[ILikeMusic]

When you compare a PCDP to your iPod you may well discover that the amplifier or DAC or something else in the audio chain tend to make the PDCD sound better than the other device... but that doesn't necessarily say anything about MP3 vs. CD, analog vs. digital, etc. Some of the newer portable players can sound pretty dreadful but that has more to do with a maniacal desire on the part of manufacturers to make the device as small as possible, which limits circuit design options and requires the lowest possible power consumption so batteries can be small, etc., than differences in the audio format.

Take an MP3 (or AAC, or Ogg, or whatever) file that was encoded by a modern encoder at a reasonable bitrate, burn it to CD along with an .WAV copy of the same song, and do a blind A-B test on your PCDP (i.e. comapre the formats on the same player.) It's very unlikely you will be able to hear the slightest difference between the two tracks.

Of course that fact doesn't solve the problem though, which you correctly identify as an overall crappy sounding player. As soon as the average buyer begins to care more about sound quality than things like the smallest possible size then things will get better... which of course means don't hold your breath...

But that said some MP3 players do sound better than others, and the best sound as good as any past PCDP... you just need to seek them out.

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