COWON Z2 - The complete Review (from Izzi going) - Page 20

Quote:

Originally Posted by AnnaB 

Hi again,

 

I now have a Z2. My problem is that all the music from a each artist is clumped together. The separate albums are not recognised. Have I loaded my music wrong? Is there a way of fixing this? I copied and pasted all my music into a new folder that I created on the Z2. Should I have done something diffently?

Many thanks all.

 

Anna

I dont have this problem. because i seperate each singer then each album followed by the songs.

Something like this:

Media > Music > [Singer] > [Album] > Songs

If u put them like that, it should show up nicely under ur folders.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chirag Soni 

wow. I can't believe I got completely ignored. I might as well forget those 2 questions and try a question related to the above post, and maybe have a better chance of getting acknowledged. 

 

From what I've heard J3 is the best sound quality and everyone has been asking whether the Z2 sounds better than the J3. Izzy I understand you don't have a J3, anyone else can you answer this? From what I know the J3 has Jet Effect 3 while the Z2 has an improved Jet Effect 5. 

To follow up on ur post.

My findings are such that on Z2's default cowon music player,

there's no or very very little difference that i couldn't pick up.

But when Z2 is on poweramp, it's slightly better.

Poweramp seperates the vocals away from the instruments more, making it easier to pick up and some minor minor improvements to the SQ.

Ultimately, when u already have an andriod device, i dont see any reason why u need another and sacrifice J3's long battery life for it.

I got my z2 on friday and absolutely love it!  Like most others in this thread I found the stock software to be underwhelming and counter intuitive, but being android its easy to customize the device and all but ditch most of the cowon interface.  I updated to 4.33, sideloaded the market, and rooted it using superoneclick 2.3.3.  Then, I went ahead and tried several different launchers on the market, ADWlauncher, Golauncher EX, and Nemus Launcher.  I'm happy to report that nemus launcher was by far the best on the cowon, making the device look and feel much smoother than stock. 

I also have found a few albums inproperly tagged under albums in the stock music player, a few albums show as artist=xxxx or rtist=xxxx, pretty annoying and something I hope cowon fixes in future firmware updates.  Still, it seems using a third party music player is much preferred on this device.  The device isn't slow by any means, yet it seems to be cowon's own android skin that makes it feel slower.  On the contrary, its actually pretty snappy using nemus.

installing the google market is simple, just download the apks from this anythingfromipod thread and place it in the apk folder of the device.  A prompt will come up to install the 3 files one at a time once the z2 is unplugged.

Google Market 3.46 download

http://anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=69228

Gaining root is a bit more complicated, however, and requires that the Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is installed along with the SDK.

basically you need to download and install the sdk along with ADB and the google usb driver package under the "extras" tab.

The SDK installer can be found here:

http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

after the sdk is installed along with the usb driver under "extras" navigate to this folder:

x:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\extras\google\usb_driver    (or x:\program files\ for 32 bit)

edit android_winusb.inf and add under [Google.NTx86] and [Google.NTx64]

; Cowon Z2
%SingleAdbInterface%    = USB_Install, USB\VID_0E21&PID_1100
%CompositeAdbInterface% = USB_Install, USB\VID_0E21&PID_1100&MI_01
;

after you add these entries the pc should be able to recognize and install the adb drivers for the z2 when it is placed in USB debug mode; if not, manually install the drivers via the device driver panel.

go to a command prompt and navigate to C:\Program Files (x86)\Android\android-sdk\platform-tools

type adb devices and if the z2 is recognized, it should say so.

Next step is to download superoneclick 2.3.3 from the official site:

http://shortfuse.org/?page_id=2

extract it, run it, and click root... it should do it its thing.  Note that superoneclick is the same as doing the whole process manually through adb, so if for some reason superoneclick doesn't work, root can be achieved manually through the adb interface (confirmed this to work as well).

Also note that superoneclick may take more than one try to work correctly, so ymmv. 

after it is done the device will reboot itself and you will find the superuser app on the device.  Keep in mind that with every software update from cowon, you will have to repeat this process to reapply root. 

also check this thread on iaudiophile about getting adb to recognize the device, although some of the steps are out of date and/or unnecessary.

http://iaudiophile.net/forums/showthread.php?t=40423

You root it so as to make the interface faster?

Sry im still a noob towards andriod.

And im doing fine with cowon's interface, althought i felt J3 was faster.

I just wanna know the pros of rooting the Z2.

rooting is only necessary on this device if you want to install apps from the market that require root (such as titanium backup and adfree).  For most users, it will be unnecessary, as the market files released from cowon are signed and do not require root to install.
 

as of yet there are no custom kernels, and roms don't exist either.  As far as I know, cowon locked the bootloader on the device to make either of these difficult to achieve (possibly due to the strict BBE licensing).

z2 appears to use the wm8960, just a useful piece of info for those who were wondering.

^Just so you know, the wm8960 costs less than £5 (closer to £2 when bought in bulk by a manufacturer). I wonder if there aren't better DAC chips which Cowon and other 'hifi' PMP manufacturers could consider looking at without pushing up the price for the consumer.

My 32gb Z2 arrived yesterday. So far I'm really impressed with it.  One question: I want to put in a 64gb card but I'm confused by all the different types there seem to be. Could someone here who has already got a 64gb card working with their Z2 please tell me the make and model number of the card you're using so I don't screw up and waste my money by buying something incompatible!

Also, do I need to prepare it in any way to use it in the Z2?

Thanks,

Mike.

All current 64GB SDXC cards work when you format them to FAT32, since all still use the UHS-1 interface.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sorensiim 

Rockbox is great for the Clip+, iPods and other dedicated music players but the Android Rockbox app leaves quite a bit to be desired, to say the least. If you're going to replace the player, use PowerAmp or Neutron.

Does Neutron work on the Z2? I gather people had problems getting it to load on the D3

Quote:

Originally Posted by analogue 3 

Does Neutron work on the Z2? I gather people had problems getting it to load on the D3

Yes, neutron works on the z2, though I haven't tested it extensively in comparison to the other players (poweramp, jetaudio, squeezeplay, etc).  In fact, I haven't found one yet that doesn't work.