I bought an MP3 player this year. One night browsing eBay I came across some new old stocks Philips GoGear MP3 players for a ridiculously low price. I got one for $12 shipping. It arrived a few days later, as if it had just come off a store shelf. I opened it and, within a few days, the way I listened to music at home changed.
I collect physical and digital music, and have been doing so for a long time.
But I’ve never been a fan of streaming music.
I have been a music collector for most of my life and I love physical media. My rare Frank Zappa albums just aren’t going to disappear because the license has expired. They will always be on my shelf unless I decide to get rid of them.
I don’t care about Spotify or music streaming in general. On paper, it’s a great idea: unlimited access to all your favorite songs, in one place, for a small fee. The idea has been around for a long time. In fact, Zappa talked about something similar in his autobiography, The real Frank Zappa Book, back in the late 1980s.
When the late ’90s came around (like most people of my generation), I got into Napster, MP3, Ogg Vorbisand collecting and hoarding music. I got my first portable music player sometime in 2005 or 2006. It was a used Philips MP3 player with a scroll wheel and a grayscale screen. I used that thing constantly.
Later I took a Philips GoGear SA10PS08K/37 and I used it extensively while threading and operating movie projectors full time. He eventually died and I never replaced him.
A few factors made me dive back in this year.
Listen to music like it’s 2008.
Why I bought a Philips GoGear in 2026
My GoGear purchase was driven by a desire to get away from streaming, use my phone as my primary music player, and reduce the amount of time I interact with my physical media. I have a large CD collection. Sometimes it’s easier to play my albums digitally.
I use Symfonium on my phone and through Android Auto. It’s great for being out and about, but it’s not uncommon for me to put my phone away in a different room while I do things at home. The GoGear has a headphone/auxiliary port and works with wired headphones, so I can plug it into the line-in port on my stereo. I won’t use headphones because I suffer from hearing loss.
Other than that, it’s all about control and customization. Plus, subscription costs are getting out of control and I already have a ton of music. So why not?
Exploring what’s in the box
Unboxing of some “vintage” consumer electronics
It’s been a long time since I bought a new music player. The box, which had extremely hard plastic that was difficult to open, had:
-
GoGear itself
-
A warranty card (probably no longer valid)
-
Wired headphones
-
A very short mini-USB transfer cable
-
A surprisingly thick user manual
-
A driver/program installation disc.
-
The typical warning pamphlets that come with consumer electronics
I booted up my laptop (running an isolated version of Windows 10), installed the drivers and Philips Media Converter, and then waited for the device to charge. It was about four hours. Finally, I loaded up some music: some Jonathan Coulton albums, a Ween concert, some Ozric Tentacles albums, Yoshimi fights the pink robots by The Flaming Lips and Pink Floyd the wall.
After that, it was time to listen to some songs!
A quick listen revealed some audio quality issues.
Some audio tweaks and a peripheral update improved things
I forgot what tiny, compressed MP3 files sounded like on the Philip Go Gear. I tried listening with the included headphones and it was on par with listening to a dubbed cassette on the lowest quality Walkman I’ve ever owned.
I switched to some old Sony padded headphones. It sounded better, but it still wasn’t great. I played around with the settings a bit. After finding the least offensive (rock) EQ setting, things started to sound better.
Then I put on my Tascam monitoring headphones. Now we are talking. It sounded better with professional quality headphones. Of course. Finally, I connected an aux cable to my CD player and I would honestly say I got some pretty good results. Is it as good as a modern phone?
No. Not by a mile. But it’s okay. I’m looking for a nostalgic experience, complete with the audio quality I remember. I heard everything Monkey Code Save the Worldwhich was a Kickstarter exclusive album I received in 2013 after supporting the comic miniseries of the same name. I just sat in front of my computer and worked on a coding project, and just like that, I felt like I was back in college.
That was exactly the experience I wanted from this project.
Having an MP3 player is changing the way I listen to music…sometimes
Sometimes fewer options are better
Part of the reason I wanted an MP3 player, besides nostalgia and reliving my college programming days, was to narrow down my options. Sometimes, too many options make me tired and make me avoid listening to anything at all.
By limiting the albums or live shows I want to listen to on a given day or week, I can crank them up, plug them in through my stereo, and just listen to whatever while I work without interruptions.
Zero notifications, no phone calls and no ads. I don’t even have to get up to change a record or cassette.
This is how I want to listen to music. I’m glad I bought one.
An MP3 player in 2026 will enhance other listening methods
Now I won’t say I’m replacing my main music devices with a 24 year old MP3 player. That would just be ridiculous. But it’s useful for a very specific purpose: helping me stay focused and less distracted while working at home.
The only real drawback is that the battery doesn’t hold a charge for long. I’ll get a new one eventually. Because it’s more than two decades old.
It’s great to have an MP3 player again, although if you decide to get one you may need to replace the battery sooner rather than later…
