Portable Music Player Advice

[Wahakalaka]

Hey guys - I have a 7 year old portable cd player that I use in the car a lot. It sounds great, but the motor is on its last lap. I'm looking to buy a new one, but it seems like all the portable players these days have pretty horrible sound quality (thanks apple). I don't care about size or wifi or youtube or a million gbs of storage or even if it's no more than an audio cd player. I just want good sound . Anyone know if there are still decent sounding portable music players out there?

 

[zhimbo]

Actually, lots of portable players have decent sound quality - if you use low bit-rate files and crappy earbuds, they sound awful, of course, but the signal itself will be more than good enough, especially for in-car use.

CNET ranked the output of various players in Lab bench tests; the best are listed HERE.

 

[Wahakalaka]

Awesome- that was exactly what I was looking for. Many thanks