No, I think sony still uses the ATRAC3 format, its a bit better than mp3 quality/size wise.

-VR

Yeah all their MD's go with it but i think some of them also supports wav.

It may be better when you convert directly from CD or other non-mangled source.
But it its mp3 - then further conversion can only get worse.

I got a creative zen as a freebie a while back and use that for now - it does have one *huge* advantage tho - as well as mp3 - it natively supports windows media formats as well.

The only issue with it for me is while it does have a mic on it and can record, recording is fiddly to get at and the result is crap if you are trying to capture melody ideas etc when away from base.

Still - it makes for a useful final mix check for mp3s - sound quality aint great, but its representative of an average mp3 player.

If you compare 2 types of compression, it should be obvious that you don't compare em compressing each other 8O

-VR