I have been reading the board for awhile. I am in the process of archiving to Flac and then to .mp3. My wife has an Ipod and I like itunes but it isnt the end all. I wish they had secure ripping but whatever. I have to find a good player now and I keep reading about ipods bad audio quality. What are the alternatives with the kind of hard drive space that ipod offers? I am not sure Zune is there yet and the software seems like a weakness to me.

The new iPod Classic models have very respectable RMAA test results. The EQ is still limiting, your mileage may vary.

I just won a 80GB iPod classic and highly recommend it.

I use EAC and REACT to rip to FLAC and mp3 with LAME.

I then load the mp3's into iTunes and add the album artwork and other various tweeks that suit my personal preferences. I then use iTunes to add the mp3's to my iPod as iTunes is capable of loading all of the soundcheck info and gapless playback features. The gapless playback works perfectly this way and is one of the main reasons I stick to iTunes for syncing my iPod.

The sound quality is excellent (I cannot tell the difference between the original CD and the mp3). I've tested this by switching back and forth between the original CD and the iPod in my car using the car speakers and on my PC using both my Boston Acoustic computer speakers and my Shure e4c headphones.

The battery life is vastly improved over the older iPods as well. I only need to charge the thing for a short period of time once a week or so. Just syncing it long enough to load new music is long enough to keep it going for days at a time.

[/end ramble]
JXL

I am always concerned about audio quality, in fact I rip all my CDs with Lame at -V 0 or -V 1 and I use a Aureon Space (via Envy24) on my PC... I must admit that iPod nano (3rd gen) quality is very good in my opinion and I can't tell the difference with my PC even with good headphones.

Don't care too much about audio tests... Believe to your hears, these are the best way to judge a player!

PS (If you still want the "best player"...) I've read somewere that in objective quality tests that latest reative player should be the best, but I don't have any direct experience and don't remember the source...

Edit: ipod mini corrected to nano

I dont know If I need the best, I guess I just want to make sure the quality is at least good. I like itunes for the most part although I like playback in Windows Media Player with the SRS wow effects. Im surprised it isnt more popular.

I river clix is one of the best Mp3 player, i have used.

I dunno because I've got old, cloth, ears, but I'm not conscious of any difference in sound quality between my iPod Classic and my iRiver H120, which is, I think, a well regarded older player. Depends much more on the headphones.

I think some of the bad-mouthing of the iPod has its origins in a graph which shows that the Classic has a less flat response curve than the previous generation. As the deviation from flatness shown is a slight boost at frequencies over c. 15kHz, I'm not concerned -- it would actually be a plus for most people over about 20.

AFAIK, nothing matches the iPod Classic on capacity for price. I looked, because I actually *dis*like iTunes, and I still ended up with a 160GB Classic.

Best

Michael

Everyone gets stuck on I-pods Bad quality, its not bad, I-tunes just changes the format when converting to you portable to 96kbs, wich is mp3 format just lower bit rate so the I-pod does not have to work as hard (is is a portable standalone audio device, no huge ram system or anything so low quality works in this case)

But where I-Pod i think gets its bad name is when they made you portable (walk man) into a mobile music box WITHOUT CHANGING THE QUALITY PARAMETER. When you play an I-Pod, OR ANY Mp3 on a loudspeaker system or loudly in your car, you do hear the difference and the barely noticeable audio clip every now and then.

Basically if the music stays on you PC, and you don't have 10,000 songs then keep it .wav if you don't have a hard drive space issue, keep it .wav why loose the quality if there is no reason. Even if you have a Lossless format when you upload to you MP3 portable it converts for you. (A lot of programs will allow you to... only alter a copy of the origional in a temp folder and then delete after uploading, but the program does it all for you so it is still point and click for you)

Example: Acoustica MP3 Burner (with portable device capabilities)