My Brief Cowon S9 Impressions

Quote:

Originally Posted by JosephKim 

With most of my IEMs sold, all I had to test the Cowon S9 with was my Sennheiser mx580 earbuds. Even so.. WOW.

 

I didnt think a dap would make that much of a difference in sound quality. The S9 completely smashes the clip+. Of course, its 5 times more expensive so it better smash it.

 

The only gripe I have is that on normal setting the mids are recessed, so equalizer needs to be utilized. I dont like messing with EQ too much because I feel like I never know what Im doing.

 

Looking forward to receiving my Shure se530 to pair with the S9. After that happens, I have a feeling I might be done with head-fi for awhile :D

No need to feel this way.....you simply tinker until you get it to sound the way you think it should.

Rockbox the clip+ and the S9's advantage is pretty much gone in the SQ dept.

Then you & I may be one of the few who thinks so. On the whole the J3 is superior across the board. SQ wise, it's more about personal preferences. I prefer the SQ of the J3 myself,...so we hear somewhat the same I guess.

Now, a Rockboxed iPod,...it's my preferred DAP & I like the SQ more than a Cowon or Sansa+Rockbox any day!!! That's just me, YMMV.

As great as the clip+ is and I really like it the biggest downfall to it is the power. Compared to other dap's it just lacks the power to drive a lot of phones. Of course it is a small dap so only so much power can be in it but when you compare it to the Cowon players which typically are among the more powerful mainstream dap's.

I had the same impression of the Clip+ until I got the JH5s, which are so easy to drive that even the Clip+ needs only be at half volume, which is saying something. And the Clip+ never sounded so good, even with 192k WMA/MP3 files.

Sounding good isn't the same as sounding great :)

I love the clip+ and if I wanted a budget dap the clip+ would be it but there's better alternatives imo if you want a stand alone dap. If you add an amp it's a bit different. I've also found that some of the more harder to drive have been multi BA drivers earphones. Volume wise they all go loud but just about everything can go loud.

Assuming the S9 sounds the same as the J3 then it should be quite the player but I've played a bit with the S9 and didn't like it much. The UI needs some work (at least there are plenty of themes for the S9) and I didn't like the curved bottom.

Ok, then the Clip+ does sound great with the JH5s. I own 6-7 DAPs, use an LOD and amp with some of them, and the Clip+ was not high on the list. But the JH5s have given it new life, without an amp. My point was simply that the Clip+ volume can be a hassle, but not with the very efficient 5s. That's all. And the 5s also improve bring out the best in the Clip+, especially with Rockbox.

I can't compare the SQ between the S9 & J3 as I've never heard the J3 but everytime I compared my iaudio 9 & S9 next to each other the iaudio 9 won out.  (Same Viva 2 EQ)  Still not sure why.