[Daantje]

Hello,
 
I have owned a Creative Zen X-Fi for four years, but after years of intensive use the battery has really started to run back. I've also been facing the 'kill your darlings'-problem for years, since my music collection is quite a lot bigger than the 32GB harddrive, even after adding a 32GB SD-card.
So yeah, I'm looking for a new mp3 player. After a bit of research in the large capacity players area I've come to the conclusion that my options are pretty limited, as most alternatives are not longer produced or not available in Europe. Which brings my options to the Cowon X9 and iPod Classic.
I realize that the Cowon has by far the best sound quality of the two. I am however not overly fond of it, as it is even bigger than the already massive iPod and I'm also not a big fan of touch screens (not for a mp3 player at least). And then there's also the capacity: my main reason for considering these two players. That of the iPod is quite a lot bigger (even if you upgrade the Cowon with a 64GB SD Card), and therefore I'm inclined to choose that one.
Sounds simple enough. I'm however afraid that I'll be hugely disappointed in the sound quality of the iPod. Is there anyone who can tell me how bad it really is? Especially compared to the Creative Zen X-Fi I'm currently using? Because I get the impression that the criticism on the iPod Classic's audio quality is in comparison to that of high end players like Cowon's or Colorfly's, but I have no idea where my current player stands in that comparison. 
Thanks in advance!

 

[caseyfriday]

Well, if you get a 5th Gen iPod classic and perform the diyMod on it - or have someone else do it for you - you can also use a CF-SD adapter to replace the hard drive and get up to 256GB of storage.  A lot of people rate the Wolfson DAC as the best of all iPods made, so with some proper coupling capacitors and a hearty storage upgrade, it has the potential to be an incredibly potent player.
 
One of the main limitations though, is the sampling rate limitations of the Wolfson chip.  The iPod only does 20KHz, so if you want a 24/96 player or something like that, you'll have to look elsewhere.  Otherwise, I think you'd be quite happy with the iPod.