[phkd]

So, I'm confused, why do you demand these features from just Cowon players? Why wouldn't we demand them in every company's players? I'm a Cowon man myself, I rock the A2, but I'd switch brands in a heartbeat for player that supported FLAC, 80+ Gb, line-out, sensible and friendly UI, and circuitry that degrades the quality as little as possible. That's all I need.


...Say, does the iMod play FLAC?

 

[shigzeo]

indeed it does if you rockbox it phkd!

 

[phkd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shigzeo /img/forum/go_quote.gif indeed it does if you rockbox it phkd!

hahaha sorry, but i am unfamiliar with the verb: to rockbox. could someone please explain?

 

[srozzman]

Rockbox - Open Source Jukebox Firmware there ya go

 

[phkd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by srozzman /img/forum/go_quote.gif Rockbox - Open Source Jukebox Firmware there ya go

That is fricken sweet. Does this make it possible to use the Ipod without needing to use Itunes? I had a third gen 20 gig back in the day but i hating having to use itunes as a tranfser medium. cause it sucks. I am seriously considering selling the ol' a2 to buy an iMod, but this issue is a dealmaker/breaker

 

[Cowon_1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by phkd /img/forum/go_quote.gif So, I'm confused, why do you demand these features from just Cowon players? Why wouldn't we demand them in every company's players? I'm a Cowon man myself, I rock the A2, but I'd switch brands in a heartbeat for player that supported FLAC, 80+ Gb, line-out, sensible and friendly UI, and circuitry that degrades the quality as little as possible. That's all I need. ...Say, does the iMod play FLAC?

I agree but I very seriously doubt asking company's like Microsoft and Apple to give us the ability to use there software or not to use software will work. And I think that is the reason there are a lot of people that are so hesitant to buy a Zune or a Classic. Also they limit you in codec support, they try to lock you in to there own codecs. No flac, Ape or ogg. And I doubt that will change either. And of course they want you to buy from there music store at 128kbps, that to me is repulsive. I'd never spend a dime or a penny for 128kbps, not only is it only 128kbps but it is protected. I just can't believe there are people that will actually spend money for such horrible quality and to have it protected no less.
Where is Cowon you already don't need software to load music at all if you don't want to. And you already have tons of codec support.

 

[frozncore]

Quote:

Originally Posted by phkd /img/forum/go_quote.gif That is fricken sweet. Does this make it possible to use the Ipod without needing to use Itunes? I had a third gen 20 gig back in the day but i hating having to use itunes as a tranfser medium. cause it sucks. I am seriously considering selling the ol' a2 to buy an iMod, but this issue is a dealmaker/breaker

No iTunes is needed with rockbox, just drag and drop. The only problem I find is that Rockbox decreases the battery life.

 

[shigzeo]

i have only ever bought one protected album, the rest are unprotected 256 - and until you can prove that you are amazing at telling the difference between codecs, please do not say aac at 128 suck. the protection i don't like true, but it is not rubbish.

with cowon, you do need software. try just loading from folders and unless you have software to properly edit id3 tags, then the cowon will play everything out of order. i used itunes when i had the d2. as for codec support. the only codec it really supports that makes sense to make great deal of is wma. but every single windows focused player supports wma.

flac and ogg are great, but saying that cowon are great for supporting it is funny as they are both free - it costs cowon nothing to support it and no other company as well. they are very good products, but cowon are probably doing it because it is free. if it was not free, i can imagine a cowon branded aac or mp3 for instance.

it is a cheap way out. i think that microsoft, sony and apple for instance do not support these codecs as they must stay within guidelines of what the industry is supporting as standards. aac, mp3 and wma. ogg used to have a huge lead on mp3 and aac but that lead has either disappeared from blind listening tests or is no longer properlly valified as they results are often very close or if in the case of ogg getting better results, no longer skewed in its favour.

i think cowon have a good name because of their name: iaudio. they have not produced a wonderful player really since the iaudio 5 that though has pretty bad hardware spec, at least was very musical. i would have been very happy if they would have realeased a non touch screen d2. i love touch screen with my touch but that has an interface that is designed by people who graduated from well, university.

cowon have done very good portable designs that are somewhat solid but really, this thread would be better put to large companies who have the clout to change the smaller companies who swear they are so much better than the big companies. if zune or ipod had these, every single player on the market would have to have it.

