The Fuze, which has the same sound chip as the Clip is awfully muddy. Awfully. It smothers detail mercilessly. It significantly worse than the H320 in detail, which is in itself bettered by an iPod 5G imo.
If you're flat out against iPods I guess I can't help, but have you actually properly listened/compared them? To me, the 5G has both a great soundstage, and very good detail. The actual sound is a bit on the analytic side like the D2, but you can fix that and the bass response by tinkering with the Rockbox EQ. I haven't heard any of the new Sony/Cowon players so I can't really comment on that or the AMP3. Then again unless you have a very small lossless collection, none of these will offer anywhere near enough space anyway. There doesn't appear to be any higher capacity flash players coming out either so I'd say go with a refurbished 5G for the ridiculously good $150-ish they seem to be going for right now.
If you're flat out against iPods I guess I can't help, but have you actually properly listened/compared them? To me, the 5G has both a great soundstage, and very good detail. The actual sound is a bit on the analytic side like the D2, but you can fix that and the bass response by tinkering with the Rockbox EQ. I haven't heard any of the new Sony/Cowon players so I can't really comment on that or the AMP3. Then again unless you have a very small lossless collection, none of these will offer anywhere near enough space anyway. There doesn't appear to be any higher capacity flash players coming out either so I'd say go with a refurbished 5G for the ridiculously good $150-ish they seem to be going for right now.
