What advantages does bluetooth mean for this Cowon player?:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00267 … d_i=507846

Are there any speaker systems or headphones that would work wirelessly (bluetoothily?) with that player? That just seems ultra-convenient. Any way to make use of the cyan incisor in my car?

dang after reading about this player, if i needed a new one *now* I would go for one of these...  but Amazon.ca seems to be crap for Cowon players and this is a little pricey for something I don't really need... (my iRiver H120 is still goin strong after 6 years of use - mind you I only break it out these days for long drives/trips, and I don't do those too often).

The one thing still holding me back from upgrading to a new player is that flash still isn't big enough yet. 32 GB is paltry (especially if you're considering lossless), and I don't want to keep swapping out SD cards. That doesn't answer your question.

This. I settled for a 120GB Zune right before they started to quietly "discontinue" support of it for the Zune HD. Definitely would be interested in an S9 as well, or any other Cowon model, if it had higher storage for its sticker price.

As for bluetooth route expect a higher drain on your battery and the potential for a poorer quality signal as opposed to a direct (wired) connection. Most audiophiles avoid it.

I've decided to hold off for a while. An ideal portable music player would offer the following:

1. 500 GB of space
2. Designed for ease of use with computers, cars, home audio equipment
3. Supports ape (which Cowon does)
4. Wireless transmission of audio with no perceptible loss of quality

Realistically, we might see 64 GB or 128 GB Cowon models in 2010 or 2011. But we'll easily see 500GB+ models within 10 years or so (I would hope so).

God, I haven't even come close to the 80GB limit on my ipod - might have if my songs where encoded at 320. Had about 30~32GB on it before I went through my music and ditched a lot of songs I had just to make/have complete albums.

Why keep a complete album when you like one freakin' song?

My hope is moreso in the SDXC format (the successor to SDHC). They're going to start at 64Gb and can hold as much as 2 TB. Flash players in general top out around 16-32 GB of onboard memory, but hopefully this will change soon. I think 500GB might be a bit much for awhile, unless lossless really catches on and makers realize there's a market for a high-capacity player.

But yeah, with limited space, "trimming" unwanted tracks is definitely a must. But I figure trashing roughly 20-25 unwanted tracks frees 1 GB of space, so it becomes sort of a game...like, "This track is good, but if I dump it, the whole album becomes smaller and I have room for something else that might be better."

I don't like micromanagement-based games

It bothers me to remove actual songs from an arranged album or OST, even if I don't like them. It does not bother me to remove drama tracks, sound effects, jingles, and short songs (less than a minute). I can't readily think of a vgm CD which only has one song that I like, with the exception of several Falcom drama albums.

  However, if I'm really familiar with a soundtrack (like FFVIII, since I took the time to beat it), then I'll go ahead and remove the songs I know I don't like. I typically make "best of" albums. This is part of the reason why it doesn't seem justified to keep many CDs as originals. I don't understand why I should keep any FF OST as an original, since I never listen to all of the tracks. It's neat to look at the artwork (it is cool), but I view that as money on a shelf I could divert towards other things. This is why I'm not going to buy large soundtracks anymore, such as Bayonetta or FFXIII, because of the micromanagement (as Smeg pointed out). I think that this can be used to explain my sudden renewed interest in doujin albums; they're typically just one disc and I rarely have to remove anything. Very convenient. Same thing for Cave albums.

Same...I'm much more inclined to remove tracks that I'm familiar with and know they don't really interest me. On the same hand, with newer stuff, it's like auditioning with a giant red button of doom handy (you suck, you die. you're good, you stay) It's not just saving space, it's making it so I don't have to skip the track later anyway...might as well remove it. All that space doesn't help anything if I'm listening to subpar tracks. In a sense, I think I'd get lazy with a much higher storage capacity.

Now...500GB and track-by-track, nothing I'd cut out...THEN we're in business!

I had a chance to use the S9 back when it came out.  Hands down the best current player on the market, blows all of Apple's products out of the water.  Sound quality, weight, user interface, and file type support.. all perfect.  I just wish Rockbox could be installed on it because I absolutely love that firmware.

I actually won a Rockbox-able Cowon D2 on eBay today, 16GB, 90 bucks, can't wait to play around with it!

I actually tend to keep a lot of filler; it just provides extra stuff to listen to when I'm studying/reading, so I don't have to keep queuing up more music, but for car trips, I definitely omit the filler; the "Remove from Playlist" function makes that easier.

So, I guess we don't really care about Creative anymore these days, eh?

I just recently got the Zen X-Fi, if only for the external speaker, but the audio fidelity it offers is EXCELLENT; in many cases, I have to turn DOWN the bass on the car stereo; too bad the software sucks, and the firmware/OS malfunctions more than all get-out...

Haven't checked out the Zen X-Fi2, what with the problems I'm having with the first version; that, and the Zen X-Fi2 has a Goddamn touch screen, and touch screens are always so Goddamn anal...I miss how we used to use buttons...

Cool. Hopefully Rockbox will work with it okay. I read good things about the S9, but I needed the expansion slot on the D2, so...

Likewise, the only reason I didn't go for the X-Fi2 is because the expansion slot was garbage (and it uses Micro SD, on top of everything). I have nothing but good things to say about my Zen and Stone (lol $4 clearance at Toys R Us) soundwise (I hear the sound enhancement options are wretched, compared to the Cowon players though). I'm curious to see what becomes of the Creative Zii, but they've been slow to release details on it.

