Cowon S9 32GB MP3 Player |
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By
Cowon
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: £239.00
Our Price: £199.00
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 First-rate sound, dysfunctional interface, 2010-08-10
If the limitations of MP3 sound eventually drive you towards lossless formats, you will end up evaluating FLAC vs Apple. Unless you are brain-dead you will then make strenuous efforts to avoid falling into the singularity that is iTunes. It follows that you need a player that will play FLAC files, and the field is limited. Personal experience doesn't extend to cross-trialling all the devices in the market, but I can report the Cowon S9 does provide remarkably good sound, when heard through earphones that are at least as expensive as the Cowon itself. I use Shure SE530s and the combination is a joy to listen to; it does full justice to downloadable FLAC files, and positively requires you to rip CDs to that format. The point is that the FLAC files provide an open naturalness and warmth of sound that even a 320kb bit-rate MP3 cannot rival, however good you thought it was when listened to in isolation; side by side comparison makes you realise that the MP3 versions are boxy, lacking in fine detail, and often palpably distorted. The Cowon/Shure combination is thus recommendable as a set up for serious listening. Because of the huge size of the FLAC files, it makes sense to buy the 32Gb version of the Cowon.
Negatives are well-known:
- The Cowon graphical interface is very poor, and the unofficial versions that I have investigated seem to modify the look without improving the structure. Even when you get used to rambling around, it remains irritating to have to drill about four levels to get from the player to the list of albums. Maybe someone has created a "home" button, and if so I would love to know about it.
- For some reason the player enforces alphabetical order of title over track numbers, when playing multi-track albums; it was a new and disagreeable experience to hear Book 1 of Bach's 48 as a series of 24 Fugues followed by a series of 24 Preludes (F coming before P), rather than in consecutive pairs, as written. Again, there may be a method of dealing with this, but the product documentation (printed and online) offers no assistance.
- It is a pity that album covers almost always get lost, although I can't say this is a major drawback.
- The Korean not-so-mini-USB is more difficult to manipulate into the socket than the standard version, and means you cannot borrow standard cables from other equipment to recharge on the fly.
Very good player, 2010-06-17
Excellent sound quality, especially when compared to Apple's offerings. The menus are a bit confusing at first but easy once you get used to it.
Only annoying things for me are when operating the physical buttons it is quite easy to accidentally move the button at the opposite end of the unit and the lack of a direct line out in audio mode.
A hugely overrated player (in terms of SQ), 2010-08-29
When I received this item I had enormous expectations derived from all the glowing reviews I had read about this player. Epic sound quality, perfect sound etc. Once I'd charged it I noticed there was a demo song so I thought I would give this a listen to. I was surprised by what I heard. It seemed rather basic. Once I'd synched my music collection the real test started. I always set the EQ to normal ie. Flat to see what the player gives me, this shows the grade of the DAC (Digital to Analogue Converter) and the pre-amplifier. What I heard followed the trend of mp3 players recently: No bass, nice midrange and a little too much treble. Most mp3 players follow this since Apple decided this was what a trendy mp3 player should sound like. Any manufacturer deviating from this then is accused of `poor' SQ (sound quality). The only problem is good hi-fi sound through expensive headphones has the bass the artist recorded it with. So the Cowon S9 has poor bass amplification. It gets worse when you start to consider other elements. I have a Samsung YH-999 which to look on the internet you would think is a rubbish mp3 player. In fact its thick circuit board gives remarkably faithful SQ. It drives my Sennheiser headphones in a way the Cowon simply doesn't. Bass detail on the Cowon is also inferior, it has poor dynamics. Drums sound rather lacklustre and the headphone driver isn't moving enough. Mid range is something that even cheap mp3 players do well. The Cowon has a nice mid range but again it lacks detail and accuracy and is a little too `sugary' for my liking. This is an area my Samsung really excels in. The midrange is exquisite with extraordinary clarity. The treble in the Cowon seems to have been designed with listening to earbuds in mind. When listened through my Sennheisers I'm getting an annoying amount of high frequency. These two mp3 players nearly sound