Having gotten the itch for a new music player, I decided to start looking out there. And let me say, what a difference a couple years has made in music players! Apparently gone are the days of the $2-300 iPods and Cowon J3’s of yesteryear…apparently I have to drop $600+ just to get a Portable Music Player (PMP) worth its salt! But no, this isn’t exactly true. While there are some obscure PMP’s out there that sell for a decent price, I wanted something that I knew came from a good brand and had a good price point associated with it. Initially, I started out by finding the Sony A17 series, which is where I thought I was headed. Then came the Sony ZX100, which was the $600 non-US market player that had great battery life and great promises of sound quality. After dabbling the idea of a Fiio player, I then turned my eyes over to Cowon again, knowing how much I loved the J3, and saw that they had somewhat changed…the Cowon Plenue 1 was going for nearly $1k, and the Cowon Plenue M was around $800 or so. Knowing full well that I loved Cowon and it’s sound signature and player capabilities, I was getting myself ready to drop that kind of money for a PMP when I saw that the Plenue D was coming soon, and it was going to be the PMP that I was really looking for – something to replace my J3, and build upon all of the strong qualities the J3 had. So how does the new Plenue D fare? Remarkably. It’s everything I was hoping for in my new PMP.
The Plenue D comes in a very nice box, a sort of understated approach. It’s black and simple, yet feels premium to the user. Inside you find a warranty booklet, a quickstart guide, the Player, and a microUSB cable (THANK YOU COWON, NO MORE PROPRIETARY CABLES!) The player is a different size I must say comparatively to other PMP’s I’ve used, such as the J3 or iPods or smartphones. It’s a small little brick, almost kind of like a post-it note in size and feel. It’s got some decent weight to it, but not anywhere near a smartphone weight. The build quality is top notch – the metal body feels great, the power button up top is a nice touch, and the media buttons on the side all have good feel and press to them without feeling too hard or soft to touch. The headphone port has a good hold on both my Ultimate Ears 900s IEM’s cable as well as my Sony MDR-1A’s cable as well – no sense of looseness at all.
I immediately charged the player (you can see the charging status of the player with the led circle around the power button – a nice looking touch if you ask me), and then booted it up. Took around 5 seconds, and then turned on. Upon start up, the player was preloaded with the 1.02 firmware, which is the latest release from Cowon - my guess is that the US spec ones sold by JetAudio have this, but I cannot confirm for everyone. Once I realized that I did not need to do a firmware update, I powered back down, and loaded in my 128gb microSD card, which was filled with around 70gb of music – a mixture of FLAC and MP3 files. Do note that if you are going to be using a microSD card, the card must be formatted in FAT32, not ex-FAT like many cards come preformatted. This is an easy job to do – just download GUIformat and have it run. With my card now loaded, I booted the player up to get it going – the player took its 5 seconds to start, and then proceeded to complete a database upgrade, which took roughly 30 seconds. After that completed, all of my music was there, ready to go!
The system UI is very Cowon – anyone who’s handled a J3 or other Cowon player should feel pretty much at home, but it can be a bit quirky to work around for a first timer. Most settings for the player can only be accessed while playing music – a bit odd, but that’s just how it is. The player responsiveness is average – I will say that it’s better than the J3, but you should not go in expecting iPhone 6 level UI responsiveness. Your clicks will register without issues, scrolling up and down is relatively good, and the new search function is good, but album art and such do take some time to load. But for a player that’s solely focused on playing music, I don’t find this to be a nuisance at all. Again, as a comparison back to the J3, this system UI feels a bit more polished and ready to go.
The screen quality is decent – certainly nothing special or to write home about, but it serves its purpose fine. Album art looks good, and all the menus are easy to read and interact with. It is a little pixely as it’s not a high-res screen, but again, at the end of the day this PMP is for playing music only – no photos, videos, etc.
Now onto the main point of the review – the sound! Sound is classic Cowon sound, nearly the same as the J3 (and well, my Soundblaster ZxR for that matter) – well defined, slightly warm, and tons of detail. The player responds on all ends of the audible spectrum from bass to treble and all the way in between. What makes this player even more special than the J3 is that playback is completely black – there is no player noise like there was with the J3 – essentially, there is no player ‘hiss.’ This is more than likely attributed to the 120db SNR compared to the 95db SNR on the J3. The player also has a stronger crosstalk rating, which I was able to perceive as different from the J3 based on a couple of songs I have in my library that I’ve heard happen before while playing. This is not to say the J3 didn’t do a good job, it’s just that the Plenue D is nearly 5 years newer, and benefits from a much stronger DAC and internal component setup – its great to have a player with no hiss present!
JetEffect 5 and it’s EQ capabilities are plentiful and great – I’ve personally always been a fan of either the standard BBE setting or the BBE Headphone 3 setting myself, and they are both here and making the player sound fantastic. Even without EQ, the sound quality is excellent and presents the listener with wonderful detail and quality. There are even more presets than the J3 had, and there is a full 5 band EQ you can play with in user settings to get the sound to exactly where you want it to be, all without any distortion – Cowon simply cannot be outdone with their EQ capabilities.
Another major improvement from the J3 is the power output – this was also another big reason that I was looking for a new player. While the J3 could drive my multi-armature IEM’s (the UE900s), in certain situations, the J3 was not really able to drive my MDR-1A over ear headphones – I would have to pump the volume anywhere from 35-40 (the J3’s maximum setting) just to get them to where I wanted them to be. That is no longer the case with the Plenue D. The D has a 100 adjustment volume scale, and I am seeing that at most, I have to have the player on 60 for my MDR-1A’s – a huge difference in output power. While I don’t think you are going to be driving 300+ ohm headphones without an amp with the Plenue D, it is certainly capable of driving headphones up to 100ohm’s or so on its own.
