Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#1

Post by muratsu » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 10:58 PM UTC

I have been a paying Spotify customer for many years now. Thanks to the yearly wrapped event, I am reminded how my use pattern is listening to a limited amount of tracks on repeat.

I'm curious if any of you has made the switch back to listening to mp3s? If you did, which apps are you using?

Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#2

Post by toomuchtodo » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 11:03 PM UTC

Jellyfin

https://github.com/jellyfin/jellyfin

https://hn.algolia.com/?q=jellyfin

Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#3

Post by mindcrime » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 11:47 PM UTC

I never stopped listening to mp3's, at least not altogether. I do spend quite a bit of time listening to music these days using Youtube / YT music, but I do still listen to my local collection at times. And I buy mp3 albums from Amazon every once in a while.

For listening I've mostly used xmms over the years, but recently I've been using Audacious[2] mostly.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XMMS

[2]: https://audacious-media-player.org/

Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#4

Post by t-3 » Sat, Dec 27, 2025, 11:59 PM UTC

I use an mp3 player usually, but I do have an mpd setup with my NAS serving the files and other devices (desktop, media center, laptop) acting as satellites.

Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#5

Post by orionblastar » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 12:04 AM UTC

https://winamp.com/player WinAmp has made a comeback.

Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#6

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 12:05 AM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#7

Post by keernan » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 12:11 AM UTC

I have my own huge collection of my favorite music but, as it turns out, my carefully curated Pandora channel matches my music tastes so faithfully that it keeps introducing me to new music that I just love.

And it almost never plays a song that causes me to hit next. Of course, it took a long time to get the channel tuned just right - but now I play music for 5+ hours without interruption of nothing but music I love.

Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#8

Post by regenschutz » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 12:12 AM UTC

I (somewhat) recently switched from using MP3s to using streaming services. Personally, my music taste (and the amount of tracks that I listen to) is way more varied now than it was before, but I suppose that depends both on how you use streaming services and how you use local MP3s.

Back when I still used exclusively MP3s, I used Music on Console Player [0] on my personal computer and Snae Player [1] on my school's chromebook, since we were only allowed to use web apps on our Chromebooks. On my phone I found VLC [2] to be the best app since it has so many features. I can highly recommend both programs.

I still have all three installed and use them whenever I don't have internet. Although I haven't updated my local music library in a while, so I am reminded of my old music tastes whenever I open either of them.

[0]: https://github.com/jonsafari/mocp

[1]: https://snaeplayer.com/

[2]: https://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-android.html

Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#9

Post by backtogeek » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 12:14 AM UTC

Yep and I have kept it really basic and simple, I just store them in a folder in /home/$user/music and let jukebox scan and catalogue and I keep a subset on my phone, really that simple.... And you know what, it feels great, but then again, I am old enough to fondly remember just listening to a Walkman and being blown away.

Re: Ask HN: How to go back to listening to MP3s?

#10

Post by JohnFen » Sun, Dec 28, 2025, 12:15 PM UTC

I never switched away from listening to my own music collection, so my experience may not be useful to you. Here's the setup I have. I run Kodi as my music server at home, with a NAS that contains all of my music. My collection is quite large and continues to grow. I get most of my new music on CDs (usually purchased at the merch table at live performances) or through Bandcamp these days, although I'm open to any source that allows me to have unencumbered lossless recordings.

This allows me to use Kodi's native front end when I'm listening on my home sound system, to use a web front end to play on any web-connected computer, and to stream from my server to my smartphone when I'm out and about. It's the best of all worlds. I have all the convenience of a streaming service, but I actually own the music and it will never become suddenly unavailable or replaced by inferior versions, and I don't have a fixed recurring cost just to enjoy music. Plus, a ton of great music is simply not available on any commercial streaming platform and this eliminates that issue.

I don't tend to use MP3s, though. I go with FLAC instead. Kodi will transcode the FLACs to other formats if needed.