i got a couple of the low-end didital mp3 players, but the compressed sound was horrible. so on a hunch, i bought a clearance cd-mp3 player from walmart for $24, and the sound is awesome! i know it's a bit more cumbersome and not as trendy, but the sound sure is better! is there any quality dropoff on the higher-end mp3 players if you choose to put a ton of songs on them?

It depends on the encoders and decoders used to make and play the MP3, and also the source where the MP3 was made from.

ArielB said:

so theoretically nothing to do with the player itself?

why not test this by burning the songs that sounded horrible as a mp3 CD and playing back on the walmart player?

ZombieKitten said:

The MP3 Player is the decoder.
If the same MP3 files sound ood on one player and bad on the other, then the player is the fault. If they suck on all players, then the decoding or the original they were made of are the fault.

My understanding is it's the bit rate. The higher the bit rate on the MP3 the better it's going to sound (the sound wil have more detail). It will also be a bigger file and you won't be able to fit as many songs on your player.

CD's (basically WAV files) take up 10 times as much memory as most MP3 files, but upping the bitrate will get it closer, both in sound & memory.

Of course, some MP3 players must sound better than others, regardless of the file.

NDRU said:

It depends very much on the encoder you use to create the MP3.
One encoder can sound better at 192 than others at 320.
The encoder recommended most is Lame.

The player has an effect on the sound too. the way it decodes the file, and the converters used.

Anyways, now there are other formats which are lossless. meaning they are smaller than Wav files but do not lose any sound quality.