I am looking for a 8GB flash mp3 player, probably Nano Gen 2, Zen V plus or Sansa e280.

Sound quality is pretty important to me and I have been researching it on the web and I have seen the craziest, most contradictory information that I have ever seen on which of these players is the best or at least good.

I really don't have the best ears, most of my music is encoded at 128Kbps and the best headphones that I will use will be my Grado SR-60s, otherwise I will be using the included earbuds at the gym or the line-in on my half-way decent car stereo.

Under these conditions will there be any real differences in sound quality?

Thanks

Almost certainly not, especially at the gym with the stock ear-buds and in the car with all the road noise.

I agree with gib. High noise environments such as a gym or car don't need high bitrates or the highest quality audio player. Additionally, the "experts'" opinions don't really matter as each player roughly has the same sound quality. One may process lows better, one may have a better this or that. Look at the features of each player (such as sound quality and ease of use), the available accessories, and the software that each player uses.

Just make sure that, if you are already set with using your own software (like foobar2000), that the player you want is compatible with it or there is a plug-in that supports your player.

My recommendation goes towards the iPod nano. The newly re-designed iPod nano sports the great casing as the older iPod mini's but has the size of the 1st gen nano's, is really easy to use, iTunes is a nice piece of software (even though 80% of this board will disagree), and you can purchase many accessories for it.