Best Sounding MP3 Player.......?

Originally Posted by huskyfan23

Cowon gets my vote. The I7 and D2 have great SQ. Sony's new ones are supposed to be great too.

iPod? Such a joke. Decent SQ, but a terrible equalizer. There is much better out there.

Originally Posted by OpenWave

I would still have to say the iPod and I would say more importantly the quality of the mp3's are IMO more of an important factor. Most mp3's are 128kbps and ideally to have CD quality you would need between 192 and 320kbps, however most of use are not able to differentiate between the two. So yes the iPod 30,60,80,160GB are great choices. Battery life is usually at a day and a half.

Originally Posted by OpenWave

Most mp3's are 128kbps and ideally to have CD quality you would need between 192 and 320kbps, however most of use are not able to differentiate between the two.

Originally Posted by pager

I can DEFINITELY differentiate between 128k and 192k, so I try to have all my MP3s 192k or higher. After 192 I can't tell a difference though, lol.

Originally Posted by holaDude

The headphones are just as important as the player is. You can have the best player in the world, but substandard headphones will kill the sound quality.

Originally Posted by Scottish Skyeandce

the way of encoding is more important than bitrate
VBR provides "headroom" to more complicated portion
192kbps VBR even exceeds 256kbps or higher CBR

if your hardware supports ogg vorbis and/or FLAC, use it
ogg vorbis has better, acoustic-friendly coding scheme, while FLAC is lossless codec

Originally Posted by eggsuperperson

I'm able to tell the difference between a 192 and a 320, rarely a 256 and 320 using my iPhone and Ultimate Ears Super.Fi 5EB's.

The 256/320 difference is really rare, but once in a while I can tell side by side.

Anyone else?

Originally Posted by nanosp

Exactly. Sansa's mp3 players (Clip, Fuze, e280) support both ogg and FLAC..
using ogg @ 128kbps is equivalent to mp3 @ at least 160-192 VBR

Originally Posted by Scottish Skyeandce

Sandisk Sansa?!
I don't think the brand supports ogg vorbis
only Korean brand supports

Originally Posted by nanosp

Both the clip and fuze support ogg now, the fuze also does flac via firmware updates.. http://www.dapreview.net/news.php?item.4340.2
I think I was wrong on the E series though.

Originally Posted by Scottish Skyeandce

http://www.sansa.com/players/sansa_fuze/tech

got it
just wish it has 16GB version though, because iriver E100 8GB is $100 now
both have microSDHC slot

Originally Posted by chimphappyhour

I picked up a fuze, an excellent little player. I have the 8GB and have yet to use the expansion slot, but memory is falling like a rock so I might just pick up an extra 8GB for the future. The last fw update did wonders for the player and it sounds like they're still actively working on future upgrades.

My last mp3 player was an iRiver which was really good. Sad to hear that they may not be as good as they used to be.

I'll also second anythingbutipod.com for reviews and information.

Originally Posted by Scottish Skyeandce

I have a question to ask Sansa Fuze users
can it sort .ogg files by tag
I have samsung player, and it can't, it can't open folders (I sort albums this way)
now Sansa Fuze 8GB is $90 at CC

Originally Posted by chimphappyhour

The Sansa's don't use folders either. It just loads the music in and sorts via the usual tags such as artist, name, album, type and ratings.

Originally Posted by davisboy

i hear sony's mp3 players have excellent audio quality. they also have a line of players with 40hours of playback.

Originally Posted by davisboy

i hear sony's mp3 players have excellent audio quality. they also have a line of players with 40hours of playback.

Originally Posted by dgb52

The Sansa clip and fuze, Cowon D2 and the Sony's players are said to have some of the best sound quality around

as was mentioned above go to www.anythingbutipod.com for reviews on a lot of mp3 players