For my birthday I want to get a better way to listen to music. [....].

Ummm, don't we all?

I assume that for a birthday, you want something more than merely better what you got now.

It's worth pointing out that in general, it's difficult for CathInfo members to advise you without some information about the limits to prices that you or generous family might underwrite.  Readers typically know nothing not only about financial limits under which you or your family routinely lives, but also about your freedom to occasionally indulge yourselves.

It now seems that you (‘Matto’) are the recipient of a birthday solution for which you're grateful, so my comment above on price is for the benefit of future similar inquiries from CathInfo members to this (sub)forum.

Ummm, don't we all?

My earlier posting notwithstanding, in some larger metropolitan areas, it might be possible--and make sense--to repair audio or video-playing equipment that is now sadly nonoperational, by recourse to audiophile-oriented shops.  That's for equipment that was originally costly in earlier years.  Assuming that you still got it around somewhere ^[*].

For equipment that plays rotating media, e.g., LPs, CDs, the problem to be resolved can be as simple as a rubber belt that needs to be replaced ^[×].  Some senior-citizen members would be quite happy to regain the use of much-better-than-average-quality audio or video-playing equipment (bought back in more affluent earlier years when they could afford their purchase) via a gift of repair from family memebers.

I'm thinking especially of repairing CD-players, because possessing music CDs avoids major issues with the intellectial-property entanglements.  With analog player signals fed to an analog amplifier and analog speakers that're operational, the issue becomes how loud you dare crank up the speakers.

CathInfo members have no idea what audio coverage you're seeking unless you tell us.  R.g., I have only an apartment to fill with music, so altho I would like the audio coverage that a front-rm. & back-rm. set of speakers would provide, I can get by with 1 set.  Readers with a multistory house and outdoor space would probably make different choices, including indulging in wireless protocols to avoid the cost & hassles of installing signal cables (e.g., 2-lead analog or cat.-whatever Ethernet).

Beware that an analog player can't transfer digital data (e.g., there won't be a USB or Bluetooth port); that's the rational basis for disparaging them as obsolete.

For digical players, widespread techie sentiments consider it vere dignum et justum est to extract digital music from audio CDs (the violent-named process ripping) ^[#] that one legitimately owns.  This can be accomplished from CD-equipped systems at least as old as Win98SE.  The appeal is that regardless of the system on which a music track is ripped, the resulting file can be saved & played on any computer to whose hardware you can transfer it (e.g., older computers have limited--or no--support for storing a file on newer devices that are convenient for transferring a large music file onto a newer camputer).

Listening to music without (physical) CDs, submitting to paying for music downloads that can only be played on 1 PC, risks the future exasperation of paying again at full price to move the identical previously paid music from a suddenly nonoperational PC to its replacement PC.

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Note *: Well-made equipment that's decades-old (i.e. 1999 or earlier) might be robust enough to resist EMP attack.  But that might not matter if (hah! when?) the power grid gets fried anyhow.

Note ×: May God smite any audio or video-playing manufacturers whose rubber belts and other really inexpensive parts are so pointlessly proprietary that they can't be trivially replaced!

Note #: There are several defensible choices for a digital format to which music on individual CD tracks can be ripped for legitimate personal preservation.  I consider that discussion or debate to be out of scope for this topic (which surprisingly has already been fouled by its originator himself).