The Zii looks like an awesome chunk of hardware, but their business model is going to kill it before it ever gets off the ground. Outside of the OS (and it will run Android, so I don't know why they bothered), they're not developing for it at all, but are counting on third party companies to develop for Ziis that they can brand as their own. I just don't see there being much interest in this idea.

Yep, that's about the size of it. My thing is, X-Fi2 has been made out to be a stopgap product after the Zen/Zen X-Fi (maybe testing the market with the touchscreen?), so I'm curious to see what's next and Zii seems to be about it. I'm not too hopeful, but if it turns out to be a high capacity Creative branded flash (or even hard drive) player (with FLAC support) that soudns as good as the Zen and with an expansion slot worth a damn, I might be interested.

I just wanna say: GoldfishX, the technological know-how in audio transformation that's come over you has been exponential.  That you've been absent here for most of 2009, and then coming back with talks of lossless, replay gain, flash memory, jukebox firmware..... well, it's quite impressive.

maybe it took all of 2009 to read through the manuals that came with his new electronic toys.

-mike (AKA: meteorologist Cole Dweather)

Does anyone read the manual? You know, outside baby boomers?

Goddammit. -___-;

I haven't been absent...just not too many topics (or soundtracks) that have grabbed my attention during the year, then I kept getting too lazy to reset my password with the system here. Even SFIV, which was a hot topic when it come out, was kind of a late-bloomer for me (a lot of people in my group dismissed it early in favor of Third Strike and Guilty Gear and only recently, we've been playing it religiously). I can always count on Megaman to get me to reset my password tho. Plus, there's the matter of moving around a bit this year and on/off internet connection (why is it landlords are so nice when you're about to move in, then when you're there and under a lease, you want to punch them between their beady little eyes in a span of a few days?)

Basically, I just spent a few down hours at work reading up on anythingbutipod.com (and the Rockbox site...my friend is a big fan of it) and getting familiar with what was out there. It was easy to narrow down what I wanted, plus I already had the two Creative players handy, which improved on my ipod's sound. Lossless was more or so less an accident. I had already re-reripped my CD's from 128 to 320 to VBR over the past two years (the 320 to VBR one came after a hard drive crash) and was curious, since I couldn't hear much of a difference between the two, so I ripped a couple of my favorite albums in FLAC and the difference was pretty obvious. I wasn't sure if I was losing my taste for some stuff over the past 4-5 years (oldschool JDK Band/Yonemitsu, Tokimeki Memorial stuff, KOF, Guilty Gear to a degree...you know, stuff I used to rave about years ago), but I feel like it restored the sheen they used to have, when I listened to them on CD (as compared to mp3, where I'd mostly skip them, since I "knew what they sounded like"). And heavy metal, which is MUCH more recent and I've mostly only heard in mp3 of varying quality...DAMN, the difference is nuts! Not just drums/bass, the high-pitched vocals and guitar solos got a huge boost. It just so happened the Cowon player I had bought had FLAC support and I figured if a handful of albums I knew sounded that much better, it was time to re-evaluate my CD collection and, you know, get some use out of the "full versions" of them. The D2 was basically a present to myself for wasting an entire summer dealing with the landlord and whatnot.

Really good to see some talk on mp3 players here cause I've been wanting to get one myself (I still wander around with my discman...). I was thinking of getting an iPod Touch, but seeing all the talk here got me interested in the Cowon players. Still can't quite make anything of the whole iPod vs Cowon deal though. Anyone here'd like to elaborate on the differences in sound quality? Oh and S9>X5>D2?

How so? Although, I have to confess that I'm not too optimistic about Creative anymore, myself, seeing as how you often have to replace the firmware straight out of the box, and even then, their in-house software malfunctions more than all get-out, sometimes even if you get the updates for that, too. When the hell did they forget how to write software?!

I was about to jump on the Cowon S9, but just seeing the size of it compared to Creative's 2007 ZEN model, had me really turned off; the ZEN's the size of a credit card, while the Cowon's the size of a small palm tablet, much bigger than the ZEN; no damn way I'm gonna be able to carry that thing around comfortably with me in public...I mean, 10 inches on one side?!

I'd get another 32GB Creative ZEN, but they're no longer in production...and the reason I got the X-Fi was for the external speaker...

I still prefer cds too, but as far as being able to use them while doing physical activity, its nearly impossible. I have MP3 cdrs of the ones i listen to in my car the most so i dont mess up the originals. But i dont even have 30k miles on my 2006 vehichle, so i dont really spend enough time driving it to warrant an upgrade.

i've noticed that as we get older be become less obsessed with our music. remember in high school if someone made a comment about a band you liked, it was practically enough to provoke a fight.

Please read the rest of the post you quoted for your answer.

What do you mean when you say the Zii will run Android? Is that another OS?

And you're saying Creative is selling their technology to other companies, so they can develop the same player with that technology, under their own name?

Android is an open source mobile OS usually found in newer cell phones but it's starting to branch out to other handheld devices like DAPs.  My current phone runs on it and it's awesome

More here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Android_%2 … _system%29

My D2 is coming tomorrow.  I'm gonna throw Rockbox on it, play with the EQ a bit, and then pair it with my Head-Direct RE2's + FiiO E5 amp combo.  I also have a pair of Sennheiser PX 100's that I'll try too.

And yeah, as far as sound quality goes for Cowon players I think the X5, D2, and S9 are all on top.  I had an X5 before but I ditched it because I'm not a big fan of hard drive players, I definitely prefer flash memory.