What is the best sounding mp3 player currently on...

Mp3 players play mp3 quality sound, which is slightly less than CD quality but not really noticeable. I don't really think there's any difference in quality, although I think the iPod and most mp3 players can also play Wav files, which are CD quality files but a bit bigger. So convert your music to wav or aiff if you want better quality. Check out this guide about mp3 players. http://thehelpfulweb.blogspot.com/2008/09/ipod-vs-other-mp3mp4-players.html You don't need anything expensive to just play music, iPods come with lots of other stuff.