Ever since making this thread I've seen more and more people buying them and the prices of ipods seem to be spiking. I saw Slayyyter say she bought like 20 2-8gb ipods for like $20 each and ever since i've seen the trend of them coming back.
I linked it here before but i was looking into actual ipods and was thinking of getting one from https://player-mods.com/ you can buy prebuilt with new battery and parts. OR fully customize it to your liking. BUT it is expensive as hell, and i myself researched too much to the point where i just psyched myself out of buying one. I saw so many reddit posts saying they had bad experiences with them. Some people have for whatever reason filled their 1-2TB mods and say it's slow as hell. On the flip side, ive seen just the same amount of good reviews from people who aren't doing the most on them lol and say they're great for a casual listener that needs that extra storage.
Another option i found are DAPs (Digital Audio Players) [basically mp3 players but the forum people love to make them sound so extra] they (unlike ipods) CAN play WAV and sometimes FLAC formatted files depending on the device. iTunes will just make any WAV into m4a i think is what apple's default is for ipods. So if that's something you want then maybe a DAP will work for you?
The main point being is spend what you can reasonably & spend on what you need storage wise. If you don't need something custom, i've seen many good reviews about ebay ipods that were only taken apart to put a new battery in.
Non ipod players (DAPs) do exist with micro sd card slots so you can buy a idk $40 and add in a 256gb mSD card. (WAV and any "HQ" files will take up more space than like mp3)
Sorry for the long post, i just unintentionally learned a ton after making this and would HATE for you to spend a lot of money if you don't need to.