Rockbox offers a great SQ; however, if someone really is looking for a singe device that can offer a great SQ, personally i won't recommend Ipod Classic as the first choice.

Considering other players i think this one is the best for me. i converted all my music to lossless alac m4a container. And sum music won't play because the bitrate is to high(more than 1640 kb/s). I kept the original and listen to it on my mac. Like my iphone 5 and ipod nano I think the build in EQ will suck. But I will be buying the Fiio E12 and using LOD and bypassing de internal AMP. So no issue there.! Still will wait until summer and see what apple does? If they come with a new model and sum Lightning doc I will go for the old model .Don’t want to bother with a lightning to 30-pin adapter. Fiio is not getting the (MFi (Made for iPhone/iPod/iPad) license ) YET. But FLAC is no issue because I can always convert back to FLAC or wav because I always use lossless. The thing is I like being able to make playLists brows to cover art and so on. Other players ? which ones? Give folder art play alac and m4a containers , sync with itunes alternative ?? Only issue I heard is that the EQ sucks ..but a amp with sum bass boost (not to much ) solves this write?

Always use a parametric EQ for the best results. A great music player is Neutron and at $7.44 from the Google App store it is a steal. Never tried to get it on an iPod mind you so unsure if that would work. Dropped it on my phone and it is amazing.