An inexpensive high-quality mp3 player

After a lot of research over the last several days, one of the brands receiving excellent reviews is:

Sansa_Clip+

Of course, there are also a lot of people who have problems with this device, per the reviews at Amazon:

Amazon_customer_reviews

Still, 238 one-star reviews and 125 two-star reviews at the moment I'm writing this isn't too shabby, considering the total number of reviews is 2,122!

Of interest, unlike the iPod Shuffle, is the ability of this player to play Ogg Vorbis and FLAC files, although it does not support Apple's native AAC format. Ogg Vorbis is a "lossy" coded while FLAC is one of the "lossless" codecs. Besides which, it has the ability to accept at least a 16-gb microSD card for memory expansion. Not sure if it will accept the 32-gb cards, but I think it might be possible. Meaning it would be possible to carry almost 40-gigs of music/podcasts/etc. in a tiny player weighing in at less than one ounce!

Then there is additional software available for this player known as "Rockbox":

Rockbox_site

I'd like to get one of these players when possible, the 8-gb version, after I have a bit more cash than at present. And then upgrade it with a 32-gb microSD card, and install the "Rockbox" software, as someone's post on another forum noted the "Rockbox" software increased the life of the internal rechargeable battery from 15 hours to 19 hours! But only when the "lossless" FLAC codec was used, which means I'll have to find freeware, if possible, to convert CD-tracks to FLAC, which are much larger files than mp3 files. Finally! A great reason to still purchase Cds. The last item needed would be one pair of high-quality headphones for listening to this player! Even though I'm no audiophile, this player seems to be a great choice for HSPs in general, especially those who are more sensitive to sound. Okay, so I don't own one yet, but I've been doing a lot of reading and have already downloaded the "Rockbox" freeware and the firmware that "Rockbox" requires you to download from the Sandisk site.

The Sansas are pretty nice. I had looked at them in the past as a definite possibility.
I'm in the market for a new MP3 player after mine blew out of my pocket, along with a good pair of noise cancelling headphones (they call them noise cancelling- it just means they actually block out ambient noise, and you can really hear the music without it being cranked way up) when I was misbehaving on my new motorcycle.
I'm looking at used Sony MP3 players on Ebay, partly because I have lot of music saved in Sony's proprietary Atrac 3 format (a better compression algorithm than MP3, that uses less space per song for the comparable quality) from my minidisc player; besides which Sony's MP3 players are known for having better sound quality than anything from Apple, and than most of the rest...
I do really like having a micro SD card in an MP3 player for expansion (the one I just lost had one...the player was 2 G, and I had a 4G card, so it was not too small overall). I'm looking at the hard drive model Sonys with 20G capacity and a 40 hour battery life (but it is somewhat more than an ounce...LOL). They were quite expensive new, but most used MP3 players lose their value fairly fast, so there are deals to be had...

I do not have that model, but I do have/had the Sansa Sandisk. My first one I bought new and had issues right out of the box. The volume control would freak out at random times and go full blast. But, the device would show it at still what I had it at. You had to completely power cycle it to fix it. I also had trouble with it connecting to my computer. It took a few times for the Sansa to link up to my computer, I almost had to return it due to the device just not working. In addition to this, if often had script problems with song titles. I had a few songs that showed up in chinese instead of english. The recording option was also terrible. You had to be extremely close to a loud source for it to even pick up, which would create poor quality recordings.

The second Sansa if currently unusable for similar reasons. This one simply won't work with any other computer but the laptop my dad had(it was his). Now that his laptop is gone, I can not longer use this one due to it not connecting-or even charging- to my computer or any other.