iMOD vs Cowon J3 - Page 2

The J3 is still sold on Amazon.

Seriously?
Proof it! :)

The J3 has more versatile EQ letting you tune to your tastes more, so that to your ears it will probably sound better. 

Other than that.... The truth is that except for sound signature, which a decent player can change with EQ, all competent DAPs will sound the same. It's headphones and IEMs that have really interesting characteristics that can't be duplicated with EQ. The J3 has studio derived BBE technology for EQ and enough amp and battery capacity that you don't need to think about adding an amp to drive any sane portable headphone.

However, sq with either will depend far more on the headphones/iem than the DAP - my $30 Clip+ driving my HD25's kicks the J3's ass playing rock when the J3 is driving  Ety HF5s (the Etys are great on clarity but have gutless bass.) If you want good sq, the real decision is what IEMs/heaphones to buy, then leftover money gets used for the DAP.

Warning! People who believe that amps can have magical properties indetectible by electronic engineering will disagree me with and say the mod pod will sound completely different depending on the amp you choose and that this can't be duplicated by EQ... However, these claims never survive blind testing, so a sensible person would ignore them.

I like this:

This boils down to this: headphones or IEMs affect sound quality most.

In the same vein.

Where can I find a thread about pairing Sansa Clip+ with $20 -$25 IEMs

(I don't want ear buds.)

I've read on this site that some Sony IEMs FX ... (or something like that) need 500+ hours to burn.

This is sick!

Source and the amp does also make a big difference though.

In terms of sq,  there isnt,  thus ipods is the best player in the world because all dap have no difference in terms of sq 

When people have done blind tests with an iPod and a cheap receiver amp against a $6000 CD player and matching amps, no one could tell the difference when the two systems were EDed to sound the same. So a silly little terra is hardly worth mentioning. It's a nasty secret of the audio industry that once jitter and noise are below audible levels - which a $30 Sansa Clip easily achieves - that all sources and amps can be EQed to sound the same. (Subject to impedance matching and the amp having enough power to drive the target - you won't drive a concert hall PA with a Clip.)

Otoh, there are serious differences sq differences between speakers and amps. Which is why you'll find people who seriously know what they are doing sometimes have a system like an old iPod or a Clip feeding a $100 Tripath amp... which feeds a set of $2000-4000 of Stax "earspeakers" (which seems to be Japanese for "very expensive headphone.")  Or the speaker oriented crowd at The Audio Critic (google it) will use a similarly cheap source/combo feeding, no kidding, $15,000 of speakers.

When people have done blind tests with an iPod and a cheap receiver amp against a $6000 CD player and matching amps, no one could tell the difference when the two systems were EDed to sound the same. So a silly little terra is hardly worth mentioning. It's a nasty secret of the audio industry that once jitter and noise are below audible levels - which a $30 Sansa Clip easily achieves - that all sources and amps can be EQed to sound the same. (Subject to impedance matching and the amp having enough power to drive the target - you won't drive a concert hall PA with a Clip.)

Otoh, there are serious differences sq differences between speakers and amps. Which is why you'll find people who seriously know what they are doing sometimes have a system like an old iPod or a Clip feeding a $100 Tripath amp... which feeds a set of $2000-4000 of Stax "earspeakers" (which seems to be Japanese for "very expensive headphone.")  Or the speaker oriented crowd at The Audio Critic (google it) will use a similarly cheap source/combo feeding, no kidding, $15,000 of speakers.