If you get one of those better sounding players, put Rockbox on it so you have better codec support and audio decoding quality. Plus its interface is usually better than Cowon or iRiver's, which are often terrible.

For the best sound quality look at cowon and iriver.

When you compare the top mp3 players on the market:
iPod, Zune, Sony, San Disk, P2, P3 ETC:
The first thing you find out is the iPod is lacking in sound quality to all those other players.

I quite like Sony, but they did take their sweet time jumping on the mp3 bandwagon.. today with the larger harddrive space avalible its really flac's time to shine IMHO.

So does it play .flac?

Nick you are the apple of my eye

I purchased one of these Sony players some months ago. Three factors influenced my decision :-

The included earbuds are incredibly good and the journalist is correct in stating that the sound quality is top notch. I suggest that Gordon should listen to these Sony players and he will not need instrumentation to notice the sound quality improvement over an Ipod, the difference is very significant indeed.

These Sony players now allow you to drag and drop your music. The Apple Itunes software method is far too restrictive. Once again the journalist is right on the money with his comments.

The Sony players include a very good FM radio.