the same if I play songs like The Undertones `My perfect cousin'. Lots of bass, nice guitar sounds and you can hardly tell the difference. However playing albums like The Cure's Disintegration/Kiss me shows a large gap in SQ. These are old recordings where the artist has not necessarily gone for pleasant sounds and these albums sound pretty dire on the Cowon. But so it should you say. But it also sounds dire because there is no bass amplification and the artist didn't record much bass, also because of the inaccurate tonal quality, poorly presented percussion and cartoonish midrange. All these criticisms point to a low grade DAC or pre-amp or both. Hundreds of EQ configurations can never compensate for this. Turning up the bass does make the sound better with my headphones and distortion is hardly noticeable but there are still the other defects. The mp3 industry seems to have decided that we shall have mp3 players with huge capacity, huge sound tailoring options but rather low grade DACs/Amps. The latter is what costs the money. Apple's Ipod 5G is a classic example of this. A fantastic Wolfson DAC which would give hi-fi quality if it didn't go through the 10cents pre-amplifier with all its noisy ribbon connectors. This player does sound better than an Ipod Touch that I borrowed from someone. Unfortunately I couldn't borrow a Cowon S9. Cowon has created a very good mp3 player in the S9. Listening with earbuds or sub-£30 headphones it sounds wonderful. Its only when its really tested it is found lacking and £240 is a lot to pay for a music player. I wouldn't value this at more than £150 it just isn't that good. FLAC lossless seems a waste of time as with this level of quality you won't notice the difference between this and mp3. There is no substitute for thickness of player. Thicker=higher SQ. This means Apple's models will never sound the finest. Style has overtaken SQ. Whoever designed the user interface should get a job a Microsoft. It is a rather loud player especially if you select China as the locale. This player is therefore aimed at those who wish to damage their hearing with excessive vol. with masses of equalised bass extension and 200% harmonic distortion and still get a few hours out of the batt. Not for audiophiles.
For:
Sophisticated dumbed-downess
Loud amplifier
Long battery life
Quality AMOLED display
Plastic design
Low noise with some clarity
Against:
Expensive
Only above average sound quality
Poor low freq. amplification
Dreadful user interface
Too small and thin for great sound quality
Fiddly button controls, earphone socket at bottom
Style over substance, 2010-08-22
Although I agree with a lot of what the other reviews have said (elegant design, wide functionality etc.) the main issue I have had with my S9 is that its durability is diabolical. Firstly I've had to send it back to the company I bought it off (not Amazon) due to on/off switch failure. The input/output port cover doesn't fit properly, the play button at the top came off so the play function could be accessed on the screen only, the '+' button LOWERS the volume at times along with the minus button (compensated by holding it down for a second or two to get it to increase). But my biggest gripe with this is that it sometimes fails to respond COMPLETELY to any computer or charging device (showing no screen animation); even reseting the thing doesn't work. To top it all off my screen has broken from an innocuous knock and now has completely ceased.
In short, this device is a delight for the techno/audiophiles amongst us but sadly it's durability in everyday life leave a lot to be desired.
Horrible little player!, 2010-07-15
I hate this horrible little player! The touch screen is awkward to use - scrolling through more than one screens worth of music artists is tedious to say the least. The sound is about the same as the iPod 3rd Gen, which is what I'm sticking with despite my loathing of iTunes (got to be the world's worst app!). Avoid Cowon at all costs!
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Electronics
Cowon
8809009958471
Cowon
Cowon
S9-32TB
Cowon
2009-04-26
nv: Album Art Supported^Yes | Aspect ratio^16:9 | Audio Output Connections^3.5 mm headphone socket | Battery Life^Approx. 55 hours audio 11 hours video | Battery Type^Lithium Polymer (Li-Po) | Bluetooth^Yes | Bluetooth Compatible Profile^A2DP AVRCP Profile | BlueTooth Protocol^Bluetooth 2.0 A2DP | Codec Support^MP3/2/1 WMA FLAC OGG WAV APE | Colour LCD Screen^Yes | Copyright Protection System^Yes | DAB Radio^No | Data Storage^Yes | Depth^12.7mm | Designed for Sports Usage^Yes | FM Tuner^Yes
Cowon |
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List Price: £239.00
Our Price: £199.00
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![Apple iPod - 30GB - White [video playback] MA002FB/A](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/21B9XYA3J5L._SL75_.jpg "Apple iPod - 30GB - White [video playback] MA002FB/A")
