Wes Phillips

Imagine how bad that prototype had to be considering how bad the ones he's selling are.Those twenty-somethings who throw away the stock ear-buds and replace them with Shures, Etymotics, etc. may offer some hope of preserving the high end.

The twenty-somethings that throw them away ARE the hope of preserving the high end.

Thats nothing. Just think of who the long gone Sony exec is that told his staff to," ""Get that stinkin' pocket MP3 player out of my office"," NOW! No one's ever going to buy that!""And then someone made the Edsel. Go figure.

Pshaw. I haven't quite yet brought myself to spend x-hundreds on Shures or Etymotics for my iPod, partly because it seems a lot of money for a 3G iPod, partly because I don't actually listen to it that much, but mostly because if I want good sound I prefer to kick back and fire up the lil ol' Meridian/conrad-johnson/Musical Fidelity/ProAc thing I've got idling in the front room :) And yes, listening to the iPod is a nice way of reminding one just how much better good hi-fi is.I say all this, of course, as a twentysomething. I may not be able to preserve the high-end single-handedly, but I assure you, we are out there, and we're doing the best we can!