Let's get something established before we start.

The 3DS is so fucking cool...

I don't know what Nintendo was smoking while making this beast, (can I have some?) but they delivered. The fact that you can have 3D on the go, is still such a cool concept IMO. And now, even if Nintendo shut down the servers, we are lucky to have the homebrew community. Services like Pretendo and Netpass which restore a lot of the online functionality, are just awesome.

And it looks others have come to the same conclusion, as the price for the 3DS keeps on increasing every time I look. (×_×)

I am quite lucky to have the "New 3DS XL" myself, that thing is a beast.

It felt like the 3DS was the last fun? Unique? console before the modernity of the Switch took over. You can argue that was the DS, or Wii instead, but for me, it was the 3DS.

Today, there is a longing for the old, less centralized, style of internet-ting to come back. It is one of the reasons why everyone left, right and center are making their own personal websites nowadays. (I am no exception obv)

There's some kind of air of authenticity, communicating with a person not through direct, live messaging, but through a website or guestbook. It just feels more real laying yourself bare, interests, likes, fears, through a website, a little piece of yourself communicated through 1s and 0s that tells the world, "This is who I am!"

Uncertainty, a slower, indirect, way of communicating, is what makes you value every response you get back. And the 3DS has a few ways of communicating like this. (Mii plaza, Swapnote, miiverse...)

But this is getting off-topic!!! This was supposed to be about using my homebrewed 3DS as a music player!

Alright. So I have been wanting to grow less dependent of my phone. Hard task, It has my Student-ID and Bus ticket on it. Not to mention the phone function of the phone. So small steps, what function from the phone could I extract to its own thing?

Music! I figured it was high time for me to actually listen wired, buy the tracks of the artists, and most importantly, actually LISTEN actively! Appreciate the music instead of just mindlessly using the mix function of Metroli- I mean YouTube music.

And I have the perfect portable entertainment device for this!!! The 3DS! Just you wait, I'm gonna be walking around listening to my tunes while collecting streetpasses like it's the 2010s! Is what I thought anyway.

Most of my audio journey has been headphones, so I thought why not try some IEMS for a change! They have good noise isolation which is useful in transit. I decided on the TRUTHEAR PURE's, definitely NOT because of the box.

I got them, tried them with my phone.

Pretty good! I liked the warmth sound profile of them!

Then I plugged the IEMS in the 3DS and had a listen.

I could hear there was a subtle, crunchiness, in the sound. Like the entire track was compressed.

I saw there was debris on the metal inside the jack.

Tried cleaning it, to no improvement. (╥ ᴗ ╥)

It may seem that I have overestimated the capabilities of the 3DS DAC (digital-analog converter), or the jack has just gone that bad.

Whatever! The 3DS was too bulky to carry for just music anyway... ૮(˶╥︿╥)ა

i have a backup plan!

The Snowsky Echo mini.

Pomegrante, the music player and Miku theme

This inexpensive DAP is, small, theme customizable, and has a cool retro design that serves my needs well enough! (and it makes me feel cool while carrying it around...)

*PS: If you want, you can view my Pretendo friend ID in the guestbook and add me!