There are many reasons I want to get the Cowon. The company is responsive to the owners of their products and comes out with updates and improvements regularly so there is that to look forward to. It has an expansion slot and probably the size of microsd cards is only limited by what's actually available, 32gb now and who knows, maybe 64gb a year from now. There are many ways to improve the sound on the user level. I don't have any experience fiddling with frequency response but  I imagine lots can be done to get the player to sound more the way I would prefer. There's no Rockbox for the J3, but there's evidently enough interest in the player that hobbyists are offering enhancers like Aero and Karma, so there's that also to look forward to. All in all, I'd say this is the most exciting product of its kind out there! So, you've got it, Somnambulist, I'm going for the Cowon.

Get the Cowon. I have 2 Cowon DAP's. My very first is the Cowon U3 which I bought 4 years ago and is still alive and running with excellent sound quality. My second is the Cowon D2+ which I also love. I naively went and brough a Sansa Clip+ for easier portability, user interface and flac support. I was gravely dissapointed.

 

I stick with the Cowons if you want great sound quality and lots of equalizer customizations and music format supports such as flac, ogg, mp3 etc...

 

That's cool man. Everything I've read tells me the S:Flo2 sits in it's own little niche as a player that sounds better than 95% of other players and is really only beaten by the Hifimans, that obscure .wav player and the Colorfly, but like I said, at the end of the day if you have to do a lot of faffing about just to get the thing, and you just want something transparent that works, then you have to say 'is it worth it'? The Cowons sound like they're better than most of the other big name brands and I'm sure it'll sound great.

 

I only took a chance buying my SF2 because it was on eBay and therefore very easily available, I wouldn't have wanted to go through all the crazy waits other people have. Hopefully someone can benefit the same way when I let mine go, which I will because I'm pretty sold on the idea of iPod Touch > portable decoder/DAC > amp. Like I said, you have to weigh up the pros and cons, and by the looks of things the only con with this set up will be the size (around HF 801 in terms of footprint, maybe less!), but everything else (SQ, battery life, UI, support) should be schweet!

The main reason I didn't get the Sflo:2 was because I wanted a new player for Christmas and they were so slow in getting them out.  The HM-601 got here within a week.

Yeah. I think most people who've had both say the HF sounds better anyway so it's all good.

i am looking for a DAP with superior SQ but since i have a large collection of flac files which are very large even at compression level 6, they dont fit on most of the high end players. does anyone know of a player with great SQ AND over 60gigs of storage? thanks!

A 5.5G 240GB DIYMod / iMod, or a 6G 160GB iPod + CLAS / HP-P1? Only those would meet your requirements, AFAIK.

Edited by the wizard of oz - 7/25/11 at 1:26pm

Has anyone checked out the new creative pmp that just came out? it sounds like it might be a good player. Here, check out what "anything but ipod" said about it, notice that it can do hi-def 24/96?:

 

Creative Zen X-Fi3 unveiled

Creative unveiled their newest player, the Zen X-Fi3, at IFA Berlin. Resembling the ‘brick’ design of the iriver Clix or Cowon D2, it’s quite a departure from the looks of the older X-Fi and X-Fi2.

Being a bit late to the dying touch interface fad, Creative put some resistive touch buttons around the 2″ TFT screen, but luckily they didn’t forget about proper tactile buttons for volume control. Same as the older X-Fi models, the X-Fi3 comes with a MicroSDHC slot, making it possible to boost the internal 8/16GB capacity with an additional 32GB of storage space. The biggest complaint about Creative’s SD implementation in older players was that files on the card weren’t integrated into the database at all, they were only available via folder browsing. Time will tell if Creative fixed that flaw in the X-Fi3. Battery life isn’t overly great with a claimed 20 hours for audio and 5 hours for video, but it’s not too shabby either.

On the software side, the X-Fi3 is quite interesting. The best feature for sure is Apt-X Bluetooth audio connectivity. Apt-X can be either lossy (384kbps) or lossless (up to 24/96) – both being vastly superior sounding compared to regular A2DP audio and transparent to most people’s ears. Creative also added FLAC support to the usual array of audio codecs (MP3, AAC, WMA, WAV, Audible). For video it supports standard definition AVI/DivX/Xvid and WMV. Of course they’re also continuing to push their X-Fi Crystalizer sound enhancement technology. While it can’t really compete with Cowon’s BBE or Sony’s DSEE, it probably is better than nothing. FM radio, a speaker on the back, video-out (analog) and a voice recorder are present as well.

Creative sux nowadays - the SQ and sound enhancements are horrid. Even on FLAT playing FLAC they suck. This is only good for streaming audio (I see you mentioned that fact), but that's about it.

 

Plus, the controls are RIDICULOUS!!!

Edited by tds101 - 9/13/11 at 3:39pm

This.  The current XFi chips aren't even the same quality as they used to be, not to mention everything else.  I still have and use a Xfi Elite Pro but that was the last Creative product with decent components I was exposed to by my knowledge.  About 6-8 years ago they stopped giving a rat's ass and just wanted profits and more profits.  They'd have to win me back with more than digital enhancements.  

 

Edited by Anaxilus - 9/13/11 at 10:02pm

^Well said.  I agree 100%.

I can confirm this a bit..but then again..for me there is only one cowon player which is above all other players around (also his more expensive newer siblings) except ofcourse the hifiman sorts..its the original cowon D2..and am talkin bout the full metal one..not the second version out of plastics...get ur hands on a D2 in good condition and in my eyes u have the best mainstream mp3 player around soundwise..unamped...he is almost not colored..but pls..dont use its EQ..as its terribe..and Pair it with a westone em3x..and u have one of the best combos for mainstream mp3 players..for real audiophile portable audio though u have to look for hifiman, colorfly and the sorts..and prepare to spend extra for a full size (hifiman?) headphone with good quality amping..
Edited by hifimanrookie - 11/9/12 at 7:26pm