tests of recording quality of different units? (ie THD, S/N ratio, etc)

[pandora]

Assuming i'm wanting to buy players which run Rockbox with an eye for recording quality (or even if there are references outside Rockbox, if there is built in recording in other players for recording uncompressed 16bit/44.1mhz stereo say the newest ipod whatever i'm interested in comparing) is anyone aware of independant tests to determine the relative quality of which is better "at the plug"?

I'm not at all concerned about "24bit 96khz" type stuff because it's usually any analog stages in the way that are going to distort, cause noise, nonlinear response or whatever to a far more detectable level than going to 24/96 would ever show.

There are many good modern 24/96 4/6/8 channel recorders for musicians now in the $200-400 range, but when on really short budgets it's easier for me to string together a couple of recorders 2 channels at a time to do field recording.    I'm just wondering what kind of relative recording quality each of the options provides.