Battery life is also fantastic – I let the player run for around 90 hours of mixed MP3 and FLAC playback on its first charge. Its fantastic! As someone who hates to charge things all the time, this makes me truly happy, and really speaks to the portability of this player.
Cowon has truly created a home run PMP with the Plenue D. If you’re someone who is looking for a no-nonsense music player, this is the player for you. It’s good price point, it’s fantastic build quality, its wonderful sound quality, and it’s awesome battery life all combine for a great music player that will keep you happy for years to come. This is the true J3+ that many have been looking for.
The Plenue D comes in a very nice box, a sort of understated approach. It’s black and simple, yet feels premium to the user. Inside you find a warranty booklet, a quickstart guide, the Player, and a microUSB cable (THANK YOU COWON, NO MORE PROPRIETARY CABLES!) The player is a different size I must say comparatively to other PMP’s I’ve used, such as the J3 or iPods or smartphones. It’s a small little brick, almost kind of like a post-it note in size and feel. It’s got some decent weight to it, but not anywhere near a smartphone weight. The build quality is top notch – the metal body feels great, the power button up top is a nice touch, and the media buttons on the side all have good feel and press to them without feeling too hard or soft to touch. The headphone port has a good hold on both my Ultimate Ears 900s IEM’s cable as well as my Sony MDR-1A’s cable as well – no sense of looseness at all.
I immediately charged the player (you can see the charging status of the player with the led circle around the power button – a nice looking touch if you ask me), and then booted it up. Took around 5 seconds, and then turned on. Upon start up, the player was preloaded with the 1.02 firmware, which is the latest release from Cowon - my guess is that the US spec ones sold by JetAudio have this, but I cannot confirm for everyone. Once I realized that I did not need to do a firmware update, I powered back down, and loaded in my 128gb microSD card, which was filled with around 70gb of music – a mixture of FLAC and MP3 files. Do note that if you are going to be using a microSD card, the card must be formatted in FAT32, not ex-FAT like many cards come preformatted. This is an easy job to do – just download GUIformat and have it run. With my card now loaded, I booted the player up to get it going – the player took its 5 seconds to start, and then proceeded to complete a database upgrade, which took roughly 30 seconds. After that completed, all of my music was there, ready to go!
The system UI is very Cowon – anyone who’s handled a J3 or other Cowon player should feel pretty much at home, but it can be a bit quirky to work around for a first timer. Most settings for the player can only be accessed while playing music – a bit odd, but that’s just how it is. The player responsiveness is average – I will say that it’s better than the J3, but you should not go in expecting iPhone 6 level UI responsiveness. Your clicks will register without issues, scrolling up and down is relatively good, and the new search function is good, but album art and such do take some time to load. But for a player that’s solely focused on playing music, I don’t find this to be a nuisance at all. Again, as a comparison back to the J3, this system UI feels a bit more polished and ready to go.
The screen quality is decent – certainly nothing special or to write home about, but it serves its purpose fine. Album art looks good, and all the menus are easy to read and interact with. It is a little pixely as it’s not a high-res screen, but again, at the end of the day this PMP is for playing music only – no photos, videos, etc.
Now onto the main point of the review – the sound! Sound is classic Cowon sound, nearly the same as the J3 (and well, my Soundblaster ZxR for that matter) – well defined, slightly warm, and tons of detail. The player responds on all ends of the audible spectrum from bass to treble and all the way in between. What makes this player even more special than the J3 is that playback is completely black – there is no player noise like there was with the J3 – essentially, there is no player ‘hiss.’ This is more than likely attributed to the 120db SNR compared to the 95db SNR on the J3. The player also has a stronger crosstalk rating, which I was able to perceive as different from the J3 based on a couple of songs I have in my library that I’ve heard happen before while playing. This is not to say the J3 didn’t do a good job, it’s just that the Plenue D is nearly 5 years newer, and benefits from a much stronger DAC and internal component setup – its great to have a player with no hiss present!
JetEffect 5 and it’s EQ capabilities are plentiful and great – I’ve personally always been a fan of either the standard BBE setting or the BBE Headphone 3 setting myself, and they are both here and making the player sound fantastic. Even without EQ, the sound quality is excellent and presents the listener with wonderful detail and quality. There are even more presets than the J3 had, and there is a full 5 band EQ you can play with in user settings to get the sound to exactly where you want it to be, all without any distortion – Cowon simply cannot be outdone with their EQ capabilities.
Another major improvement from the J3 is the power output – this was also another big reason that I was looking for a new player. While the J3 could drive my multi-armature IEM’s (the UE900s), in certain situations, the J3 was not really able to drive my MDR-1A over ear headphones – I would have to pump the volume anywhere from 35-40 (the J3’s maximum setting) just to get them to where I wanted them to be. That is no longer the case with the Plenue D. The D has a 100 adjustment volume scale, and I am seeing that at most, I have to have the player on 60 for my MDR-1A’s – a huge difference in output power. While I don’t think you are going to be driving 300+ ohm headphones without an amp with the Plenue D, it is certainly capable of driving headphones up to 100ohm’s or so on its own.
Battery life is also fantastic – I let the player run for around 90 hours of mixed MP3 and FLAC playback on its first charge. Its fantastic! As someone who hates to charge things all the time, this makes me truly happy, and really speaks to the portability of this player.
Cowon has truly created a home run PMP with the Plenue D. If you’re someone who is looking for a no-nonsense music player, this is the player for you. It’s good price point, it’s fantastic build quality, its wonderful sound quality, and it’s awesome battery life all combine for a great music player that will keep you happy for years to come. This is the true J3+ that many have been looking for.
Outside of that, how is it not a no-nonsense music player? It plays music, and it plays it great.