make iPhone 3Gs sound as good as Sony Walkman®

I've found the SQ from the 3GS headphone out to be substandard on both phones that I've had (first one was stolen). I tried the FiiO E1 amp and it did help the SQ quite a bit, but it's just another thing in my pocket (even if shortened), so I unloaded it. I wouldn't waste $ on a 'real' amp for the iPhone as it would no longer be portable.

At the moment, I carry the iPhone as a phone/internet device and use a Sansa Clip+ for listening to tunes. I find the Clip+ headphone out to be far more to my liking with my headphones (RE0, KSC75). The Clip+ EQ helps to correct for some (but not all) inadequacies of these headphones, particularly for the KSC. The EQ on the iPhone is useless.

I'm thinking about canceling my ATT contract and selling the 3GS. And then get another, smaller phone for calls/texting and stick with the Clip for music. Having the internet in my pocket isn't as useful as I thought it would be anyway...

Which Walkman model did you guys like?

i use the a828 and like it. the "clearbass" makes a big difference to my RE0s and RE-zeros

the x series also gets good reviews on this site.

if you have the a82- or a72 series you can access the service menu and tweak the DAC treble and bass to suit your tastes.

i own a mac, but use "mediamonkey" in parallels to sync my library.

I find the walkmans power them easily and "clearbass" does well with the bass.

The nwz-a828 and a829 or a729 etc are about a year or 2 older model now, so 2nd hand of this site or eBay may be the go, although have seen some new ones still being sold (old stock).

Oh and heres mediamonkey. If you use it with parallels you can sync to the same folder you have your mac iTunes music (across the network through parallels, but with bootcamp you would just sync to a separate music folder on your windows side.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/