[sandalaudio]

  Its a bit strange that some people (me included) report their players getting really hot and others dont?
 
Are know faults/returns?
 
 

 
Mine does get warm-ish, but never hot enough to be concerned about. I use it at leas three hours a day for the past several months, and certainly never locked up or crashed.
It seems to get hotter for higher sample rate file playback, but even that's within reasonable levels.
 
The hottest I ever had was with the leather case on, and I had under the blanket in my bed. Still played fine continuously.
 
I never have the DSP/effects enabled. Is that related?

 

[sonickarma]

   
Mine does get warm-ish, but never hot enough to be concerned about. I use it at leas three hours a day for the past several months, and certainly never locked up or crashed.
It seems to get hotter for higher sample rate file playback, but even that's within reasonable levels.
 
The hottest I ever had was with the leather case on, and I had under the blanket in my bed. Still played fine continuously.
 
I never have the DSP/effects enabled. Is that related?

Nope all default settings and just playing Redbook Wavs from SD card
 
It gets hotter than my CDM!

 

[sonickarma]

Good News!  I used the DAP all day with and without a brand new ultra sandisk elite card (i bought today) and it gets a little warm but no freezing or excessive heat. With Case on.
 
My other card seemed to cause the problem was also 64 Sandisc Ultra but not an elite and it also had some sector/header damage.  (also it was FAT32 formated)
 
Looks like the card manifested a very strange overheating/freeze bug - but all good now.
 
 

 

[John2e]

   
Balanced on portable players is only a very recent widespread fad, and it is still somewhat debated.
 

I respectfully disagree with this statement. 
 
Got my plus sound balanced cable yesterday and could hear immediately that it sounded better with my U12s and Plenu S.  Clearer more precise and better focused the difference was not immaterial.  Anyone investing $1,700 in player and $1,500 in IEMs should hear a distinct and noticeable improvement and owes it to themselves to invest in a balanced cable.  It takes an already great player to another level.
I am glad I invested in a balanced cable.  Not night and day (like going from SD TV to HDTV) but it is there and it improves the sound.  Anyone who is going to debate it has not heard the Plenue S in balanced mode with a top flight IEM. No debating it's better

 
 
 
 
Sorry just reread some of your posts and you have heard it .  Not sure why you do not hear the difference. Did you listen to it in non balanced for a while before going to balanced? I waited 2 months for the balanced cable and logged plenty of time in non balanced before going to balanced.
 

 
 
Strange that you are not convinced of the difference but I understand people hear things differently and maybe its me that is hearing things or the effects of the new cable ( I went from a Norne audio silver 4 strand non balanced to a Plussound 6 strand balanced)
 
Can anyone else lend their opinion of the Plenue in balanced mode and the improvements it makes or doesn't make? 
 
Respectfully 
 
John

 

[sandalaudio]

  I respectfully disagree with this statement. 
 
Got my plus sound balanced cable yesterday and could hear immediately that it sounded better with my U12s and Plenu S.  Clearer more precise and better focused the difference was not immaterial.  Anyone investing $1,700 in player and $1,500 in IEMs should hear a distinct and noticeable improvement and owes it to themselves to invest in a balanced cable.  It takes an already great player to another level.
I am glad I invested in a balanced cable.  Not night and day (like going from SD TV to HDTV) but it is there and it improves the sound.  Anyone who is going to debate it has not heard the Plenue S in balanced mode with a top flight IEM. No debating it's better

 
 
Could you please let us know if you have heard it with a balanced cable ?
If so what cable and what IEMs?  

 
Please carefully read my post once again. The response was regarding the question of why an affordable DAP such as Plenue M does not have balanced output while Plenue S does.
 
Instead of going into the "balanced is so much better than unbalanced" argument, the main concern here is whether it makes sense for low cost DAPs to focus the budget on making one single good amp, or halving the cost of each amp and making two less capable amp circuit for the sake of being balanced. It is one explanation of why Plenue M does not offer balanced, rather than my personal preference.
 
