My trusty portable Sony cd player gave up the ghost last week and now I'm forced to listen to whatever garbage they have playing at the gym. I'm considering getting an iPod or similar device as I'm guessing it won't skip like a cd player does and I like how small they are in comparison. My concerns are:
1) Cost; these little suckers aren't cheap. $250 seems to be the ballpark.
2) I never download music from the net. I'd only be burning from my cd's.
3) Sound quality. MP3's always sound like they are playing the music underwater to me. Will burning from my cd's give cd quality playback or MP3 quality?

I'm really only going to be using this for the gym. As I said, I hate MP3 quality playback so I definitely won't be hooking it up to my main rig and I doubt I'd use it in the car either. Sorry for my ignorance, but I'm guessing I'm the only person on the face of the Earth that doesn't have one of these things yet.

What's your take? Any suggestions?