[mikaveli06]

Currently loving my J3, but looking to add to collection. It is great, and powerfull built in amp. But id like to get portable amp w/larger phones. Ill keepj3 for iems etc. should i go with 5th gen ipod or newer 7g. And never supported apple, but these are only player w/trie linout correct?

 

[Sefelt103]

I quite liked (and still do) like the sound of the iPod 5G. I prefered it to the later 6th gen I owned when using full size headphones. The 5th gen manages to do something perhaps slightly unusual in the fact it sounded good with both IEMs and full size headphones. There was hardly any improvement using my desktop Fiio E9 with the 5th gen which confused me as I had read numerous times how the headphone amp. was not great in the 5G. The newer 7G has of course the advantage of massive capacities and long battery life but probably is compromised with full sized headphones. Other players do have line outs usually by having another socket. Examples are HiFiman HM-601, Teclast T51 etc.