 

[Cowon_1]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shigzeo /img/forum/go_quote.gif i have only ever bought one protected album, the rest are unprotected 256 - and until you can prove that you are amazing at telling the difference between codecs, please do not say aac at 128 suck. the protection i don't like true, but it is not rubbish. with cowon, you do need software. try just loading from folders and unless you have software to properly edit id3 tags, then the cowon will play everything out of order. i used itunes when i had the d2. as for codec support. the only codec it really supports that makes sense to make great deal of is wma. but every single windows focused player supports wma. flac and ogg are great, but saying that cowon are great for supporting it is funny as they are both free - it costs cowon nothing to support it and no other company as well. they are very good products, but cowon are probably doing it because it is free. if it was not free, i can imagine a cowon branded aac or mp3 for instance. it is a cheap way out. i think that microsoft, sony and apple for instance do not support these codecs as they must stay within guidelines of what the industry is supporting as standards. aac, mp3 and wma. ogg used to have a huge lead on mp3 and aac but that lead has either disappeared from blind listening tests or is no longer properlly valified as they results are often very close or if in the case of ogg getting better results, no longer skewed in its favour. i think cowon have a good name because of their name: iaudio. they have not produced a wonderful player really since the iaudio 5 that though has pretty bad hardware spec, at least was very musical. i would have been very happy if they would have realeased a non touch screen d2. i love touch screen with my touch but that has an interface that is designed by people who graduated from well, university. cowon have done very good portable designs that are somewhat solid but really, this thread would be better put to large companies who have the clout to change the smaller companies who swear they are so much better than the big companies. if zune or ipod had these, every single player on the market would have to have it.

I don't care what codec it is, if it's at 128kbps and it's protected it s-cks....you act like I attacked aac. Are you saying you can't hear the difference between 128kbps and say..lossless?

No, you don't need software on a Cowon to load music. It's about "choice".

I never said Cowon was great for supporting flac and ogg. The fact is Cowon does support it and the Zune and iPod dont. Are you saying that is not an advantage over Zune and iPod to support Flac, Ape and Ogg?

No offense shigzeo but everytime I make a post you act like I'm making a personal attack on you, and in that "reading into" my post things that aren't there, kinda like you've been hurt before from someone and it's altering what you read. Don't take everything so personally. I have nothing against you.

 

[LostPhil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shigzeo /img/forum/go_quote.gif with cowon, you do need software. try just loading from folders and unless you have software to properly edit id3 tags, then the cowon will play everything out of order.

I'm only going to disagree because that is going to mislead people. If you rip your own CD's or purchase music then you do not need software to a) load it onto the player and b) edit the ID3 tags. Using any half decent CD ripping software will organise the files into a correctly named file structure and with correct ID3 tags (if not, these can be edited before ripping in most cases.

The thing is, say with an iPod, if you use EAC to rip the music (like a lot of people here I should imagine) then you need to go through iTunes to put them on the player rather than just dragging and dropping on the Cowons (or any other UMS device). I use mediamonkey in between myself, it's just easier but you do not need it since I never used to use it.

I disagree with the format support too... AAC was only ever the standard after the iPod started using it. Other manufacturers have started to go on board.

Ogg support is something that I like since I started using it back when I had an iRiver iFP-899 and so it's going to be a pain to re-rip everything. I know that maybe it wasn't the best way to go even if I didn't know better at the time although it does sound very nice from the file size.

FLAC on the other hand is a definite plus for support - all other "common" lossless formats are proprietory so they aren't going to be supported by a small company.

And Cowon have a good name because of products like the X5, not because of the name itself. They have always seemed to cater for the power user market and so thats why they are seen as a company to look for to change to suit these. But then they seem to care a lot more about their home market rather then us poor guys in the EU, US and UK (technically, we're in the EU but I'm making a stand).

