Cowon Plenue R2
May 27, 2020 at 4:27 AM Post #197 of 296
:star: New Firmware 1.21 is out on :- :star:

www.cowonglobal.com/zeroboard/zboard.php?id=C08&no=644

Scroll down on link for installation instructions.


Warning/Caution

  • The battery must be fully charged before firmware upgrade.
  • Do not reset PLENUE R2 during firmware upgrade.
  • Backup any important files in PLENUE R2 to your PC before firmware upgrade.
  • Please use firmware that COWON authorizes only.
  • JetEffect values might be initialized after firmware upgrade. Please record any important values.


New features

  1. Supports AI volume function when the Bluetooth is connecting
  2. Improved partial JetEffect functions when the Bluetooth is connecting
  3. Added support for some unsupported sound source files playback


 
Last edited:
Jun 1, 2020 at 3:11 AM Post #198 of 296
Hi PR2 owners, I'm in the market for upgrading my J3. I'm debating whether the PR2 or the PD2.

I see that both of them have the same dual DAC (down to the same chip model). One thing that draws me towards the PR2 is that it says that it has the "AI Volume" control which normalizes the volume of your music based on your preset.

"AI Volume continuously normalizes volume levels of sound files played more than once. You no longer have to adjust the volume of each of your songs."

I'm curious as to how well this works and if it's implemented well. Is it intuitive? A technology that you used and now can't live without? Or is it a gimmick?

Thanks!
 
Aug 30, 2020 at 12:42 PM Post #199 of 296
Subjectively & personally, PR is nice for sound quality, PD & PD 2 are nicer in sound quality & battery life.

PR2 feels like a side grade from either 3 but with a nicer paintjob.

Don't care about BT but agree it's sad it's only 3.0 but at least there's AptX so not so bad though saying that PR BT not all that great either but then I hardly use BT on PR.

The only thing I would be curious about is how the dual DACs are implemented & the switching from PCM5242 to dual CS43131s affects the sound.

Though given where I am, if the average US price is $ 500, then local will be almost twice that, 1.8 it usually works out too so unlikely this will ever be considered for purchase but for curiosity, I will still find out the price but realistically in no hurry to do so.

Personally, I prefer 3.5 mm Balanced or 4.4 mm but if they made the PR2 balanced at least 3.5 which I highly doubt as the PR wasn't, that would be great.

I still wonder why though I'm not complaining why both PD & PD2 support 3.5 balanced.

Hope everyone has a great day !
How do I choose between Cowon Plenue R2 and Cowon Plenue D2, regardless of price? Sound quality and 3.5mm output power only.
 
Sep 8, 2020 at 10:42 AM Post #200 of 296
How do I choose between Cowon Plenue R2 and Cowon Plenue D2, regardless of price? Sound quality and 3.5mm output power only.

@scvg009,

As stated in my subjective & personal POV, depends on your needs, both are good DAPs as far as I am aware but as said, I only have the PD2 nor do I make direct comparisons to gear though I do rate technical performance.

Only way for you to know with any certainty is demo with source material you know really well...

Though given ongoing world situation, that may be a bit difficult or get both DAPs from somewhere with a good return policy &/or trial period so you can see which suits you better.

Hope you have a great day !
 
Sep 8, 2020 at 1:51 PM Post #201 of 296
Hello Plenue R2 owners.

I am considering a DAP with optical output for use with my Hugo 2. There aren't many options* out there but Plenue R2 is one of them. I have a few questions:

1) Do EQ etc. still work when using the optical out;

2) Does the volume control do anything when using optical out;

3) If all effects are turned off, is the optical output bit perfect;

4) How is the battery life when using optical out (no headphone connected);

5) Anyone tried this with a Hugo 2? Does it sound any good? Better than a DAP with coaxial or USB out?

Cheers for any light you may shed on any of these.


* the only other current model I've found other than stupidly expensive Plenues, is the iBasso DX220
 
Sep 9, 2020 at 2:31 AM Post #202 of 296
Hello Plenue R2 owners.

