iPod Choices & Problems

I intend to buy a portable player because I have about 400 disks of classical music and find that I don't listen to it enough with normal hi-fi. A portable player would make the various items much more accessible. I had narrowed the choice to the iPod classic and the iPod touch 32GB but:

1 I'm wary of hard-disk devices (e.g., classic) because they seem fragile to me. This made the touch seems the better bet as it's flash-based.

2 I've read that the classic's buffer is too small to handle the sort of long movements that Bruckner and Mahler (to name but two!) go in for.

3 To make matters worse, I've now come across postings about hiss on the classic but much worse on the touch, especially when using good-quality 'phones!

Any helpful advice would be welcome. TIA.

 

This was not 'trolling'! I own, and am very pleased with, a 24" iMac.

My questions were genuine.

Today, I visited the Apple Store in Milton Keynes and listened to both the touch and the classic on ear-covering headphones. The shop was too noisy to hear any background hiss but my wife and I were impressed with the sound quality of both iPods. There was a Classical item on both iPods but its movements were too short for me to tell whether the buffer problem affects the classic.

I have now ordered a 32GB iPod touch.

Thank you for your interest.