Yep. Standard search engines, with a wardialer level of persistence. Probably unhealthy, since it takes a lot of time.... I usually start with whatever the bi

Yep. Standard search engines, with a wardialer level of persistence. Probably unhealthy, since it takes a lot of time.... I usually start with whatever the biggest name brand is that isn't Apple-ized(Made with lots of incompatibilities, a "think different" attitude, expensive, prioritizing "luxury craftsmanship" over high tech, etc). I usually use a lot of quotes in searches. And I generally will always look for the more generalized versions. In this case, my first search would be "Bluetooth" mp4 player "ogg" "opus" "flac" "type-c" which has some interesting results. Related features are also helpful and can sometimes be used as proxies for features that aren't always clearly described. Most of the ones with FM radio also have a 3.5mm jack. I'm not rich, and I generally trust mass produced tech, so I'm not really sure about the top of the pyramid or how to find it. Ideally I like name brands, but in general solid state stuff is a lot harder to mess up than older stuff. A bad record player might be truly bad, a bad mp3 player is probably just kind of OK. and will probably continue working for 10 years, just a bit annoyingly. A more midrange MP3 player is probably pretty great. With a lot of things, there's only so much you can do. Playing MP3s is mostly solved, there's no reason a $30 device can't do it very well, if it has all the features. I've never tried to find something like an MP3 player or any of those "Phones do it now" devices though. That might be a bit harder now that they are mostly a low end thing, and most(Myself included) just focus on making sure you have a great phone, and not bothering with dedicated gear. Building my own is the one thing I try to almost never to. Yes, I generally describe my job title as embedded systems engineer. No, I do not want to add another custom project to my life. What I might do if I was really dedicated is to look for something unrelated with moddable open firmware. Perhaps one of the keychain sized ESP32 game consoles. Last resort, it is in fact totally reasonable to DIY things these days.... I just prefer to curate my projects list very aggressively and I'd rather just use a phone app.