I am considering a DAP with optical output for use with my Hugo 2. There aren't many options* out there but Plenue R2 is one of them. I have a few questions:

1) Do EQ etc. still work when using the optical out;

2) Does the volume control do anything when using optical out;

3) If all effects are turned off, is the optical output bit perfect;

4) How is the battery life when using optical out (no headphone connected);

5) Anyone tried this with a Hugo 2? Does it sound any good? Better than a DAP with coaxial or USB out?

Cheers for any light you may shed on any of these.


* the only other current model I've found other than stupidly expensive Plenues, is the iBasso DX220
I don’t have the R2 or Hugo2, but currently have a PS and Mojo to try it out. I’ve used a P1 with the Mojo before in the past too.
1) yes JetEffect still works with the optical out. One thing I did find to be careful with was adjusting the bass - I find that increasing the bass causes the Mojo to step down in volume. Not sure if that’s just a Mojo quirk or if the strength of the rest of the frequencies in the optical signal decreases in order to provide the contrast of more bass (kind of like dropping a signal to prevent clipping). At any rate it isn’t a problem until you decrease the bass again and then the output of Mojo suddenly jumps up in volume!

2) volume control does nothing

3) not sure how to test whether it’s bit perfect or not? By way of comparison I tried how Mojo would sound using the optical out of my DX80, and actually they do sound a bit different. Thanks to Nayparm posting a teardown in the S thread we now know the PS uses a WM8804G spdif converter. Not sure what the PR2 uses but it might be different - I remember the PL was the first Plenue to support optical out above 192 kHz. The R2 manual says it can’t play DSD over optical out but doesn’t mention 192 kHz as a limit, so maybe it’s the same spdif converter as the PL? There are some teardown photos of the R2 on fccid.io but I can’t make out the spdif converter chip.

4) I’ve never timed the optical out battery life on the PS but I would have thought the battery drain would be less since the amplification stage isn’t in use?

5) the most important thing for you regards optical vs coaxial vs usb input may be the kind of files you want to play into the Hugo2 - I see that Hugo2 only supports up to 96 kHz over optical, but up to 384 kHz over coaxial and 768 kHz on microUSB. For the Mojo with standard 44.1 kHz files sometimes I find myself wondering if the coaxial on the Mojo is actually the best, but can’t be sure I’m not just imagining sound differences :wink: Can’t speak about how the Hugo2 compares.

For all intents and purposes I’ve found the Plenues pretty handy as optical sources as the UI is straightforward and gapless works well, with the bonus of being able to EQ the optical signal. All of the larger screen Plenues have optical out so finding an older model 2nd hand could be an option, although as mentioned above the more recent ones seem to support higher res optical output than the older models.

9FCFE5D5-6524-40E6-BFE2-84D3AA64318C.jpeg
 
Sep 9, 2020 at 3:02 AM Post #203 of 296
I don’t have the R2 or Hugo2, but currently have a PS and Mojo to try it out. I’ve used a P1 with the Mojo before in the past too.
1) yes JetEffect still works with the optical out. One thing I did find to be careful with was adjusting the bass - I find that increasing the bass causes the Mojo to step down in volume. Not sure if that’s just a Mojo quirk or if the strength of the rest of the frequencies in the optical signal decreases in order to provide the contrast of more bass (kind of like dropping a signal to prevent clipping). At any rate it isn’t a problem until you decrease the bass again and then the output of Mojo suddenly jumps up in volume!

2) volume control does nothing

3) not sure how to test whether it’s bit perfect or not? By way of comparison I tried how Mojo would sound using the optical out of my DX80, and actually they do sound a bit different. Thanks to Nayparm posting a teardown in the S thread we now know the PS uses a WM8804G spdif converter. Not sure what the PR2 uses but it might be different - I remember the PL was the first Plenue to support optical out above 192 kHz. The R2 manual says it can’t play DSD over optical out but doesn’t mention 192 kHz as a limit, so maybe it’s the same spdif converter as the PL? There are some teardown photos of the R2 on fccid.io but I can’t make out the spdif converter chip.

4) I’ve never timed the optical out battery life on the PS but I would have thought the battery drain would be less since the amplification stage isn’t in use?

5) the most important thing for you regards optical vs coaxial vs usb input may be the kind of files you want to play into the Hugo2 - I see that Hugo2 only supports up to 96 kHz over optical, but up to 384 kHz over coaxial and 768 kHz on microUSB. For the Mojo with standard 44.1 kHz files sometimes I find myself wondering if the coaxial on the Mojo is actually the best, but can’t be sure I’m not just imagining sound differences :wink: Can’t speak about how the Hugo2 compares.

