Quote Originally Posted by topspeed
The Shuffle is really what put me on this path in the first place. I don't think I need anything as capable as the 40gb version because I'll never play it in anything but the gym so I really only need about an hour or two's worth of storage. I suppose there's always the potential for using it in the car, but considering I can't even get my bluetooth to work right now, it's not something I'll be exploring anytime soon.

I'm remarkeably computer illiterate so the difference between 512mb and 1 gig means nothing to me. I am encouraged by Wooch's statement that I can burn cd quality sound onto an iPod, even if it takes up more room. This may sound ridiculous, but even when I'm at the gym working out, bad sound drives me flippin' nuts! All of the MP3's I've heard sound like ca-ca, although they may have been at lower bit rates (didn't even know there was such a thing until this thread). I understand the new MP4 format cleans a lot of this up, but again, I'm not a techie.

Right now, the Shuffle sounds like the way to go but I'll definitely research the iriver and Creative products as well.
The capacity of a standard CD is 650-700MB and can hold about 70-80 minutes of uncompressed audio, so a 512MB Shuffle should hold right at an hour of uncompressed audio and a 1GB will store almost two.

Note that most MP3s are encoded at relatively low bit rates (such as 64 or 128Kbps), hence the awful sound. All MP3s lose something because the format works to squeeze the size of the file down by throwing away parts of the original signal. But the amount of compression is adjustable. Encoding your CDs to MP3 at the shuffle's highest readable bitrate of 320 may still sound lacking on your home system. But you might find it acceptable at the gym. This would extend your music time to about 3 hours with the 512MB Shuffle or 6 with the 1GB version.

These numbers will be the same for other players.