Cowon S9 32GB MP3 Player |
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By
Cowon
Average Customer Rating:  
List Price: £239.00
Our Price: £229.00
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Great sound in a stylish piece of hardware, 2010-02-20
Works even better than expected. The sound quality is amazing. Nuff said.
PS The firmware updates fixes any gripes you might have.
 Good but!, 2010-02-09
Great sound but needs better head phones than those supplied to get the best from it. Easy to drag and drop music from my iMac - menu system a bit clunky but soon learnt. This is the second I've had since begining of December 09, the first one malfunctioned whist connected to the iMac and needed to be formatted and reloaded with new firm ware then, 3 weeks later, crashed and died whilst being uploaded with music . Amazon replaced with a new one very promply and this has functioed perfectly since with around 1000 tunes uploaded safely.
Nearly Perfect, 2010-02-11
Cowon s9 review
Nearly Perfect
****
I've had the Cowon S9 for about a month now and I have to say it is the best mp3 player I have ever had. The sound quality has to be heard to be believed and the screen picture is crystal clear.
There have been comments made about it being "too light" and flimsy but I don't think that is the case, I got the official Cowon leather case for it and it is metal covered in leather, this bulks up the weight and makes it feel more durable.
The UI it has to be said isn't as intuitive as it could be and takes a while to navigate your way around although the firmware upgrades are helping with the customisable main menu.
The audio quality is fantastic, it will play mp3, wma, flac, wav, ape and ogg, the level of customisable EQ settings is excellent and really enhance the music, especially Stereo enhance which really improves the stereo separation. The Bass is thumpy and clear and the treble is crystal, you might want to dump the bundles earphones and buy a decent pair, I am using Creative's Aurvana Live and they sound fantastic with it. You can view all your album art in landscape mode which is nicer I think than the iPods coverflow.
Video is superb and the player has an accelerometer which allows you to view in landscape aswell as portrait. It plays in AVI and WMV but not H264.
The radio is funky with a big dial but I haven't found out yet if you can name the stations. Bluetooth is nice aswell and pairs easily with the Sony BT SRS 100 speaker but will only stream music not transfer files. I don't know how to use the Flash player feature but I believe you can play games on it; I have no interest in this feature. The battery life is nowhere near 55 hours if you are using big headphones and are running FLAC files with album art and sound enhancers.
One of the big selling points for me on this player is the external buttons Play, pause, fwd, rew and vol this allows you to control the player while it's in your pocket unlike the Creative XFi-2 which is totally touch screen. You can also lock the touch screen so it doesn't go on and off in your pocket. I would have liked if the headphone socket was at the top of the player, as having it on the bottom means the headphone jack gets bent if the player is in your pocket, I don't see any locigal reason to have it at the bottom.
The only gripe I have is with the Playlist function which is a big problem for the S9. You can only make playlists in mp3 or wma codec but not FLAC (not sure about the others) and the player must be set to MTP mode. If you change back the player to MSC (for drag and drop facility or to send FLAC files to the player) and reconnect it to the PC your playlists are lost, I don't know why this happens and will hopefully be fixed in the next firmware upgrade.
The bundled software Jet Media Centre is worse than useless, the basic version you get with the player doesn't rip to mp3 and the player doesn't like wma as it mixes up the tags. Having said that there is a single "Favourites" playlist on the player which does play FLAC and you can easily add songs or video to and that doesn't get lost when you convert from MTP to MSC.
There is however light at the end of the tunnel with two third party pieces of software "Playlist Creator" which allows you to make any file type of playlist on your PC and save it to the S9's playlist folder as a m3u file. Also "Claw UI" which you will have to install onto the player and this allows you to make any file type playlists on the player itself. I don't know why Cowon couldn't have come up with this themselves as it the only thing letting down this fantastic piece of kit.
Overall I'd recommend the S9 if you want a top quality audio and video player and are not bothered with playlists or wi-fi. If Cowon can get the playlist problem sorted then it is on its way to being a real iPod beater for audiophiles and music snobs everywhere.
Pros
Unbelievable sound quality with fully customisable EQ
A-B feature for repeating sections of songs or video and tempo and pitch adjustment
Supports Flac and other lossless codecs
Crystal clear screen resolution
Accepts flash and has customisable screen
External buttons which can be controlled from the pocket
Beautiful coverflow showing 18 albums per screen
Bluetooth compatibility with speakers and headphones
Fantastic design
Continuous firmware upgrades
Cons
Playlist functionality is limited, it won't let you make playlists for FLAC or under MSC (drag and drop) mode
Although it plays WMA files it won't recognise the tags so the tracklist will be all jumbled up
It won't support gapless playback unless it's a FLAC file (so you can't have a playlist with a gapless album)
You can't name the radio stations
Headphone socket is at the bottom which can lead to damage of the headphone jack
UI takes a bit of getting used to
Battery life is considerable shorter than advertised if you are using EQ and large files with large headphones
The best music player for listening to music, 2010-02-15
I find it odd that people would buy a music player for something other than listening to music, but if you are someone who is more interested in how responsive a 'play' button on a screen is, or how pretty those strange wooshy things on the screen that some manufacturers insist on wasting the battery and distorting the music with, then this isn't the player for you.
Cowon is - I believe - one of the very few companies who has decided that the key function of their music playing gadgets is to play music and everything else is secondary. Even on studio 'phones this sounds great. Its only drawback is it has a habit of showing up the production quality of some recordings - as any good replay system can - but this simply shows how good the player is.
Oh - the batteries last long enough that you forget the thing uses them.
As someone fussy about replay quality, I can't fault it, and I'd replace it with an identical unit without a thought if it were stolen.
Cowon S9 Review, 2010-01-29
Excellent product, great delivery and a great price. If your disappointed with one of these then you have brought the wrong mp3 player. So do your research and make note of what you want from it. If its the best sounding player out there then this is it. Also great for watching converted films or stuff off bbc iplayer. The screen is a 3.3inch amoled which is as good as it gets until you get a something alot bulkier. The display is amazing at that size there is nothing to beat it atm. Supports lots of formats and theres lots of firmware updates to add/improve features/performance. If you dont want an ipod touch then there is nothing better. I only say that because usually if your a touch lover it doesnt matter how good anything else is. I am not so thats why i got the S9. Excellent.
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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: £229.00
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