[titaniumx3]

I still have mine, but the battery is nearly dead.

Was an excellent player in it's time and sounded pretty good, but compared to my current Sony X1060, the sound quality is definitely lacking and not nearly as fun to listen to. In fact, I even prefer the sound of my iPod 5.5g to the X5. The mids and general sound stage sound a little recessed on the X5.

 

[immtbiker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Negakinu /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm still using my X5L every day! Couldn't find a good enough reason to replace it. SQ is pretty damn good in my opinion. The battery died, the headphone jack turned mono and the thumbstick wouldn't register "down" but I replaced all of them and it's working like new again. Getting 26 hours of batterytime on a cheap Chinese ebay-battery! I'm thinking about giving it a new HD since it's so easy to mod. 80gb sounds tempting but I thought I read something about incompatibility with every HD above 40gb? Let me know! (the ebay-seller for the battery is called Megacapacity, there are several versions around $15)

I had to send mine back in the beginning because of a failed headphone jack.

Is it easy to open the X5L and replace the battery by ourselves?

 

[Punnisher]

The X5 is easy to work on. Take out the four screws in the back and lift off the back plate. The battery is directly underneath, attached to the hard drive with sticky tape.

 

[actorlife]

It takes a couple of days. Don't worry.

 

[immtbiker]

I have nothing but time on my hands.

Thanks for your help.

 

[Obstinate]

As long as you have a soldering iron, doesn't take too long. I did it in about two hours, mostly because I was very afraid that I would ruin something. Which I didn't

.

 

[qusp]

I bought one intending to perform the alexMOD to it, but he sold all the boards without me getting one

I find its good, but doesnt sound as good as my other rigs IMO, I really wanted to have a portable dual PCM1794A dac/ LME49710HA/BUF634 in the palm of my hand. guess i'll have to wait for version 2 if it happens

 

[immtbiker]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Obstinate /img/forum/go_quote.gif As long as you have a soldering iron, doesn't take too long. I did it in about two hours, mostly because I was very afraid that I would ruin something. Which I didn't .

Soldering???
There's soldering involved? Oy Vay. I assumed there would be a plug jack involved.

 

[shigzeo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Punnisher /img/forum/go_quote.gif I appreciate mine. I got mine without knowing anything about Cowon and was really pleased. I still think it sounds as good as the best players out there. The fact that it runs rockbox is icing on the cake.

That is the icing and the cake. I love the Rockbox and for acoustic music, the distortion which makes a lovely warm fuzzy sound. The fact that such a good player existed in 2005 is great news when the iRiver was the dominant audiophile dap. Cowon haven't found their footing since then though which is a shame.

 

[Obstinate]

Quote:

Originally Posted by immtbiker /img/forum/go_quote.gif Soldering??? There's soldering involved? Oy Vay. I assumed there would be a plug jack involved.

Yes, a small amount. There is no plug jack, save for the larger battery in the X5L.

The way I did it, and the safest way, is to just cut the wire from the old battery, leaving the old solder points in place, crimping some insulation from both ends, and simply soldering those ends to the new battery gold points, red to red, black to black. You can also put some insulating tape around it or rubber stuff (forgot what it's called) to help with conduction. It's a really easy operation and your X5 will run good as new.

Also, there's a 1200 mah iPod Photo battery that looks as if it should work. I just purchased it, and it's the same length and width and looks to be the same depth, or if anything, 1 mm higher. It should definitely fit though. I'll give it a go next week. All you need to do is cut the white wire from it since you won't be needing it. They can be had for 5 bucks from an eBay user named eForcity.

 

[immtbiker]

I have an X5L and I am hoping to get a replacement that will still boast 30 hrs. Battery time. The little things that you were talking about is "shrink tubing".
I used to solder for a living before unions guaranteed boards for the life of the machine and it was against the rules to troubleshoot down to a component level.
AC coming in on a 24V P/S and 0 coming out, replace the board. TRW would fix it on a bench and send it back to us refurbished. Sort of lost the art of soldering and good second level troubleshooting.
I am hoping to get a proper X5L batter from that site on Flea Bay, melt her in, and then all will be fine in Cowon-ville once again. It has been said that the amp works better through the headphone out, rather than through the sub-pack digital out, and I will trust that, It's a hassle carrying around the sub-pack and the cable, anyway, I could very easily lose it, and then it would be fun getting music on/off the thing.

 

[actorlife]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shigzeo /img/forum/go_quote.gif Cowon haven't found their footing since then though which is a shame.

I agree. The Cowon D2 did nothing for me. Iriver still makes good players. I have the older Iriver iFP-799 which is a great player. I hope they come out with the X7, which I highly doubt. Maybe I'll buy a cheap X5 and try the 30 hr. battery life. Do you guys have pics of how you did it?

Obstinate - would you mind posting pics of your battery mod? Which battery and where to buy it? Oh yeah how many hours are you getting? A new battery replacement from Cowon it's 10-12 hrs. I'm hoping for more.

 

[Punnisher]

Cowon dropped the ball in terms of sound after the X5. Their most popular players, the D2 and S9 have bass rolloff which is terrible. It's the main reason for me hesitating on buying an S9. Gapless is a godsend, but needing an amp to even get a flat frequency response sucks.

 

[Obstinate]

Actorlife-I actually didn't take any pictures of my previous mod sadly. I followed the directions of a user on iaudiophile.net. I'll be getting another this week and will be doing so with the iPod Photo battery so I'll be sure to take some then.

I used the Palm Tungsten E2 1050 mah battery and it can be had on eBay for about $12. When I first put it in it clocked at about 14:39, which is much better than the standard battery. And this is with a large variety of musical formats and bitrates but no shuffle on. So you certainly will be getting more battery life.

 

[Obstinate]

Surgery completed and a success! Battery charged. I just need to discharge it and see how long I get out of this one. I used an iPod Photo battery for this operation. Now I've got twin 80 gig iAudios

.

I'll post a few pictures of the surgery. Sorry I didn't do the full thing, but I have pictures of the innards.