For all intents and purposes I’ve found the Plenues pretty handy as optical sources as the UI is straightforward and gapless works well, with the bonus of being able to EQ the optical signal. All of the larger screen Plenues have optical out so finding an older model 2nd hand could be an option, although as mentioned above the more recent ones seem to support higher res optical output than the older models.

9FCFE5D5-6524-40E6-BFE2-84D3AA64318C.jpeg
Thank you @someyoungguy for that detailed reply. That's really useful information.

I don't upsample outside the Hugo 2 - that would be like getting a dog and then muzzling it and barking myself! - so 96ksps is fine for me.

I have great results from Hugo 2 connected via optical to my Quiet PC (which works at 192k from Youtube etc.). Maybe even better than USB via the iGalvanic but it's hard to tell.

I tried using USB out from my Shanling M0 and that just sounds dirty so that kind of put me off buying a better DAP with USB output. The aim is a simple transportable system here so I'm trying to avoid USB decrapifiers. There are a few DAPs with coaxial output but will they be just as noise inducing as USB? Optical seems to be the way to go here.

Plenue R2 moves to the head of the list. I have a PD so I know broadly what to expect from the UI. I like the battery life too.
 
Sep 9, 2020 at 7:44 AM Post #204 of 296
@scvg009,

As stated in my subjective & personal POV, depends on your needs, both are good DAPs as far as I am aware but as said, I only have the PD2 nor do I make direct comparisons to gear though I do rate technical performance.

Only way for you to know with any certainty is demo with source material you know really well...

Though given ongoing world situation, that may be a bit difficult or get both DAPs from somewhere with a good return policy &/or trial period so you can see which suits you better.

Hope you have a great day !
Thank you very much. Thank you!
 
Oct 15, 2020 at 1:19 PM Post #206 of 296
Cowon must be joking. I dont want to do maths or estimate vaguely every time i have a glance at the remainig time being displayed... And why does the R2 rescan the library every time i start the player? The Plenue D has a standby mode which makes ist start much faster... I hope a firmware update fixes both issues.

Apart from that i really like the R2. It feels way more solid than the D and the GUI experience is a lot better. The extra size and weight are not that big of a deal for me.
 
Dec 16, 2020 at 3:40 AM Post #207 of 296
Just picked up an R2 today, been comparing it with my recently purchased Colorfly U6.

So far I really like this PR2, I had found the P2mkii a little bit to strong with certain higher frequencies when I owned that a few months ago.
 
Dec 16, 2020 at 5:02 AM Post #208 of 296
I'm confused about the sound levels on this dap. For example using Audeze Sine or Nuemann NDH20, volume steps increase perceived volume up to about 90 on the display, after that if I keep increasing to 140, I perceive no increase in the volume level. I am on the latest firmware BTW.

Can anyone else confirm this? Is it a problem or is it just a result of the power curve? This unit was purchased in Australia, but came set to Italian language.
 
Dec 16, 2020 at 5:24 AM Post #209 of 296
I'm confused about the sound levels on this dap. For example using Audeze Sine or Nuemann NDH20, volume steps increase perceived volume up to about 90 on the display, after that if I keep increasing to 140, I perceive no increase in the volume level. I am on the latest firmware BTW.

Can anyone else confirm this? Is it a problem or is it just a result of the power curve? This unit was purchased in Australia, but came set to Italian language.
I can only think you might have hearing protection turned on in the System settings.

Be careful with your hearing. The Neumann is 114dB/V and the Cowon can output 2V (single ended).
 
Dec 16, 2020 at 5:29 AM Post #210 of 296
There was no option for turning off hearing protection. I connected it to windows and deleted System\user_setting.cfg on the device. Restarted the R2 and this time I was prompted to select language and then to select EU or none EU region, selected none EU and now I have the setting to turn off hearing protection.

Originally when I turned the R2 on fresh out of the box, It was set to Italian and did not give any prompt to select language or none EU.

Found this information in the Plenue R forum so thank you to member @Gorf who posted the fix there.
 
Last edited:

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top