Best Simple Music / Media Player for Android Phone?

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I have a Samsung Galaxy A10e (also called model number SM-A102U).

Android 9 is the operating system. It won’t update beyond that.

Recently, I did a total reset on the phone. This reinstalled the OS, leaving out a couple of old apps which Google no longer supports. One of those is (or was) Google Play Music.

Only the “Music Library” part of the app was ever used for me to play the many music albums which are loaded onto a micro-SD card in the phone. I don’t play music from the internet, i.e no Youtube music, no Spotify, no Pandora. Just my own music collection on the micro-SD card.

Android/Google encourages me to use the default replacement app of Youtube Music. However, as far as I can tell, this will allow Youtube to monitor all my music playing which I feel is none of their business.

I just want a simple music player to play the uncompressed (.wav) music on the micro-SD card in the phone.

I tried the free VLC player from the the Play Store. It works, sort of. The problem with VLC is that there’s no Stop button. After selecting an album to play to test it out I was unable to to Stop or Exit/Close the app. There’s only Pause or Skip Track. If I do Close All on the phone it still leaves the VLC icon with a “1” showing, and launching VLC brings up the same album / same song right where it left off.

So, I’m asking for a recommendation of a music player/media player app that has a normal Stop button, exits properly when I close it, and doesn’t send/upload my usage to anywhere. Any suggestions?

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VLC works great for me on my Android phone, although it doesn’t have any Google Assistant support.  To stop a song or playback, swipe down from the top of your phone to see the “mini player notification”.  Tap the Pause (two vertical bars) and then swipe the mini player to the left or right.  There is also an option deep within VLC’s settings to “Quit” which does the same thing.  Make sure you go through all the VLC settings for the options you desire.  Finally, you can “long press” the application until you see the “i” information icon and tapping it the settings will open.  There you can “Stop” the app.

For older versions of Android, the long press may not work. In that case you’ll have to go into your Android settings, then Apps.  Locate the app, and stop it and/or clear the cache.  Clearing the cache may clear the playlist.  Again for remembering playback and last song played, you can adjust that in VLC settings.

If you want something that will interface with Google Assistant, then try the robust PowerAmp from the Google Play Store.  It’s free to try for a test, then you have to pay.  Another player is Musicolet, it isn’t bad and free with ads.   Please be wary of any application, read the reviews and research the developer.  However VLC is the king for music and video.

 

3 users thanked author for this post.

SueW, HiFlyer, WSstarvinmarvin

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OK, followed your instructions, and it appears to work fine. I’m an old PC guy, not so much an Android guy. I bet you my grandson would have intuitively swiped left or right to close the media player, but it wasn’t self-evident to me ’cause there oughta be a Stop/Close button to tap on. Silly me!

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VLC is good, but note that it will not play gapless. If you have continuous music in multiple tracks, as is common in classical music, you will hear an annoying silence between tracks.

Musicolet is my weapon of choice. It has no cloud features and plays only from local storage, which is ideal for me. On an older phone running Android 5 where Musicolet is not supported, I use Pulsar. Features are similar. Both apps are free.

I select music from a folder structure and in terms of managing a library, track or album tags are useless. All three of these apps will navigate folders.

Good luck!

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HiFlyer

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Regarding “gapless” playback, all my LPs and CDs have silence between most tracks, and classical music conductors nearly always pause between movements of any large work; thus, the silence between tracks is normal to me.

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Sure, it’s normal if the silence is supposed to be there. But, case in point: Bartok: The Miraculous Mandarin / Dorati/London Symphony on Mercury Living Presence. Duration of the piece is 28:35; the music is continuous, but divided into 23 tracks. Gaps are not normal and will not be acceptable to most music enthusiasts.

If I have to use a player that isn’t gapless, I can avoid this problem by ripping as a single track (I use K3b on Linux), or by combining multiple tracks into a single one at the command line with sox. I’m sure this is possible on other OSs, but it is labor intensive.

Component audio CD players have always been gapless, and if some manufacturer had produced one that wasn’t, it would have been laughed off the market.

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Love those Living Presence recordings, especially the Suppe/Auber Overtures, Resphigi’s Ancient Airs, and 1812 Overture/Cappriccio Italien. I only have stereo versions of any of them. Also love some of the old RCA Living Stereo, especially Reiner/Chicago Sym.’s Scheherazade and others. Fine and Cozart started the clever-microphone-placement-puts-you-there technique, resulting in recordings such that you can close your eyes and almost be there just above and behind the conductor – best seat in the house!

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driftless

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I have used Pulsar for several years, first on Android tablets and more recently on two Android phones. May not be perfect but has worked well for me.

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HiFlyer

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I also use Pulsar. Does a great job and I can cast to the TV for proper sound.

cheers, Paul

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