comparing with the Cayin N6, you will be disappointed with the M
This is where I call bs (no offence).
The DSP arrangement on Cowon devices is so strong that it is hard to imagine that (after awhile of tinkering) you could not get a sound signature that is extremely close (to the point of either not being able to tell two devices apart or that the differences are so small that neither sounds better or worse, just two slightly different versions of a sound that is similar). Where the Cowon may fall short is background noise such as my i9+ and C2 sound very hissy with certain IEMs compared with say the Alien Shozy which is deadly quiet (to the point that you cannot even tell if the device is on or off).
I have handed over DSP settings to other Cowon users which have blown them away, they are literally pissed off that they had not asked or come across such tweaks a year ago as it was 'wasted' listening!
No one should buy a Cowon and use it in 'Normal' mode, better deals can be sought after elsewhere if the listener has no intention to 'fine tune'.
But i stand by my initial point, I imagine (with enough patience and A/b switching) that the Cowon M could sound like any other player on the market, whereas the opposite may not be true. This IS the advantage of Cowon.
I am genuinely interested in the M, for the first time it appears that Cowon may actually have ticked all the boxes I care about;
- Black background
- Able to sufficiently take advantage and drive higher end IEMs
- Jet Effect DSPs (number 7 no less)
- Tagged Lyrics (and not just their silly previous LDB Manager fail system)
- Ability to rate a song (done by adding to Favourites (indeed providing 4 lists)
- At least 10hrs battery life
- Ample volume
- 128gb+
Previous Cowons don't tick all the boxes. The C2, i9+ (and likely the M2) carry quite a degree of hiss, worsened with high volumes and BBE/Jet Effect enabled. Oddly the little E3 is very black (even with some BBE settings enabled), but it doesn't provide loud enough volumes for my liking, caps at 16gb and of course has no Lyrics (at least tagged).
The last things on my mind are the following, if anyone can answer these points I would be very happy;
1) With adding Favourites, can you add entire albums or artists in one go? What file limit is it per Favourite list? (usually it has been 256 songs maximum, and the
only way to add entire artists or albums in one go is navigate the music collection via 'Folders' and not using id3 tags.
2) Is internal and external memory combined in one database?
3) Is there a maximum file limit (in the past has been around 8000 internal, 8000 external, 16,000 maximum.
4) How is the background noise? Is it hiss free? Does the hiss increase with certain DSPs in effect?
Secretely I am hoping for a new 'non plenue' Cowon DAP that resolves these issues, as $1k is pushing it for my DAP budget. The fact that Tagged Lyrics has been added to the M's firmware is very hopeful for future models... fingers crossed.
