Hello there,

If your priority is to have top-notch quality sound in your earbuds, I can only recommend the portable audio players from Cowon such as the affordable iAudio9 or their Rolls-Royce model: the Cowon J3 :)

Compatibility with tons of audio formats (MP3, OGG, FLAC, etc), crystal clear audio signal, BBE effects and a lot more.

Unlike the Ipod Touch or the Zune HD, Cowon players do not have Wi-Fi or whatsoever, but they really provide audio ravishment instead :)

I don't know the A3 to be honest, but the Cowon J3 has very solid reviews. Here is one of them: [url=]http://www.digitalversus.com/cowon-j3-p380_9201_209.html[/url]

The sound quality is just amazing, not mentioning the insane battery life (64 hours for audio / 11 hours for video) and the AMOLED screen, which makes the audio player one of the best video players as well. There is no need to re-encode your video files, as it is compatible with nearly any video format and resolution. A drag and drop is enough.