Let me preface this by saying that you're very unlikely to get SB3-quality audio from a portable. So just let this requirement go, and your choices start looking better.
I'm a RockBox user myself, and I personally use an iAudio X5. For what it is, the audio quality is quite good. I've also heard good things about iRiver players, and I believe there may even be some older (and possibly discontinued?) models out there with digital outputs. I think some questions left unanswered are: What sort of headphones are you using? This will have a huge impact on sound quality. In fact, if you're still using stock earbuds, the iPod is simply not your primary problem. And even if you're not using stock earbuds, are you using replacement headphones that the iPod can't drive, and cranking the volume? That could be a problem too. The listening environment for portable devices tends to be different than SB3's too. Even if the audio quality was 100% identical, the portable would sound worse while jogging or driving...because you're jogging or driving. Portables are devices of convenience. Quality is job 2. -- CatBus ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CatBus's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=7461 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=51532 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list discuss@lists.slimdevices.com http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
