iAudio 7 vs. D2

iAudio 7

Edit: Lately I have been comparing the sound quality of the i7 (both amp'd and un-amp'd using my phones) against all the players set up for demo at BestBuy and have yet to find one that matches the sq that I am enjoying with the i7 ... that said, I know it's not for everyone. The more I use mine, the more I love it ...

IMHO here’s a quick summary of my opinion over the last 2 years of the Cowon iAudio 7:

On the plus side:

• Sound quality - SQ is Great, produces very good detail with a nice warm sound without coloring the tunes!
• Boot Time - Almost instant on, < 4 seconds fully loaded w/tunes
• JetEffect's - 5 Band EQ (normal, rock, jazz, classic, pop, vocal and user definable, BBE, Mach3Bass (enhances low end bass), MP Enhance (restores distorted music from digital compression), 3D Surround, Pan (left/right balance) and 10 presets
• Amp - Very good power as compared to many other dap's (26mW + 26mW, 16ohm, rated at 52mW), can drive my HD650's without an amp (but far from their full potential)
• Audio & file support - (MP3, Vorbis (OGG container), FLAC, WAV, WMA, XviD, JPEG, TXT)
• Flash sizes - 4GB, 8GB, 16GB
• Size - (nice and small, pics don’t do it justice)
• Build Quality - It's excellent - for example, I’ve had mine now over two years without a case and it looks as good as the day I bought it. Recently I've had to put it in a case as I added a portable amp and it's easier to carry
• USB Connection - UMS/MTP user selectable
• File Browser - ID3 or File browsing
• Battery life - 60 hours

On the down side:

• IMO – screen size is small, which makes the "fonts hard to read," not any more read here
• Screen is too small for video, although it will play video
• No album art with FLAC
• Some say "sensitive UI & interface," (I adapted in the 1st day, so this is a non-issue for me) and you can adjust the sensitivity in the fw 1.17 or 1.18
• Some peeps say one handed operation is hard, but it can be done
• You need to invest in better earphones, the stock buds are not good at all

Overall it’s a great player and well worth the investment

Get the i7 for music, the D2 for music and video.

OverlordXenu, you read my mind, I completely agree

If you’re talking about the i7, I use the swing touch bar all the time, you can adjust the sensitivity in the settings and it’s used for scrolling through files and selecting them. As this unit also has dedicated volume +/- buttons, a on/off/lock button, and a programmable button. I haven’t had the opportunity to use the D2, but from what my friends say it’s awesome too, but just like OverlordXenu said your call, music or video.

it always make me laugh alittle when someone says a player has a cold signature.

I thinks it depends how you EQ the thing, how your files are encoded, what IEM/headphone are you using, what music are you listening to, at what volume, are you happy or sad, is the glass half empty or half full...
so many factors can influence.

I own a D2 and it's very good for what I listen: Classic,Rock,Jazz. encoded in ogg. I like to EQ with similar settings as the POP EQ but with a tad more db here and there, with MP On. I'd love to have an iaudio 7 16 gb, maybe in the future. Right now I have a SDHC 8gb card and it amounts to 10 gb of music available.On the 2gb of the D2, I put ogg level 2 encoded file as the core of what I always want to have on my player and I have also other SD cards to swap music.On the SD cards the music is encoded in ogg level 8, a bit more space used (100gb) compared to the 25 gb space of ogg level 2.

I own many other Cowon/Iaudio players and , for me, they sound good.

If you have decided on Cowon player,you will like your Christmass surprise...

regards,

I love my i7. I agree with Caribou679 re the cold sig thing.

cold sound signature? meaning no bass/sub bass?

If you want the best music player get the i7 (longer battery life, good amp, natural/warm sound). I have only listened to the D2 a couple of times with some fairly big warm sounding cans and it performed alright too.

If i'm interested in buying D2 or iaudio 7 strictly for SQ, is it worth buying them both and after stick with one of them, or should i just get one of them because the SQ is roughly the same?

P.S- I'll also buy Sony A818 and i want to know if SQ wise is worth buying both D2 and I7...

I'm getting the iAudio 7 in the mail tomorrow, but the new Sony MP3 Walkmans sound very similar to Sony's Portable CD Players, but with less power and a generally weaker sound because the MP3 Walkmans have weaker amps.

After trying so many mp3 players over the years (Rio-->Sansa-->Sony), I just can't "feel" the music like I did during my Portable CD Player days, but hopefully the iAudio 7 will be the turning point.

By the way, if Sony started to cater to audiophiles by putting decent amps into their MP3 Walkman line, they would absolutely kill the competition because the EQ on those players is already ridiculous, but I don't see them adding poweful amps to their DAPs anytime soon because they probably want to keep costs down.