[wowie11]

So, I just had an incredible revelation. After having cycled through almost the entire gamut of portable MP3 players, presented here in reverse chronological order: Apple iPod Nano, Sony Vaio Pocket VGF-AP1L, 4G 20gb iPod photo, iPod Shuffle, Rio Pearl, Rio Karma, Rio Eigen, Rio Fuse, and my first mp3 player and the topic of the current thread the Archos Jukebox Recorder 20. I have been bouncing back and forth between my iPods and my Sony (the rest of my mp3 players are tucked away at my parents house, no doubt getting good use from my two brothers), when I looked down at an old friend sitting right beside my laptop - my Archos JBR 20 serving as my portable hard drive. Having just sold my Sony, my Future Sonics EM3 were now sourceless so I decided to try them with my Archos and...oh my, holy schmole! They sounded amazing! I thought I was flipping out so I decided to A/B it with my iPods and the difference was like night and day. The ability to manually adjust the Bass and treble settings through my Rockbox firmware makes a world of difference. Feeling ducky, I decided to then try out my Shure E5's and whoa! The difference is more pronounced...the bass is tighter, the mids magical...wow...it's like a whole new ball game. I plug in my AE-1's through the Archos JBR's line out and I was almost reduced to tears...sonic heaven. Seriously, I think this is one of the best sounding mp3 players out there. I didn't have my Karma handy for A/B testing and I remember the Karma being pretty darn good, but I seriously doubt it was this good. So a hint to anyone out there with their JBR's gathering dust...uncover those beauties and let those bricks clear their throats and wow you with their amazing sounds.