I have very good wired headphones and i need a headphone out with very good power.
My music is also flac and I have been collecting it for decades, so it would use up all of the storage of my phone.
Also phone needs to serve an emergency function so I don’t like its battery drained.
Ontop of that pixel has some notifications you can’t turn off and silent mode is not an option for me so it is very good to have them separated. Especially if you want to waste life on the internet, its nice not to have your song not be intertupted with " wait till you see what happens in the end!!!”
I personally also like a “master of one” devices. I have a supernote and i like that my mp3 player and notepad both only do what they say they do without distractions.
My cheap chinese mp3 player and cheap chinese earbuds offer fantastic noise isolation so they’re great to travel with, they together also take up less space than noise cancelling headphones and sound wise I haven’t seen anything sub 800 range that comes close to them.
They last for a long time. It plays music and that’s it so 10 years is a pretty normal age for them to last. Now most cheap ones have bluetooth and preamp output as well so there is really no reason to switch.
Then it’s not for you and that is fine.