i listen (mainly) to classic rock, alt rock, prog rock, trance/dance, classical

i use cheap IEMs, grados, and aux connector to car

i am on firmware 2.20

 

i'll just list pros and cons.

 

pros:

-feels hefty and solid

-sq is great. HO and LO lives up to expectations no doubt about it.

-has a nifty auto off feature

-has an expansion slot

-if the mini plugs have no devices connected, it won't start playing the song. pretty cool.

-thank god for a reset button

-detects as usb mass storage so you can get to copying files straightaway without any software install.

 

 

cons:

-omg incredibly lousy UI. the two default skins are atrocious. the first one is too bright, the second too dark. it lists files by name, type, or date. literally. it seems unable to use the vorbis tags on my flac files. despite asking it to sort by name, it only does that for filenames. not albums. not artists. or maybe i just can't figure it out. but it shouldn't be so darn difficult!

-scrolling sucks. especially if you have super long lists. if your finger rests on the bottom a bit too long, it'll select it. then you have to hit the back button, and whoops, gotta start all over again.

-pressing back once while a song is playing does not set you to the beginning of the song. instead, it jumps you back an entire song. maybe that's normal behavior, but it sure annoys the crap out of me.

-there are no words describing functions of icons in the playing screen. you have to try each icon to figure out what it does. seems like other players do this too, but it still annoys me. what the heck is a gear symbol? ohhhh settings.

-fingerprints. omg fingerprint magnet. then again so are all touchscreens. sigh

-no physical buttons to control playback?! gAHHH! well how bout a hold (lockout) button? no?? well crap, what if my butt decides to switch songs?

-you have to hold down the only button on the thing to turn it on. how long? oh i dont know. at least 5 seconds.

-file transfer is slooooooooow. barely 5MB/s. (i'm on w7x64)

-the accelerometer? wait i dont think it has one. oh nm it does. it's just really stupid. you can only turn it one way otherwise it's just upside down. all pics display full screen vertically and nice big black bars on the left and right if you hold it horizontally. and all movies play horizontally.

-sometimes it doesn't want to quit charging mode and you have to hit the reset button.

-pretty sure vorbis tags on flac don't work

-plays cue files. slick. except it apparently doesn't read the time stamps correctly.

-flac playback is barely 10 hrs on one charge.

my rio karma is dying (well the battery only really, so i could just replace that, but the software is incompatible with win7 w/o some major headache so i'm taking the easy way out) so i figured i'd audition a few new players to see what works. on my short list: cowon s9, cowon j3, nationite s:flo2, hifiman hm-602.
 
with regards to the s9, i'll just break it down by pros and cons.
 
i listen (mainly) to classic rock, alt rock, prog rock, trance/dance, classical
i use cheap IEMs, grados, and aux connector to car
i am on firmware 2.5.2
 
 
pros:
-small and thin and light. google up dimensions if you must. wouldn't run with it, though one could, but for keeping in pocket and sitting, it's great.
-if you like the wolfson dacs like i do, apparently it uses WM8750.
-it has actual buttons for no-look music control!
-the sq is decent. nothing spectacular, nothing bad either really. plays flac, mp3 V0, and mp3 320 with good clarity. the 5 gajillion EQ presets can nearly fix any problem you may have otherwise.
-battery life is fairly good for flac playback. (anything over 20 hrs is good enough for me because i'll have hooked it back up to the computer to transfer more music by then.)
-you can lock the touchscreen! suuuuuper important!
-apparently it does other stuff than play music. and the screen is bright with nice color for video playback. if you care for that sort of thing. really, all i need on the screen is the artist/album/track and codec.
-you don't need to install special software to transfer files to it. windows sees it as another usb storage device. awesome!
 
cons:
-touchscreen is unresponsive (or just plain slow) especially if you have cold, dry fingers
-fingerprints stick to the screen sooo much (i guess it does for all touchscreens)
-the stupid flip cover to the usb port is hard to open if you have no fingernails
-the stupid usb is not a micro nor a mini so you need their special cable
-usb transfers are sloooooooow. i've never seen it go faster than 7 MB/s
-when the usb is plugged in to the computer, it appears you cannot use the player because the touchscreen is locked to the "usb charging" animation
-no expansion slot. it's not too much of an issue for me since i transfer music so frequently, but the lack of a slot smacks of nonexistant forethought.
-the amp section is poor. volume is 20-25 for IEMs, 30+ if you use open headphones in noisy environment, 35+ in the car. without tweaking the equalizer settings (for which there are far too many presets), the bass is fairly nonexistent or becomes mushy and horribly uncontrolled when you crank the vol.
-looks pretty impossible to replace the battery. the screw holes have stuff in there with no visible attachment points.