Which music player has the best sound quality?

Ipods' sound quality has decreased. The best-sounding ipod was the shuffle from years ago, and the 5th-gen classic. The ones after that started using cheaper parts (in particular the DAC chip).

Of the three you mentioned the Sony has the best SQ. But sony's don't have much drive space, nor a slot for microSD cards so you're limited to the small amount of space that's on it. Also no support for lossless formats.

The player with the best SQ without a doubt is any of the Hifiman models. The Hifiman line was made specifically for audiophiles. The maker went to the audiophile forum head-fi.org, asked if they'd be interested in buying a player with those specs if he were to make one, they said yes and also gave feedback as to what they wanted it to have. They then pre-ordered it and he started making them according to the number of pre-orders he got.

With a hifiman you'd need to get microSD cards which come in a few different capacities. That's its only drawback (compared to zune & ipod) and it's not much of a drawback. What I do is organize the cards by genre so I don't have to switch them very often.

Besides Hifiman another player with great sound quality is the Teclast T51, or the T59 which is supposed to be released soon.

Yes both are from Chinese companies but they're small companies targeting a specific demographic (audiophiles). Hifiman (aka Yuin or head-direct), shortly after shipping some of its first Hm-801's, upgraded its amp chip, and then let the people who already bought the old version send it back to them to have the chip upgraded for free. So they're legit, don't let the "Made in China" scare you.

(And no I'm not a salesperson, I'm just trying to educate the public not to be suckered by all the marketing hype by giants like Apple and Microsoft. If people were smarter consumers, companies would be forced to produce better-quality things and not charge a fortune for cheap crap which is what Apple is doing with each of their new ipods.)

wel,sonyericsson w810i is d one u shud p.c...it has an superb audio alongside wi the earphones.u can hear to songs so for sure devoid of disturbance even at an identical time as traveling.additionally megabass is d added characteristic right here.u ll like it. .

The iPod touch! But for headphones, you just have to make sure you have good quality headphones :)

ipods are amazing! zune sucks...just fyi haha :)