[Spineur1]

Price is a bit insane, alright.  But it supports the DXD format, which buries all the others  IMO.  A big devaluation of the Korean WON ?  Or a winning lottery ticket ?

 

[M-13]

Looks like a real competitor to the AK380 for much less. I've been reading some Korean forums and it looks like many are choosing this over the AK320, because it's within the same price range, although slightly higher.
 
http://plenue.cowon.com/product/PLENUES/product_page_1.php
 
Officail site link for those interested

 

[vrapan]

Should I assume no streaming?

 

[h1f1add1cted]

Seems no WiFi, can't read Korean: http://download.cowon.com/data/C09/PLENUE_S_1.0.1_KR_manual.pdf
 
 
Pricing if I'm not wrong 2,170,000 WON ~ 1700 Euro

 

[Mimouille]

I am not a fan of Cowon going the AK way. Will wait for feedback.

 

[Subhakar]

No streaming. No buy.

 

[globiboulga]

The docking station concept is interesting, although I don't get why they wouldn't add a 'regular' headphone in to it... I also hope you can use it as a DAC without the player as I suspect it will cost a fortune...
 
But then you may as well go and get a high end headphone amp.

 

[Raketen]

I don't mind the A&K influence as long as the build & material quality influence trickles down into the budget & mid-fi models as well, for which Plenue D might be an encouraging sign.
Eventually one of these companies will (re)discover ergonomics

The dock looks neat.

 

[Mimouille]

I don't mind the A&K influence as long as the build & material quality influence trickles down into the budget & mid-fi models as well, for which Plenue D might be an encouraging sign.
Eventually one of these companies will (re)discover ergonomics
The dock looks neat.

AK build and reliability is not irréprochable, Cowon is better in that respect. But doubling the price for each new DAP that is not a practice I want to see generalized.

 

[tienbasse]

AK build and reliability is not irréprochable, Cowon is better in that respect. But doubling the price for each new DAP that is not a practice I want to see generalized.

And yet, it will happen, since A&K paved the way and the're still selling things costing more than a high-end smartphone with far less functions and internal components.
Marketing nonsense at its highest...
Especially when people are served "hi-res" in all its glory with less than 128Gb internal memory for more than a thousand bucks... 200Gb microsd for 100$ and we can't seem to get any DAP with more than 128Gb with a reasonable price...
 
Given the price of the Plenue 1 model, the S is going to be a big pill to swallow.

 

[Mimouille]

And yet, it will happen, since A&K paved the way and the're still selling things costing more than a high-end smartphone with far less functions and internal components.
Marketing nonsense at its highest...
Especially when people are served "hi-res" in all its glory with less than 128Gb internal memory for more than a thousand bucks... 200Gb microsd for 100$ and we can't seem to get any DAP with more than 128Gb with a reasonable price...

Given the price of the Plenue 1 model, the S is going to be a big pill to swallow.

Well we will see if the S is better than the Plenue P1. I strongly doubt we can hear differences on iems.

 

[musicday]

This is not better then Lotoo Paw Gold apart from playing DSD 256, but who cares? WAV is good.

 

[Spineur1]

This was exacly my reasoning.  With the arrival of this new model, the Plenue 1 are being discounted.  For less than half the price, you have exactly the same hardware, same battery life, etc.  For the time being I have only one DXD file, si this extra feature does not mean much to me.  The doc station, the design and the few ittle extras do not justify the extra 1000 euros.
If there had been a 3G or wifi capacity, I could have used the S with my Qobuz sublime subscription in streaming.
Its going to be a hard sell , with so few new features.

 

[tienbasse]

Everything about this is not good, price, battery etc

And yet, dozens of people here will buy just for the sake of "trying" it and saying how "good" it is.
 
What strikes me the most is really how "hard" DAP manufacturers are trying to build the "next best" DAP: what exactly is better in this Cowon Plenue S ?
Simple, there is NOTHING to brag about. Don't start me with sound quality, it is the most subjective characteristic EVER. Any other actual spec that would stand out? None!
 
The day I pay 2000$ (and I can), I would expect decent a battery (10 hours min), a huge memory (256Gb minimum), a flawless UI and regular updates etc etc...
 
Where are all these hi-end DAPs produced ? In China, where labour is still relatively cheap. Do they use customized chips ? No, these are all-purpose chips selected for audio applications. Customized aluminium parts have become cheap enough that they don't justify a +1000$ pricetag either.
 
I work as a manager/project leader in R&D in a luxury business, and I can tell you it IS easy to differentiate yourself from the pack if you're willing to do it. Especially with DAPs for which there are tangible characteristics to improve upon, beside audio signature. I would be ashamed to charge customers 2000$ for this, but Cowon has finally decided to ride the A&K train and provide premium prices DAPs along with no service/****ty warranty.
 
Currently the hi-end audio market is just reduced to cow-milking, with very little novelty since the 90s. Even less now that most manufacturers are riding on the Android interface, making very little work needed on the UI side.
 
Crazy world where people are willing to pay fortunes for nothing they can touch or scientifically measure... I guess it's easy when most customers do not have the science level to see the endless BS they're served (no insult intended, less and less people choose science degrees it's a fact).

 

[globiboulga]

To be fair to Cowon:
 
1 - they build their DAP in Korea
2 - they do have a nicely price model (Plenue D) which probably does what the S does and more (much better battery life, although the UI seems undepowered)
 
I started my DAP journey with Cowon and the X5 because I didn't want to deal with iTunes. At the time it was probably one of the best out there and was well priced. Then AK came to the party as a way for iRiver to revive its flagging business and as everyone points out, it ****ed it all up for everyone and the DAP market went the way the Hi-Fi / watch making now does: overpriced / status symbol driven.
 
If that's something people are annoyed about, well don't buy it. Arguably phones are perfectly capable of playing music well and a decent pair of iem can be had for not that much money.

​I have the Plenue M and it sounds good but not worth the $1k I paid for it. I earn good money, so that's ok, but at the same time I can't justify the S either and to be honest, I find the Plenue D WAY BETTER VALUE and I would have gotten that rather than the M if it had been available at the time (and yes, they could easily put 256GB of memory in the D without jacking the price much more).