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[Martin_1962]

As Jay W alluded to, the best thing you can do to improve the listening experience is change the silly, poor quality (and potentially dangerous) in ear buds for a set of decent headphones (I use Sennheiser PX200's).

I can't imagine the reproduction from the units themselves will be that different, aside of maybe more bass emphasis from one to another.
In essense MP3 players are memory sticks with a DAC and equalizer to my mind.

Oh and there are a couple of people here who are very keen to state they are "not gay"..... over emphasising maybe?  

I think what both Jaime and I mean is that we never buy something because it is stylish.

[Kevin Wood]

In think you have to go to quite a high bit rate on your MP3 encoding before you start noticing issues with individual players over the effects of compression, although players will probably have different characters as I imagine they are all tweaked to sound "good" to a certain degree.

I actually use MP3 and FLAC quite a lot on my Hi-Fi through a squeezebox for casual listening purely because it's more convenient to access than a pile of CDs. Bit rate needs to be much higher than any downloaded material to make it acceptable though. The squeezebox  sounds indistinguishable from my Arcam CD player when playing FLAC.

Kevin

[albitz]

Actually the Sony was by far and away the best sounding but it lost because it wasn't an I**d.

Creative also make good mp3 players - do they get recognised - nope again not an I**d

Worst sounding was the Ipod then Creative then the SOny - I read a good review on theregister about these sorts of players.

Do any of them sound as good as my MD portable with Sennheiser PX100s?

And you don't think The Register are not bias?

IME, ipod sounds much, much better than the creative and a Sony one I tried.  I wouldn't buy an iPod on principle of the fact that I'm not gay, but you can't deny that as a device for the masses, it works well, and seamlessly.

got a total of 5 ipods here ,but didnt actually pay for any of them,so hopefully that means im not gay   ..edit; i am still convinced that vinyl gives a better sound than any digital reproduction i,ve ever heard.

[Martin_1962]

Actually the Sony was by far and away the best sounding but it lost because it wasn't an I**d.

Creative also make good mp3 players - do they get recognised - nope again not an I**d

Worst sounding was the Ipod then Creative then the SOny - I read a good review on theregister about these sorts of players.

Do any of them sound as good as my MD portable with Sennheiser PX100s?

And you don't think The Register are not bias?

IME, ipod sounds much, much better than the creative and a Sony one I tried.  I wouldn't buy an iPod on principle of the fact that I'm not gay, but you can't deny that as a device for the masses, it works well, and seamlessly.

got a total of 5 ipods here ,but didnt actually pay for any of them,so hopefully that means im not gay   ..edit; i am still convinced that vinyl gives a better sound than any digital reproduction i,ve ever heard.

I have a number of sources I'll give my source a score on each

Vinyl      6 mid range TT
CD        7 good with CD DVD player
DVD-A   9 DVD Player
SACD    7 DVD Player
Tape      3 (was 6) my good deck broke
MD        7 mid range deck

Basically no Linn turntables or Nakamichi Cassette decks, also ignoring DTS, DD, and high bit rate DD.

On my stuff tape is last - even my broken better deck would have been.

In quality order with my kit

DVD-A
SACD
Vinyl & CD
MD
Tape

Some CDs are appalling, some vinyl is superb, some CDs are very good, some vinyl is rubbish.

Now with DVD-A imagine the clean noise floor of CD taken to a new level, the high frequency naturalness of vinyl but no hiss or noise, and no CD high frequency harshness.

However DVD-A and SACD are difficult to get, best way is a Pioneer DVD player, Sony do not do SACD and Panasonic do not do DVD-A. Guess who sold the most £100 to £150 DVD players?

So my best source is a £110 multi format DVD player, then a mid range equivalent to about £100 turntable about 20 years old, then a MD deck I picked up in a sale, broken tape deck was with the turntable but currently best one is a Dolby/Chrome/line out equipped ghetto blaster.

[albitz]

i play my old albums on an old bang &olufsen deck and it sounds better to me than cd,ipod or anything else ive heard,there seems to be a warmth to the sound thats missing from digital sound.it could of course be nostalgia/rose tinted headphones  ....talking of b&o headphones,blew 3 pairs of them in as many months,listening to the same song each time .

[tunnie]

the gadget shows review was not about music, it was about videos on mp3 players.

The nano had the best package, because itunes is so simple and easy to use.

Sony software for mp3 players just sucks!

It maybe the best player but it needs the package.

Remember American cars have v8 engines, which we love, but the rest of the car is rubbish, hence they don't sell here.

The whole package needs to be reviewed, hence the iPod won.

[Kevin Wood]

Why should I need "software" to transfer files from my PC to another hard drive in an external device though? I have all the tools I need to do that.  OK, the tools don't sell me downloads but I 'aint buying anyway.

Kevin

[Martin_1962]

the gadget shows review was not about music, it was about videos on mp3 players.

The nano had the best package, because itunes is so simple and easy to use.

Sony software for mp3 players just sucks!

It maybe the best player but it needs the package.

Remember American cars have v8 engines, which we love, but the rest of the car is rubbish, hence they don't sell here.

The whole package needs to be reviewed, hence the iPod won.

Windows explorer should be good enough.

[Kevin Wood]

Windows explorer should be good enough.

Precisely. With the added bonus that it doesn't try to sell you things and spy on you. - well, maybe it does these days.

Actually, I think I prefer rsync.  

Kevin

[TheBoy]

Windows explorer should be good enough.

Precisely. With the added bonus that it doesn't try to sell you things and spy on you. - well, maybe it does these days.

Actually, I think I prefer rsync.  

Kevin

Can't beat a bit of rsync.  Shame Windows NTFRS does a better job