Quote: rawrster
That really depends on your gear, your ears and your listening environment.
+1. As I also tend to use my DAP on public transportation, I've little need for portable lossless, and after doing my own listening tests in a quiet environment (bedroom), I've taken all the ALACs off my Macbook Pro and left them and my FLACs on the HTPC strictly for home use. 256 and 320kbps VBR AAC gives me peace of mind on the road, and on the subway with IE8's out an iPhone 4, I'm sure I could go as low as 192 and not care.
Home listening with full-size headphones is a different story: I'm in the middle of a move, and was rooting through long-lost and forgotten possessions when I happened upon my very first Discman, a D-E301 from 1997. It's not even the greatest Discman, but plugging my Senn HD600's into its line-out was a revelation. It turns out that DAP hopping had given me amnesia, because that 13 year old decrepit CD player's line-out made me melt right where I sat. I listened to the whole
Wired album featuring Jeff Beck and Narada Walden, and didn't even think of lifting the player off my desk lest it start skipping in intractable fits (remember when 10 second skip protection was SOTA?) Compared even to my 5.5G iPod video, the Discman put Beck and Walden in the room with me. As the memories were flooding back, I realised that whether it was an on or off day for its meager skip protection, that player made every CD I loaded into it sound magical and new--even Weird Al Yankovic, with $50 Aiwa cans I wore 'round my neck in middle school.
I may sound crazy, but that was without a doubt, the best I'd heard the HD600's sound out of a portable
anything, and the player cost just south of $120 back in the day. Every DAP, and CD player I purchased afterwards, sounded increasingly (and unfailingly) more tiny, dull and lifeless. What's so impossible about making an HDD or flash DAP that sounds as good or better than
that?!
Sorry to get off topic, but that had to come out. Now goodnight. -_-