This is the player I was looking for all along. Seriously, this has given me a new found respect for Cowon, as well as Korean Innovation as a whole. So, lets get to the basics.
Pros:
Audio Quality is unbelievable. Now that the price has gone down to $200, this is the best-sounding player for under $300. No compromises either, this has been compared favorably to the Sony X, which is twice the price, with fewer audio features.
The EQ is equally incredible. If your coming from an iPod, be prepared to start tweaking. Before, with my ipod, I had one way to play music. If it didn't sound the way I wanted it, I had to just accept it, beyond a few primitive EQ settings that usually failed to help the sound. With the S9, you have unlimited possibilities for sound tweaking and customizing. Don't like the closed-in feeling of your headphones? Use BBE Viva or make your own custom EQ with 10 levels of Surround Sound effect. Want more/less bass/treble. Easy. Say your just listening to a song, and it doesn't sound right. The Genre settings are optimized for Rock, Dance, Classic, etc and will lift you out of your depression. If there is any DAP that will convince you not to buy an amp, its this one. You will never run out of ways to improve the sound.
The Screen. Oh the screen. Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode. I don't know how it works, and I don't care. It looks so amazing, especially with its 16 million colors. Play a colorful movie like Avatar on it, and you will be literally blown away. The new Samsung Vibrant actually includes this movie, and has the same AMOLED-type screen as the S9, but is newer and much better advertised. When they say cinema quality they aren't joking. It's so amazing that if I had the choice of watching a movie on my laptop or on my S9, I would choose the S9 every time. Your xvids will come to life. There is a 2gb file limit for videos, but it doesn't matter, as I have watched 700mb xvids on the amazing screen without complaint. If encoding video for the S9, just set AutoGK to xvid at 75% quality, and it will look amazing and be under 2gb 99% of the time. I didn't buy it for the screen, I bought it purely for audio quality and flac support. But I would be lying if I said I didn't appreciate the screen almost as much as the superior audio quality. The EQ can be used while watching movies as well, settings like BBE Headphone will add soundstage and bass without sacrificing clarity. Really amazing.
Codec Support - FLAC, WAV, OGG, MP3, WMA, APE. Everything you need. I would choose FLAC if going for the best Audio Quality possible, as the Tags are easy with Mp3tag, and the compression of APE is not an excuse for lacking error checking and error robustness, which FLAC uses to make sure your lossless files are truly lossless. In a study over at HydrogenAudio, someone tried to play FLAC and APE that were both corrupted using a hex editor. The FLAC file had a second of silence, while the APE file refused to play at all. So really. Load it with FLAC and enjoy the sound. It is amazing with lossless and good headphones. The stock ones are complete crap, but everyone here probably has something $100+
Drag and Drop - Comes with software, but you don't need it at all. Just drag and drop. So easy, and you can keep your own folder system as an alternative to going by tags, as the S9 can navigate folders easily and quickly.
40 HOURS BATTERY LIFE!!!
Cons:
Tv-Out Cable is really cool with well-encoded Xvids, have watched a lot of movies at friends houses using this feature. Quality is limited only by the TV and the encoding. Great job on the cable, but it costs like $15 extra. Should be included in the package.
Line-in Cable is awesome too. Record any song from a friends DAP or a sound mixer or anything, but only at 256kbps WMA. Sounds great, but no WAV, sorry. Also costs extra, should be included in package.
Proprietary cable for USB and charging. Not a big deal, but Mini-usb would have been another pro.
UI: Easy when your used to it, takes about a week to get in the groove, after that your set. Also, Custom UI's from iaudiophile forums make your player infinitely customizable. I found a couple that work great with a bunch of user options and they look really cool too. One called "Dark Evolution" takes advantage of the S9's killer screen and displays album art as large as it can go. I tagged all my FLAC with mp3tag with 500x500 album art from Google Images, looks AMAZING. But I have to say, Ipods UI is the best. But you have to use their software and be another apple sheep. UI is definitely good, great if you consider the customizing options. I like it a lot better than the ipods' but I've seen people complain. All in all, if you have a little time on your hands to figure out and customize this bad boy, you will be totally happy with the results. I didn't get an anp because my headphones are IE8s and the ATH-M50, but you will want to if your connecting to a hard-to-drive headphone.
Conclusion
AMAZING. GET THIS NOW ITS ONLY $200
The new Itouch is $400 and doesn't sound or play video as well as the S9
The new Zune HD doesnt sound as good, or have as many sound tweaking options
The Sony X has noise canceling that messes with the sound that you have to use the bundled headphones with, an internet browser, you'l never use, inferior codec support and battery life, and far less sound customization.
This has no Line-out. So for you amp-loving people this might be a no-go. But if you use earphones or easy-to-drive headphones (I use ATH-M50 on Volume Level 10/40, and its completely loud enough) this should be your next purchase. Really, discount the haters. The UI is simple and intuitive once you get into it, and you won't have any problems unless you use a Mac, which is known to have problems with these. If you need more than 32gb (you probably don't, for portable use, just pick your favorite albums that you listen to the most) you can buy the Cowon J3, which is $100 more for an SD card slot and a crappy internal speaker. Anyway, I love it and use it everyday, and it completely meets my sound quality needs as well as others, enough that I use it at home with my M50s as well as portably with my IE8s.
