Which iPod?


After taking a skeptical back seat on compressed mobile music all this long, I finally think it is time to take the plunge. Have decided on Shure E4C for earbuds and now wondering which iPod to go with.

Done some research on the net and came across various versions such as the mini, nano, photo etc. Now, I'm not too crazy about watching videos or photos on a 2 inch screen. My primay need is AUDIO and need to find the one that sounds best with Apple Lossless Compression. I will go for the video/photo version if they have better sonics.

Any advise or exprience sharing is highly appreciated.

Cheers,
Amal
amal
If you get a nano (highly recommended!) be sure to get a case right away. I really like the ones at Podplus, just google Podplus.

The nano sounds very dynamic, even more dynamic and liquid than my old Apple mini.

If you want to run lossless for highest audio quality, get the larger unit (20gig or 60 gig). Again, be sure to get a case.

Art
"I always thought the apple-appeal for the audiophiles was the Losless compression (ALC) which was tested by the likes of Stereophile and confirmed to be the most superior compression available today." - Amal

Is this correct? Or can this be done on any PC and transferred to any MP3 player?
Rob,

I may be wrong, but as far as I know, Apple Lossless Compression is propeitory.

Cheers,
Amal
For the benefit of anybody reading this archived thread, the best performance portable music player I have found at the moment is the Cowon iAudio7 player. The 16GB version comes just under USD 200. It suppports FLAC and works great with Shure earbuds.

Happy Listening.

Best,
Amal
I have the 160GB Classic I-pod, and I rip my CDs using the Apple Lossless file format for my music. If you haven't already made your decision (since this was a thread started some time ago), for an audio-only portable digital player, I'd go with the 160GB version, which will hold a ton of music in the hi-rez file format. You can also rip using AIFF or WAV as well (both also hi rez formats).