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J3 connected to PC?

post #1 of 7
8/31/10 at 12:04am
Thread Starter 

I'm going to move into a little room next year (damn budget accommodation) and I don't want my music playlist to be limited to my 16gb J3. My computer with an Asus xonar essence STX is sort of an option but I think the computer (the case is an antec 900 by the way) will take up valuable breathing space in my future room.

 

Anyway this is what I want to do:

 

Laptop (with external hard drives) connected to my Cowon J3, which is connected to headphones so that:

 

a) I don't have to bear with my laptop's terrible REALTEK

b) I'll have a big selection of playlists

 

setup.png

Is this possible, and with what cables or other things?

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Gear mentioned in this thread:

COWON J3 16 GB Portable Media Player (Black)
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COWON J3 8 GB Portable Media Player (White)
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COWON J3 32 GB Portable Media Player (Black)
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post #2 of 7
8/31/10 at 12:44am

It seems like you want to use your J3 as a USB DAC/AMP like an iBasso -- in other words, you want to play files off of your external HD, but with the J3 doing the sound generation instead of your laptop's soundcard.

 

Unfortunately I don't think there is any way to do this. As soon as I connect my J3 to my laptop, it goes into MSC mode, and acts like an external HD itself. I haven't tried MTP mode, but I'm guessing the same thing will happen -- you can use the laptop to play files on your J3, but you can't use the J3 to play files off of the laptop or external HD.

 

You may just have to buy yourself an iBasso or something similar... Either that, or buy a big MicroSD card and copy your playlists over to the J3 (which doesn't seem to be easy, according to what I see on other forums).

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post #3 of 7
8/31/10 at 2:08am
Thread Starter 

Oh dear...thanks for telling me!

 

Looks like I have a whole line of products to waste my time reading about now

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post #4 of 7
9/8/10 at 6:20am
Thread Starter 

Just saw the DIY iMod tutorial...can an iPod do what I described earlier?

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post #5 of 7
9/8/10 at 2:22pm

The answer is no. What you want is a dac/amp for your computer. The J3 will not do that and neither will an ipod.

 

There are plenty to choose from depending on what you want. Most of the cheaper ones take usb while some of the more expensive ones need some kind of converter from usb to spdif. It depends on your budget and what you want out of it.

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post #6 of 7
9/8/10 at 10:20pm
Thread Starter 

Alright, thanks

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post #7 of 7
9/10/10 at 12:54pm

Hmmm... I think the hifiman 801 and 602 can do that, check it out. 

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Gear mentioned in this thread:

COWON J3 16 GB Portable Media Player (Black)
Powered by NexTag
COWON J3 8 GB Portable Media Player (White)
Powered by NexTag
COWON J3 32 GB Portable Media Player (Black)
Powered by NexTag
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