I've always been diappointed with the sound quality of my Creative Zen mp3 player (it's an old firewire version) despite the fact that all my mp3's are ripped using EAC and Lame with alt preset std. On my pc they sound great so, I'm thinking of upgrading my player to something better - are the latest hdd-based players likely to present a substantial improvement over what I have now?

Also, something with a proper lineout would be very welcome. To me sound quality is more important than features.

Recommendations? I'm UK-based.

TIA.