[Nailzs]

I've been encoding some of my CD collection to APE today since I have a little time to sit and do that. Somewhere in the day I copied a WAV file of Eric Clapton's "Lay Down Sally" to the D2 and to my shock it's playing. The screen that shown the album cover shows a W for the file type and 1411KB. I'm unaware that the Cowon D2 can play this type of file.

 

[DJGeorgeT]

I have never been able to play WAV on my D2

 

[dallan]

It is listed as being able to play wave from what i remember, i am looking into the D2 because of all my flac files and i am tired of converting to wave and then apple lossless for the ipod.

 

[krmathis]

Well, you say that it play the WAV file you put on it. So obviously it does..

 

[dallan]

So what is the lowdown on the D2. Is it user friendly? The only daps i have ever owned were ipods. I currently have two a nano and a classic. Most of my music i had to go the flac-wave-applelossless route then delete the wave files. So i still have tons in flac files as backup or computer play through the winamp program on my computer.

Wondering if i would have to go thru too much hassle with the D2. Any comments?

 

[Calexico]

Quote:

Originally Posted by krmathis /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well, you say that it play the WAV file you put on it. So obviously it does..

His topic title is more stated in an surprised statement than an actual question, expressing surprise that his D2 plays WAV.

dallan, can't you just go from FLAC directly to ALAC? Get a 3rd party program. I know for Mac there is Max, but I think DBPowerAmp does it for PCs.
D2 will not require you to convert to ALAC, because it supports FLAC, and I don't think it even supports ALAC (confirmation?)
Its interface is apparently sort of clunky though, so in that aspect of user friendliness, it isn't better than an ipod.

 

[dallan]

I don't think that i can convert straight over, i have to drag the wav files over to itunes and convert there. But i am not positive if there is another plug in that i can download for dbpoweramp now.

My concern wasn't that the D2 was more friendly, just now a pain in the neck. I rely like the idea of dumping the flacs on. All my high quality downloads come in flac otherwise it is just a cd download to my itunes. The other bummer with the flac files is tagging the names on, haven't quite got the easy way of doing that, i have to rename everything manually. But the good news is most are free.

 

[No_One411]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dallan /img/forum/go_quote.gif So what is the lowdown on the D2. Is it user friendly? The only daps i have ever owned were ipods. I currently have two a nano and a classic. Most of my music i had to go the flac-wave-applelossless route then delete the wave files. So i still have tons in flac files as backup or computer play through the winamp program on my computer. Wondering if i would have to go thru too much hassle with the D2. Any comments?

The D2 is a very nice player. It just depends on whether you are like the touch screen or not. I'm not sure, but I think it can also play ALAC, but I haven't tested since I don't have any Apple Lossless files.

The sound quality is very nice for what it is. It may sound cold or analytical, but the EQ is outstanding, should you choose to use it.

 

[Nailzs]

I believe it also has a built in headphone amp.

 

[davidw89]

Is loseless WAV better than FLAC? I encode all of my CD into FLAC..

 

[No_One411]

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidw89 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is loseless WAV better than FLAC? I encode all of my CD into FLAC..

Uhm, with my experience, WAV has better sound quality, but FLAC should sound fine. The biggest difference is the size of the file. The difference isn't as big as say, APE vs MP3, but its still something to consider.

I don't think WAV is loseless. Its just uncompressed audio.

 

[Dublo7]

Wave definitely works on the D2.

The only problem I have is with the ID3 tags. Do I have to do something to get the ID3 tags to work? They all show up under artist 'Unknown'.

 

[krmathis]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Calexico /img/forum/go_quote.gif His topic title is more stated in an surprised statement than an actual question, expressing surprise that his D2 plays WAV.

Ok, then I am with you.
I am used to that a sentence who end with a question mark (?) is a question though. Hence why I responded as I did...

Quote:

Originally Posted by davidw89 /img/forum/go_quote.gif Is loseless WAV better than FLAC? I encode all of my CD into FLAC..

They can both store the same audio data. So sound wise there should be no difference.
Imo FLAC are "better" than WAV though, since it support metadata, artwork, and compress to ~60-70% of the source file.

 

[Barock]

WAV file playback is on the D2's feature list (just looked up on the Cowon site), so it shouldn't be that much of a surprise. For many DAPs WAV is the only lossless type supported. Wav doesn't support tags (natively) so there's no browsing by artist, genre etc. The best you can normally do is include artist - album - track in the filename or folder name. Then again, you might as well just use FLAC on the D2..

 

[roebeet]

The D2's interface does take a little getting used to, so whether or not it's "better" than an iPod depends on who's using it. What's nice is that you can search for music either by the internal database, or you can access the folder structure directly. The D2's theme and music UI (with the 3.x firmware) can also be changed, and there are user contributions over at iaudiophile.net.

The D2 does not support ALAC, tmk. As for WAV vs FLAC, my big issue with WAV is tag support. Not that big a deal if you are using direct folder access, but it would be a user nightmare if you used the internal database for searches. The one big advantage for WAV is compatibility, as more players support WAV as opposed to FLAC.