You can do all the advanced audio processing in the world, get the latest and greatest music player, and still wind up with lousy sounding music if you forget where the rubber meets the road -- or to be precise, where the sound waves meet your ears: headphones and speakers.

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The articles linked below represent my very personal and very subjective recommendations on products for listening to your music. I gave very little weight to the published specs for the units -- not because I don't believe them but because they rarely matter. Your brain likes to make its own mind up about how things sound, and its decisions don't always match up with frequency response ranges. The Sennheiser PX 100 portable headphones, for example, have a wider frequency range than the HD 497, but the 497s have a fuller sound because their bigger size means they move more sound waves.

Also, be advised that my taste in music runs toward classical, jazz, and the multilayered rock compositions of the Beatles era. I give more weight to reproduction of midrange and highs whereas a heavy metal fan would want much more bass than I do, and perhaps like the Sennheiser 515 more than the 555. So consider my findings accordingly.