[jaykemp]

   
Good thing you ordered through Amazon. They have good return policies.
 
You will generally experience much greater improvements in sound quality by upgrading your headphones. I think the best strategy is to save up, suffer for awhile, get the best headphones you can afford, then (and only then) get auxiliary components like amps and DACs. (The only exception to this is if your headphones actually need an amp.)

i do plan to upgrade headphones very soon. ok so i maybe put the cart before the horse a little bit this time. but I'm not going to grumble. this little thing is nice! good battery life and i like the sound. small enough to stick inside my jacket pocket. only just got it but like it so far. (new toy feeling)  we shall see how it goes.

 

[jaykemp]

  May I ask where you got the MP3s from?
 
If you have the CDs, you could rip to lossless and then convert to 256 kbps AAC. (Or both at the same time with dBpoweramp.)
 
If the files are downloaded, you can't do anything to the files themselves to make them sound better, but you could get the same music in better quality elsewhere.
 
You may not actually hear a difference between lossless and lossy files, though, so to get the most out of your files, focus on improving your system.

some have been ripped from cds using itunes etc , many have been downloaded from sites like djcity, breakingthecrrates etc. 

 

[jaykemp]

   
Good thing you ordered through Amazon. They have good return policies.
 
You will generally experience much greater improvements in sound quality by upgrading your headphones. I think the best strategy is to save up, suffer for awhile, get the best headphones you can afford, then (and only then) get auxiliary components like amps and DACs. (The only exception to this is if your headphones actually need an amp.)

thats the next part of the plan. just getting some cash together.