Quote: Are you aware that your XFi ElitePro has "those Electrolytic Capacitors?!" ? It will probably die soon.

Quote: Of course there is. Just connect it's digital output to any digital room correction device of your choice and voila!

Iriver's output is bit-perfect IF you configure it so (rockbox settings). ironmine, in your case using iriver is senseless. Get a Squeezebox Touch - it plays flacs etc from USB drive, does not require a separate server (although can use one), has a nice UI and in general is quite descent as a...

squeezebox touch does not require external NAS\server and can play music from connected USB hard drive.

Quote: I have iriver, I had listened to various ipods, imod, and most other modern players. When I say something, I only say it based on my direct experience. It is possible, though, that my understanding of "SQ" differs from somebody's and what is "fantastic" for someone is merely OK for...

All those PMPs are more or less in the same leasue SQ-wise. Some are bit better, some are bit worse, but it is all the same anyway, Nothing special. Sure it is better than ipod, so what?

The only reason to keep it is if you mod it (change a hard dtive to bigger one and maybe a battery), and then use it as a digital source with a good external dac\amp. As a standalone player it sucks just like all other players out there. If you don't have money to buy a DAC\amp - you better sell...

Well, it is not much less portable than Headroom Microamp. As for being out of production - it doesn't really matter, because if you want it, you can find it. 

Quote: Sonosax SX-DA2 portable DAC\AMP has XLR balanced line output.

Quote: Sorry, ipod is not considered a quality source :) . But yes, in an everyday life using ipod and average headphones or earphones, they will be indistinguishable. However, on a good setup with a high quality source and with at-home listening, it will be no problem to tell them apart.

If you can't hear the difference between lossy and lossless, that's because either you are not trained to distinguish small nuances in sound, or don't know what to look for and how the differences present themselves, or use misic that was badly recorded, or your gear is not capable of presenting...

An example would be Sonosax SX-DA2 portable DAC\AMP, it has a truely balanced line output (XLR). It would be nice to try to use a fully balanced amp with it, although it's built-in SE amp is really good.

I would rather like to see balanced mini Lisa :)

Well, good luck, maybe in 2-4 years something like that will show up. I hope so too, because carrying around one brick is better that carrying aroun 2 bricks. However for me the sound quality is primary, so that brick must be way better than Sonosax, and that is very unlikely. But who knows? HFM...

Czesc Kuba, this is a long, long, long and expensive way. Why don't you just make a shortcut and buy yourself a Sonosax SX-DA2 (that's Swiss-made portable professional DAC\AMP of very high quality) and connect it via optical to proven portable transport - good old iriver h140. You can get a...