You said exactly what I was trying to say. "Dead" about sums it up. But, as long as I don't do A-B tests, it sounds great.

As for MP3 players with digital out, I know the Turtle Beach Audiotron has Toslink out. I'm curious how good it sounds. And since almost everybody here has all the MP3s that are on their empeg on a PC somewhere, it's no big deal to point the Audiotron to the PC.

There's also the Stereo Link 1200, which doesn't have optical out, but supposedly has some high-quality equipment in it, as well as some nice reviews.

I'd be curious to test out both of these and see how they sound. Anybody here used one of them?