I LOVE THIS PLAYER AND SO CAN YOU!
Pros:
Audio Quality is unbelievable. Now that the price has gone down to $200, this is the best-sounding player for under $300. No compromises either, this has been compared favorably to the Sony X, which is twice the price, with fewer audio features.
The EQ is equally incredible. If your coming from an iPod, be prepared to start tweaking. Before, with my ipod, I had one way to play music. If it didn't sound the way I wanted it, I had to just accept it, beyond a few primitive EQ settings that usually failed to help the sound. With the S9, you have unlimited possibilities for sound tweaking and customizing. Don't like the closed-in feeling of your headphones? Use BBE Viva or make your own custom EQ with 10 levels of Surround Sound effect. Want more/less bass/treble. Easy. Say your just listening to a song, and it doesn't sound right. The Genre settings are optimized for Rock, Dance, Classic, etc and will lift you out of your depression. If there is any DAP that will convince you not to buy an amp, its this one. You will never run out of ways to improve the sound.
The Screen. Oh the screen. Active Matrix Organic Light Emitting Diode. I don't know how it works, and I don't care. It looks so amazing, especially with its 16 million colors. Play a colorful movie like Avatar on it, and you will be literally blown away. The new Samsung Vibrant actually includes this movie, and has the same AMOLED-type screen as the S9, but is newer and much better advertised. When they say cinema quality they aren't joking. It's so amazing that if I had the choice of watching a movie on my laptop or on my S9, I would choose the S9 every time. Your xvids will come to life. There is a 2gb file limit for videos, but it doesn't matter, as I have watched 700mb xvids on the amazing screen without complaint. If encoding video for the S9, just set AutoGK to xvid at 75% quality, and it will look amazing and be under 2gb 99% of the time. I didn't buy it for the screen, I bought it purely for audio quality and flac support. But I would be lying if I said I didn't appreciate the screen almost as much as the superior audio quality. The EQ can be used while watching movies as well, settings like BBE Headphone will add soundstage and bass without sacrificing clarity. Really amazing.
Codec Support - FLAC, WAV, OGG, MP3, WMA, APE. Everything you need. I would choose FLAC if going for the best Audio Quality possible, as the Tags are easy with Mp3tag, and the compression of APE is not an excuse for lacking error checking and error robustness, which FLAC uses to make sure your lossless files are truly lossless. In a study over at HydrogenAudio, someone tried to play FLAC and APE that were both corrupted using a hex editor. The FLAC file had a second of silence, while the APE file refused to play at all. So really. Load it with FLAC and enjoy the sound. It is amazing with lossless and good headphones. The stock ones are complete crap, but everyone here probably has something $100+
Drag and Drop - Comes with software, but you don't need it at all. Just drag and drop. So easy, and you can keep your own folder system as an alternative to going by tags, as the S9 can navigate folders easily and quickly.
40 HOURS BATTERY LIFE!!!
Cons:
Tv-Out Cable is really cool with well-encoded Xvids, have watched a lot of movies at friends houses using this feature. Quality is limited only by the TV and the encoding. Great job on the cable, but it costs like $15 extra. Should be included in the package.
Line-in Cable is awesome too. Record any song from a friends DAP or a sound mixer or anything, but only at 256kbps WMA. Sounds great, but no WAV, sorry. Also costs extra, should be included in package.
Proprietary cable for USB and charging. Not a big deal, but Mini-usb would have been another pro.
UI: Easy when your used to it, takes about a week to get in the groove, after that your set. Also, Custom UI's from iaudiophile forums make your player infinitely customizable. I found a couple that work great with a bunch of user options and they look really cool too. One called "Dark Evolution" takes advantage of the S9's killer screen and displays album art as large as it can go. I tagged all my FLAC with mp3tag with 500x500 album art from Google Images, looks AMAZING. But I have to say, Ipods UI is the best. But you have to use their software and be another apple sheep. UI is definitely good, great if you consider the customizing options. I like it a lot better than the ipods' but I've seen people complain. All in all, if you have a little time on your hands to figure out and customize this bad boy, you will be totally happy with the results. I didn't get an anp because my headphones are IE8s and the ATH-M50, but you will want to if your connecting to a hard-to-drive headphone.
Conclusion
AMAZING. GET THIS NOW ITS ONLY $200
The new Itouch is $400 and doesn't sound or play video as well as the S9
The new Zune HD doesnt sound as good, or have as many sound tweaking options
The Sony X has noise canceling that messes with the sound that you have to use the bundled headphones with, an internet browser, you'l never use, inferior codec support and battery life, and far less sound customization.
This has no Line-out. So for you amp-loving people this might be a no-go. But if you use earphones or easy-to-drive headphones (I use ATH-M50 on Volume Level 10/40, and its completely loud enough) this should be your next purchase. Really, discount the haters. The UI is simple and intuitive once you get into it, and you won't have any problems unless you use a Mac, which is known to have problems with these. If you need more than 32gb (you probably don't, for portable use, just pick your favorite albums that you listen to the most) you can buy the Cowon J3, which is $100 more for an SD card slot and a crappy internal speaker. Anyway, I love it and use it everyday, and it completely meets my sound quality needs as well as others, enough that I use it at home with my M50s as well as portably with my IE8s.
I LOVE THIS PLAYER AND SO CAN YOU!