iPod loses again... 37

Idiot! WE are talking about the players discussed in the PCWorld test referenced above.

Forgot? How could I know it? I don't even know who you are. BTW, I too have an EE and 30 years experience in audio as a clbuttical music and jazz recording engineer, a designer and a journalist.

No f***ing clue? Really? Its not as good as CD even under the BEST of circumstances.

I'd bet 99% of it is. And if it didn't come from CD it came from some other 16-bit PCM source or it came from an analog master.

The player COULD have analog circuitry that quiet, but I doubt it. ICs used as amps in this type of equipment generally aren't that good. At any rate, I don't see how you could test it without taking it apart and injecting a test signal after the digital decoding stage, with the digital stage clock disabled. All of which makes it meaningless. Weight the test results and you could come-up with just about anything.

What ad hominem attack? You were lying. The zen Nano (which is what this thread was discussing) does NOT have a S-N of -97 dB. You said it did, and when you were caught with your lie, you changed horses and insisted that you were talking about another zen model (which is irrelevent to the conversation).

-- George Graves The health of our society is a direct result of the men and women we choose to admire.