ON the 'other player' front.
but when I compare them, I can imagine my Zune sounded noticeably better. Could be just my brain playing tricks though.
I did try comparing with both my old Zune 'premium' earphones that came with the Zune 80 (which I use for most casual listening on my Touch now) and with my in-ear Shure's but it was hardly a scientific comparison. I also found my old Creative 5MB player sounded better than the iPod, but again, the testing was way to uncontrolled and subjective to be taken as fact.
That is a common complaint from people that compare iPods to other MP3 players. Does apple give you specs on the headphone out section? Make sure to check that the equilizer was not adjusted as a factory default because the equilizer is just a distortion generator on iPods. With most MP3 players I find you can't actually turn the equilizer off and just have to set them to flat(I wonder if this causes any colourations as opposed to having the equilizer completely turned off). I really like the Sandisk and Cowon players myself and have done comparisons. They do sound slightly different on the flat setting. Cowon players specifically have a strong/clean headphone out and are great for using full sized headphones with.
