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Have you tried Rockbox? It's not a device, but an alternate firmware for a number of popular and obscure media players.
My only other suggestion is picking up a slightly older Android phone and just leaving it in airplane mode. I like Vinyl Music Player. I think Vinyl does all the things you want.
Rockbox unfortunately is built with "dinosaurs" in mind. As a side effect, the project does not intend to properly handle modern ID3, Vorbis tags.
I could use an older Android phone, but would have to find a suitable device to de-Google and load a custom music player app onto (such as Vinyl). Neither my Pixel XL nor Pixel 5a that I own currently are suitable targets (neither have microSD support, my Pixel XL has a damaged headphone jack and needs to be repaired). If you have any recommendations for something used that has a headphone jack, microSD slot, and can bootloader unlock via adb, let me know.
I did some research and the Samsung Galaxy S9 or S9+ (but only certain models, specifically the ones with Exynos processors) seems like a good option. They're officially supported by /e/OS, have an SD slot that supports up to 400 GB, have a headphone jack, and can be easily found for under $300.
the project does not intend to properly handle modern ID3, Vorbis tags
Which tags does it not intend to support? Not doubting you, just curious!
The explicit denial I saw is multi-genre, multi-artist in ID3 v2.4 I won't be parsed.
EDIT: The source.
Rockbox will only pick up one of a tag (RIP Vorbis) and will only parse up to 500 bytes on higher end players, 240 bytes on other players of the grouped tag (RIP ID3 v2.4).
Huh, interesting.