To be honest, I'm in the same boat as phkd - I would switch companies in a heartbeat if they came up with a player that does everything I want (which isn't much to be honest). Actually, I'd have a Trekstor Vibez if they weren't so damned expensive! (anyone want to swap?)

 

[shigzeo]

cowon_1, i have nothing at all against what you say other than the 128 = crap. sure it is not as good as lossless but can you actually tell a difference under blind listening circumstances? i failed many times from 128-192 and so have many who have golden ears under the test circumstances.

as for software, why i suggested it is because if your mp3 or ogg or flac or wma are not properly tagged, you just drag and drop from a folder and the songs will be completely out of order or arranged by alphabetical order. the 'choice' for me was to use an application. it was a pain and one of the things that brought me to sell my d2.

without editing software you cannot hope to name all of these songs in a reasonable lifetime. cowon only finally applied pretty good id3 tag support about in summer of last year. before that, i had to manually rename every song so that i could listen to them in the same (with gaps) order as the cd.

meizu did not have this problem and if you have software to run it (no matter that it may be a pain for a bit but for large collections it is so much easier to use than hand shuffling). eventually, everything was pretty well suppoted so that i could just drag and drop from itunes and make playlists for the d2 there.

i am glad they support ogg and flac - great codecs but adding them to a feature list is for a non-drm flagged company is like asking if your car has headlamps. maybe some companies don't have it but they are quite rare it seems. practically all the cheap chinese companies too have it and precisely for that reason : it costs nothing to support.

as for aac, it was a standard arguably long before apple ever conceived of the ipod. since 1997 the same people who pushed mp3 pushed aac and it was bound to be the next proper hardware supported codec as we can see now it is beginning to gain good momentum. apple only adopted it as they realised it was the way the industry who ultimately has had the biggest say in music was going. they made a smart move and now have one of the best if not the defacto 16bit encoders available through quicktime.

Flac backups are great as they allow you to recompress or transcode into another format when eventually, there will be a dominant and hardware (not portable player but proper money-backed company) who will change the way the cd or the 'uncompressed' music scene is recorded). it will probably be a long time before we get such a push from industry but i cannot wait.

essentially, we are all doing the br and hddvd thing - betting on a lossless which is okay as we can reencode but eventually there will be a good big one - will cowon support it? if it costs money? maybe, but only in their high-end players.

i wish really that they would include all codecs across all their line - that would be very classy but may a bit too apple for a majority here.

i think that cowon will never be able to support the software enhancements i want but surely they could address having a proper line in not a shared out/in/charger/data port of low quality and lose fit.

cowon_1, i am glad you like your player, that is great and i am not mad at you, but the little blurb about 128 and lossless or anything there is tender here. at headfi, we expect that we can do this and that just by joining up - we are audiophiles. we can brag to our friends, hey yeah im part of this massive forum on internet that is populated by mostly under 23 year olds and has little moderation and a population larger than most of the largest universities in the world.

we are all about image and very little about actual performance. cowon, headfi, we would all do with a bit of proper testing and procedure before we make so many claims (bitrate, batterylife, s/n, you know!)

 

[LostPhil]

Quote:

Originally Posted by shigzeo /img/forum/go_quote.gif as for aac, it was a standard arguably long before apple ever conceived of the ipod. since 1997 the same people who pushed mp3 pushed aac and it was bound to be the next proper hardware supported codec as we can see now it is beginning to gain good momentum.

Well, you learn something new everyday. I was looking at it entirely from a market viewpoint, mind. Especially since even just a year ago, Sony never used it in their DAPs (not including the Walkman phones) and nor Creative. It would be nice to have everyone supporting AAC since I'd finally have something to switch to.

EDIT: Got a couple of facts wrong.

Actually, it's surprising that Sony never used it more widely if they helped develop it... Anyway, OT, I'll be quiet now...

