, the AirPods Max, can't deliver Apple Music's Lossless and Hi-Res Lossless file quality wirelessly.
Another reason to get a DAP is curation of music; not everything you want to listen to is available on the best music streaming services – and not everything that's there today might be there tomorrow, because songs and even artists come and go (or pull their work from your chosen streaming service overnight). By synchronising an MP3 player with your desktop music collection you can always be sure that you can hear what you want to hear. A big bonus for many people is that with your own music collection, you don't need to pay a monthly subscription to listen to it, or to listen to it without ads.
Although it's less of an issue than it used to be, another reason many music fans preferred MP3 players is because they were designed to do one thing and one thing only: play music. Most smartphones weren't, and thus, the audio performance wasn't brilliant – the inexpensive DAC squirrelled away in the phone could only do so much. Battery life and storage space weren't always great either.
It's also worth pointing out that MP3 players don't require you to have a mobile phone connection or wi-fi to get your music, so you can happily wander far and wide (or hop on a flight, subway or fast train) without losing your soundtracks.
Is an MP3 player worth buying?
Whether you should buy an MP3 player or not depends on what you want to use it for. If you're trying to avoid being glued to your phone, checking social media or taking work calls when you want to relax and immerse yourself in music, an MP3 player can be a great option to cut ties with the distractions of your phone – and the rest of the world.
Some people enjoy listening to MP3 players when they work out, so they don't have their phone with them. Is this to keep calls and messages at bay while they run, or is it keep their expensive smartphone safe at the gym? We can't say for sure, but they're both good perks.
Depending on the mobile model and plan you've gone for, you might not have a great deal of space on your phone for downloaded music, so if you want to store music elsewhere a dedicated player is also a great shout.
MP3 players won't suit everyone; many music-lovers cannot perceive (or are prepared to accept) the difference in audio quality and like the convenience of streaming on their phones, but there are plenty of reasons why an MP3 player is a game-changing buy for some people.
Is MP3 quality as good as CD?
The short answer is no. That's because MP3 is a "lossy" format: in order to make MP3 files as small as possible, some of the audio information is removed – frequencies most of us cannot hear, anything less noticeable to the human ear. This is often described as 'compressed' audio. With a CD, music is stored with a resolution of 1,411 kilobits per second. For clarity, the best possible quality MP3 has a resolution of 320 kilobits per second. So clearly there's a lot less data in even the highest quality MP3 file.
What's clever about MP3 is that it tries to get rid of the audio information you'll miss the least. For example, one of the most obvious signs that you're listening to an MP3 instead of a CD isn't because one of the instruments has gone AWOL. MP3 doesn't do that. But you'll probably notice a lack of really deep bass, and a more "splashy" sound on higher frequencies such as the drummer's cymbals and hi-hats. The lower the quality, the more obvious these things become – and at the very lowest quality, MP3s sound like someone's playing them on a really bad radio.
For many people the convenience of MP3s – you can fit more on your device, streaming uses less mobile data and you don't need a really good internet connection – outweighs the loss of sound quality, especially if you're listening on the move. But MP3 is a fairly old standard now, and there are better options.
As the name suggests, lossless audio is any music file that has been recorded, packaged, stored, unlocked and played in a way that doesn't incur any 'loss' to the musical information, and 'hi-res' files are those boasting greater than 44.1kHz sample rate or higher than 16-bit audio bit depth – ie. better-than-CD quality.
How we test the best MP3 players
We test dozens of hi-res portable music players every year at TechRadar, and that means we know exactly which features, specs, file support and wireless audio codecs to look for. It's important for us to compare the performance of these players against the claims made by their manufacturers, which is why we take the time to make sure the stamina, durability, connectivity and sound quality claims are legit.
We make sure to test each product against its chief competitors too, so you can be sure that if we say so, the product is the best bet for the money. We live with these players for weeks and we run them in religiously so that the components have 'bedded in' before we commence our tests, and we don't finish testing until we are certain of the sound quality.
On this, we test the audio performance using a range of musical genres and with both wired and wireless headphones – and streamed and downloaded music from various sources, to ensure that these products can handle everything from thumping dance tracks to softly-spoken podcasts in whatever format we throw at them.
After more collective years in this game than we'd care to divulge, we are truly confident that our star-rated reviews are the best indication of the quality. There are no sales teams involved in our verdicts and we're not getting paid bonuses to hand out extra stars, which gives us complete impartiality. It also means if we don't like it for sound, design, usability and features, we simply won't recommend it here.
The latest updates to this best MP3 players guide
July 23, 2024
Added the Activo P1 as our 'best cheap A&K buy' and the FiiO M23 as our 'best overall' pick. Switched the Fiio M11 to 'best affordable FiiO'. Added the Majority MP3 player as 'best ultra-cheap' pick.
June 24, 2024
Added the Astell & Kern SP3000T as our 'best money-no-object' pick. Switched the Astell & Kern SR25 MKII for our 'best affordable A&K buy' and the Astell & Kern SP3000 as our 'best for design'.
Read more updates
May 29, 2024
Added this update log! Updated the copy to reflect current top picks and why. Added our audio file types explainer to help listeners better understand their music.
April 2, 2024
Removed the Onkyo DP-X1A from this list as the best mid-range digital audio player due to it no longer being available. There's also no stock currently available in the UK for the A&norma SR25 MKII. This could be down to it being succeeded by the Astell & Kern A&norma SR35 in May 2023.
January 30, 2024
Added the Astell & Kern A&norma SR35 and the Astell & Kern A&ultima SP3000. Re-ordered to reflect the newer products and updated copy throughout. The SR25 MkII and SP2000T remain in this list because although older, they're still in the current lineup at A&K and they may well receive certain discounts in upcoming sales events.
December 6, 2023
We still haven't yet reviewed Astell & Kern's SP3000 but with a new limited edition gold casing being released, that may very well soon change. For now, though, our list has remained unchanged.
September 25, 2023
Added new navigation features to make it easier to find particular models. Updated the list based on our latest reviews, and removed models no longer available to buy.
