Does the iPod have the best digital audio quality? Nope. Do you care?

well, if you are walking around and want to take your music with you this the best but please don't talk about quality!!

my Cowon A2 has fantastic audio quality...

Still loving my Zune 30!

Don't hate on the iPods, jeez.

To be honest, I don't care about superior audio quality and Apple knows (and takes advantage of) that. The thing is, only true audio buffs who can truly spot the difference will notice. I mean, if you're not an art connoisseur do you think it'll be easy to spot a replication from an authentic? I understand that it seems to be ripping off consumers to charge up to $1.29 for a "crappy" compressed audio file, but if they sold FLACs you wouldn't be able to store as many songs on your MP3 player...

...that is, unless they start manufacturing players with more gigs (which they should).

Whatevs, I love my iPod even though I'm a "PC". Some things just aren't as serious a matter as some people make them out to be. I mean, come on, do I really need to hear if somebody in the studio coughed while recording "The Great Gig In The Sky"?

Ok first off they are compairing the wrong products, ipod nano vs zune HD? Why aren't they comparing the ipod touch with the zune HD? The nano is so much cheaper then the zune HD its ridiculous! Sure audio quality matters, people care. People shouldn't care about BS news like this though. Please at least compare similar products next time k thx.

i need stats, frequency ranges etc
who gives a crap about what random patrons from music stores and random employees "think" about which sounds better. most people dont understand sound quality or frequency ranges. that would be why you always hear people with their music too loud. shitty headphones mean you have to turn it up to hear all of the highs and lows. that being said why would a bunch of joe schmoe's opinions matter to the people who actually care about sound quality. those that do have already done the research and thrown out their ipod earbuds.

Apple never makes the "best quality" anything. They win consumers over with stylish looks and obnoxious commericals.
I've never owned an ipod, but my insignia MP3 player was a lot cheaper, had decent sound quality, video player, FM radio and photo file support.

to care and to not care. being in the A/V industry I would like to think that I have some sort of discriminating ear. I do enjoy the better sound of better sound quality. but there are things that you can do to each device to make it appear that it has good sound quality. Like the Bose theory, they have a smaller range of frequency in there headphones, speakers, and equipment. They cut out the Highs and Lows that they think you can't hear (the harder to reproduce sounds) and it gives the illusion of better sound.

Also all of the devices listed also have internal EQs. some people tend to think that a large bass sound = better sound(like that car that you can hear blocks away), some devices bank on this and add more bass.

All in all every audio setup will sound different, all audio equipment "colors" sound and some combinations work better than other. Its all up to personal preference. there is no true way to say that one has better sound quality than others. For me it all depends on what im listening to and where. In a noise environment I tend to care less about the quality(more of an acoustic wall paper to cover the ugly wall). While at home I enjoy the better sound (a fine piece of art to admire).

for one thing people's hearing differs... especially for a musicians or sound engineers.. even blind people.

and did they use the same standard ear-buds for all the players? or something like professional stage monitors like shures E5..[nevermind they used Bose..]

i believe the test should have been done with an ipod classic and not the ipod nano. the classic sounds much better than the nano.

No I don't give a shit, forget these AntiPod people "I hate iPod, it's so popular, you's a sheeples" type guys. I have owned 2 iPods since 2006, first a 5th gen classic, and now a Touch. Yeah it sounds crap, but do I care? I'm not an audiophile so it's really not my thing, to evaluate sound, and devalue something based on sound. I've heard better, but even if they carry full songs, iPod seems to be a just a snippet deduction for me. If I want full music, I go to my PC, and I need a record player so I can star buying Vinyl. And funny thing is, I have that said unique effect that I can hear bad sound, from good sound in music. I just don't care enough. Zune is better, and I will get one, one day.

I care. Most people treat music as just background music though. So they aren't actively paying attention. Also a lot of people have tin ears and can't discern music quality for crap. They should care because a lot of music that sounds horrible on computer speakers or through on an iPod can sound good and sound so much more a live on other mp3 players or even a basic home stereo. But I'm a music junkie so I wan't my music to sound as good as possible.

Add me to the others above that use Creative Zen products.

I wonder if this is due to their hardware, firmware, or file formats? I reformatted my iPod mini to be used with Linux. I use MP3 instead of M4A or whatever format iTunes uses. I'm willing to exchange some sound quality for more songs (it's only 4Gb) and was able to store a lot more music with no noticable decrease in sound quality. I'm a musician, so I think I could tell, but perhaps I've suffered some hearing damage that has impaired my ability to notice such subtle differences.

this is dumb, they only picked popular modles, its quite obvious that the creative Mp3 players have the best sound quality because of the new x-fi hardware.

Ditto with the kick. Wanted a zen, but ended up getting an iPod as a gift. Got sucked into how easy iTunes is.

My zen vision m was much better than the ipod video when it came out. Better screen and way more compatible formats, better sound quality too. But because it wasn't ipod, people thought it sucked.

Don't get me wrong, Apple products are good, but the thing about Apple is that they excel at creating BRAND IMAGES, not products.

people don't have a clue about audio quality. that's why the itunes store is so popular. if i had to listen to an aac with those stupid shitty white earbuds i would be very sad.

I have no interest in walking musical devices and their cleverly designed packages or up-beat marketing schemes.

nano shouldnt count....what about the classic ?