 

[shigzeo]

zune has always supported aac and sony have since actually quite a while, perhaps about 2 years at least. apple got on the boat in 2001 or 2002 so are the biggest company to make a jump.

i am looking forward to a wider adoption but now with a sony portable and when the brief 2 weeks that cowon made aac work somewhat properly on their players, as well as my nano (new d2 haha).

i am by no means saying aac is the best but it does do a very good and as it seems that industries are gearing up their support for it, i am just getting myself worked that way as well! cheers phil, i have enjoyed this thread.

i do like cowon but i feel that their products are mismarketted and just a tad too hyped (or were last year, they seem to be winding down a bit) here on headfi for the foty flavour.

 

[LostPhil]

heh, I changed the bit about the Zune's AAC support before you'd posted. Ninja edits for the win!

 

[curbfeeler]

Just sent the following to the New Zealand distributor of Cowon:

I own an X5 20 and an M5L 20 with wired remote and docking stations.
Please understand that I enjoy my Cowon players and chose them over competing digital audio players (DAP).
The next generation HDD DAP from Cowon could be a world beater. To that effect:
Continue to support FLAC.
Offer a true line-out from the player (before any part of the headphone amplifier circuit,) preferably without the need for a funky loose-fitting subpack. Offer a line-out from the docking station, preferably RCA female. Line-out should be at a 3 to 6 dB higher level than the X5 / M5.
Power from AC adapter or car should be usable when the line-out connection is in use and should not require a subpack.
Use a locking dock connector if a subpack is used.
Use a Type B female connector for USB on the docking station (and subpack if inflicted on us). See the Sendstation USB PocketDock for inspiration.
Support for 24-bit 96k and 24-bit 192k high resolution files.
Larger HDD, like 160 GB or greater.
Use USB mass storage rather than tying the player to a software utility or the Microsoft scheme.
SDHC support.
Gapless playback.
Digital out to external DAC provision (bypass the internal DAC) like the newest generation iPod HDD player (in concert with the
Wadia dock.)
A battery with long play time (already a Cowon forte.)
User-replaceable battery.
User-replaceable hard drive.
More power from the headphone amplifier, say > 40 mW into 16 ohms, or a circuit adequate to accommodate Sennheiser HD650 (higher impedance) or similar.
Improve the song listings. After drilling down through the listings from artist to album to song, the name of the song should be leftmost in the display, not tagged onto the end where one must wait for it to scroll left.
Get beyond the file and folder number limitations for the Music folder.
Larger display and a choice of larger fonts for aging eyes.
Continue to offer wired LCD remote control.
To make it easier to manipulate one-handed use the hinge style form factor for the player like many digital cameras use.
Concentrate on music and fidelity. Forget Jet Effects and equalizers.
Only digital signal processing (DSP) offers any advance in fidelity or utility to music lovers. If the player offered an accessory dummy head measurement sensor and DSP to correct for non-linear frequency response and time domain errors of headphones/in-ear-monitors it would be a huge advance.
WiFi, email and internet browsing would be plum as embellishments, but would be secondary to features that insure excellent sound quality.
Wireless remote control a la the Squeezebox Duet's when player is in docking station.
Internet streaming radio rather than FM radio. Again, see the Squeezebox as an example.
Line-out, FLAC support and external power while using line-out features are the most crucial to me. I would not consider buying any given player without these features.
See the following thread on Head-Fi:
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/f15/co...ar-you-306089/
Marketing is not a forte of Cowon in the US. They could learn much by sitting on the forums at Head-Fi and iAudiophile.

His response was laconic:

Stan

Don't worry, I'm on your side.. but we can only sell what we're given down here unfortunately

I will, however, pass your email on to Cowon.

Blair

I replied:
I don’t think Cowon in Korea has a clue about the North American or European market.
Distributor’s and users will have to drive the choices of feature set.
It isn’t enough to passively accept what we’re handed. It’s a market economy.
I think we have to militate to see change. Why cede the market to Apple?
I’d like to think that I will get a response from Cowon, but I’m not holding my breath.

Thanks for your interest and support.