ring_wraith
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You have got to be kidding me. Ordinarily, I don't bother to correct people when they think that the iPods are the pinnacle of Audio Fidelity, but a direct shot at Sony? No audio product from Apple, be it the iPhone or the iPods has Sound Quality that could possibly be considered good, leave alone beat the W series. I owned a w810i for a very long period of time, and having heard several MP3 players ranging from the iPod touch to a Creative Zen to the Shuffle, I can without a smidgen of doubt say that the w810i beats them all.
Know why? Because of a little thing known as the sound signature. Every company influences the sound of their DAPs based on what they think music should be. A signature, if you will. Sony's sound signature is famous in audiophile circles for being so cozily warm that it will make you want to listen to all your music again.
Au contraire, I have realized after having heard several iPods that the only sound signature they possess is harshness and muddiness. The iTouch is probably the worst of the lot when it comes to SQ, even the shuffle sounds a lot better. You can actually see tonal modality flying out the window, accompanied by transparency and clarity. Bass is replaced by what I can only describe as broken Bass and treble by mechanical sounds.
I made the huge mistake of buying a Creative Zen [giving in to the lure of a large screen and expandable memory], which actually has very nice music quality with an "upfront" kind of signature, but my w810i's warmth calls to me and I have decided to replace my player with one from the Sony Walkman line-up, which maintains that all-important signature, while significantly improving everything else. Not too surprisingly, my friend who owns a Nano admits that the Zen sounds better.
When it comes to audio, there are very few companies that can look Sony in the eye, and Apple is waaaaay at the bottom of that list.
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