Another point to consider is to purchase the same cable on balanced and unbalanced terminations, and comparing the difference. Though I am not saying this is always the case, quite often the anecdotal evidence of improved sound quality can be attributed to a better cable rather than balanced v.s. unbalanced.
 
What we want to avoid is the generalisation that balanced connection is an absolute necessity for all headphones/earphones, which gives a perceived predilection on which amp should sound good or bad before even listening to it. (i.e. people will avoid buying Plenue M simply because it is not balanced).
 
For my Plenue S, my Unique Melody Mavis, AK T8iE and Fostex TH610 are connected balanced, while my Campfire Andromeda is unbalanced because the stock ALO cable is very good, and my AKG K812 is unbalanced because there is no choice.

 

[flinkenick]

At first, I was really impressed with balanced. But my opinion has changed to this:
 
1) Balanced gives the biggest improvement to iems that lack depth, or have an overall intimate stage. A TOTL iem with a good stage will only marginally improve. 
2) A high quality cable provides a greater increase in performance than balanced output.

 

[warrior1975]

I've always had an extremely difficult time discerning the difference between balanced and se. That's on ak240 all the way down to my rwak120b and my Fiio X7. That's with more than a few TOTL IEMS and several midfi. But my ears suck. Oh, and I still want the Cowon S, since I absolutely love the P1. One of the best daps I've ever owned, from for a multitude of reasons. Besides the amazing sound and dsp, it's a very powerful lil player. Great job cowon.

 

[vilhelm44]

Finally got a lovely balanced silver cable from Lavricables and using for Focal Elear's straight out of the Plenue S. Man, these head phones are good but now they sound great. Wider sound stage, better separation and more detail in the music...simply mesmerising!

 

[Zaroff]

Can it be charged while listening? Sorry if I missed it in the 50+ pages. Usually Cowon's can't.

 

[warrior1975]

I can use the P1 while charging. I'd imagine it's the same for the S.

 

[sandalaudio]

  Can it be charged while listening? Sorry if I missed it in the 50+ pages. Usually Cowon's can't.

 
Kind of yes and no.
 
You can charge and listen at the same time if you are using a USB wall charger (e.g. ones that plugs into mains). I do this every day.
 
However, if you connect Plenue S to a computer using an ordinary micro USB cable then it automatically goes into data transfer or DAC mode (whatever you chose in the settings) so the playback interface becomes unavailable. If you use a special micro USB "charging" cable (ones without the data pins) then you can avoid this situation.
 
It would be nice if Cowon can add a feature where you can select between [Data Transfer][USB DAC][Charge Only].
 
One possible issue with charging while listening is that balanced connection can get a lot of noise because of ground isolation issue. This happens on AK and other DAPs too so not a Plenue exclusive issue.

 

[warrior1975]

I didn't even think of that. Good point.

 

[Zaroff]

   
However, if you connect Plenue S to a computer using an ordinary micro USB cable then it automatically goes into data transfer or DAC mode  

 
My bad. Yes, that's what I meant, charging while connected to a computer's USB. So, nothing has changed on that front, which is kind of dumb, really. As far as I'm concerned, a deal breaker. I can cope with the meager battery life IF, while listening during the day at the office, the thing can draw its current from the computer.
 
Ah well.

 

[sandalaudio]

   
My bad. Yes, that's what I meant, charging while connected to a computer's USB. So, nothing has changed on that front, which is kind of dumb, really. As far as I'm concerned, a deal breaker. I can cope with the meager battery life IF, while listening during the day at the office, the thing can draw its current from the computer.
 
Ah well.

 
Well it's a shame that such a little point is a deal breaker tragedy for you, that you won't get to enjoy the wonderful sound of this DAP. 
All you need to do is to buy some $5 "Micro USB charging cable" to allow it to play and charge on the computer at the same time. I'm just using a cable that came free with my mobile battery pack, and it's working really well.

 

[Zaroff]

My bad, I sort of missed that point in the post above, about the no-data cable, read that too fast. Sorry.
Still, how hard can it be to offer the choice to charge only when connected to a computer? I hardly think it would take a redesign of the whole firmware, so they're probably doing that on purpose, which escapes me.