We loved the way the Sennheiser IE 8 sound-isolating earphones added warmth and depth to our broad music collection. With the added bonus of being able to manually adjust the bass, these earphones are more than worthy competitors to the Shure SE530s. Be prepared to have your music rocked
Creative shows no signs of deviating from its plan to offer feature-packed players at impressively low price points -- their new MP3 player, the Zen X-Fi, is a compact multimedia machine that's the first portable device to integrate Creative's X-Fi technology. The rich, clear and detailed audio quality further adds to the value of this player
To put it simply, the Woo Audio WA2 is the best headphone amplifier in its price category by a mile. It provides an experience that is completely luscious -- deep, smooth bass, rich vocal reproduction, and a sweet, spacious, notably airy treble that's smashing for live classical performances, although can handle anything you throw its way. Superb
Sony's NWZ-S639F Walkman S series is an affordable model that delivers. It supports BBC iPlayer downloads, so you can take full advantage of its crisp -- albeit small -- screen. Its stylish design and incredibly easy-to-use navigation system is coupled with superb Sony sound quality, making this MP3 player music to our ears
Sony's B-series Walkman is tiny and cheap, and is clearly designed for on-the-go use with its built-in USB interface and simple design. While it offers a good range of features, such as an integrated FM tuner and voice recording, it's not laden down with frills. The sound quality is good, though not spectacular
Shure introduces their lowest-priced earphones yet, the sound-isolating SE102s. A definite upgrade from the earphones that come bundled with your MP3 player, the SE102s are durable, loud and bright-sounding,l but hardly dazzling
This could very well be the best Samsung MP3 player to date. Not only is it remarkably affordable at £99 for 16GB, but with support for lossless FLAC audio, BBC iPlayer, FM radio, drag-and-drop file management and a cracking little screen, it's going on our list of Samsung successes
Vita Audio's R4 is a high-end CD/DAB system aimed at the bedrooms of high-end audio-lovers -- and by that we mean it's not for anyone who thinks the earphones that ship with iPods are anything but utter crud. With a crucial iPod dock and all-in-one design, this luxurious stereo setup wants to be as convenient as it is high-performing
Cowon's new O2 PMP follows on from the smashing Q5W and A3 of last year, but scraps hard disks in favour of flash memory and SD cards. It's one of the most exciting product releases of the year in the PMP category, so we were thrilled to get one of the first ever off the production line
If a music phone doesn't have a real headphone socket, we're not going to recommend it very highly -- unless it blows us away in ever other way. Here are four favourite music phones that work with decent headphones natively