[maira]

BULL****...

Sorry, but it had to be called out!
Please, wise men, enter a competition with controlled ABX testing and report your failure afterwards.

I agree, the "feeling" you get from music may vary depending on how much you enjoy the experience and that this can be influenced by the right user experience delivered by a player.
Also, there are some players that simply don't pair well with certain IEMs, simply because they are not used within specifications.

But, that doesn't mean that the player has a "sound"!

Hundreds of tests and studies have been performed to support my "speaking for myself" but none could ever prove me wrong.

Amen ...

 

[silverfishla]

BULL****...

Sorry, but it had to be called out!
Please, wise men, enter a competition with controlled ABX testing and report your failure afterwards.

I agree, the "feeling" you get from music may vary depending on how much you enjoy the experience and that this can be influenced by the right user experience delivered by a player.
Also, there are some players that simply don't pair well with certain IEMs, simply because they are not used within specifications.

But, that doesn't mean that the player has a "sound"!

Hundreds of tests and studies have been performed to support my "speaking for myself" but none could ever prove me wrong.

I don’t understand what you are trying to say. Are you saying all DAPs sound the same and have the same ability (or settings) to achieve equal sound quality? If so, I can’t agree with that...

 

[someyoungguy]

BULL****...

Sorry, but it had to be called out!
Please, wise men, enter a competition with controlled ABX testing and report your failure afterwards.

I agree, the "feeling" you get from music may vary depending on how much you enjoy the experience and that this can be influenced by the right user experience delivered by a player.
Also, there are some players that simply don't pair well with certain IEMs, simply because they are not used within specifications.

But, that doesn't mean that the player has a "sound"!

Hundreds of tests and studies have been performed to support my "speaking for myself" but none could ever prove me wrong.

I hear quite noticeable differences between different DAPs. Each to their own - everyone’s ears hear different (and no doubt there is some placebo too). If they all sound the same to you then in a way I envy you! You could just choose a player based on size and UI etc. Unfortunately many of us hear differences between players, which is why we’re always on the search for the player of our dreams

Edited for missing word

 

[PaganDL]

Thanks @PaganDL . That helps a lot. Also if you can give more details on the sound apart from noise floor, it will help me to take a final call.
I remember Cowon has strong bass but don't remember if it was clean or bloated on S9.

No problem @aaDee,

Happy to help.

Sound is highly subjective & personal, it really depends what you are after, not to mention the actual recording quality not just source format quality, head gear choice, how good your hearing, listening level (not just actual volume), etc.

Subjectively & personally, both PD 2 & DX 120 actually have similar sound signatures though some will certainly disagree...
However, I tend to find the PD 2 more engaging (to me), certainly more stable in playing anything I have put on it.
It rarely crashes, if ever, though if that does occur, there is usually something wrong with the encoded file than the DAP's fault.

But if said music has all the right info in the frequency range, the PD 2 will play it very well.
The stock sound leans towards neutral & balanced but with enough dynamics & impact not to be boring as well as resolution & clarity but the last two depend on recording quality more than anything else but as said, if the info is there, the PD 2 will play it very well.
Stock Bass response is more natural & good, in line with more pro bass sound than consumer heavy hitting.
This can be altered to a certain degree with Jet effects, their custom DSP system which works like specialised EQ but is more DSP than actual EQ though there is a manual option to play with EQ if you are inclined.
When using PD2 or the orignal PD, I like the BBE Headphone setting a lot as I find it gives a nice 3 DB lift across the bass frequencies as well as smooths the overall sound for me which I find quite enjoyable.
I also rarely need, if ever, an external amp when using the PD2 unless I want to use one or testing head amps.
Also, as mentioned in my previous post, battery life is my other consideration in a DAP, which is why both PDs are hard to beat.
I don't have to worry about either for at least 3 days before considering recharging.
Aside from sound, so generally anything less than 10 hours I will usually forgo unless it is truly exceptional then said device comes under consideration.
Subjectively & personally, both PDs also sound better than a lot of mid range to high end DAPs I have heard which I find both sad & laughable but that's an entirely different story...

DX 120 is just smooth, which isn't a bad thing, as I like smooth but there is a slight crispiness to the sound which emerges every now & then, which depending on what source material played can be potentially fatiguing, especially with sensitive IEMs due to that high noise floor mentioned. This is most notable since I have a lot of music which can hit the high frequencies pretty hard if not controlled.
As a definite non fan for piercing highs strong enough to make one potentially go deaf in no uncertain terms but potential idiots say is actually great & who will also complain they wonder why they get faitgued easily after a while, go figure...
But I digress...

In closing, if ever possible, I would suggest a demo to see which DAP suits you more but if a demo isn't possible, it is definitely hard to go wrong with the PD 2.

Hope this all makes sense.

Feel free to ask more if you need.

Hope you have a great day !

 

[aaDee]

Thanks a lot @PaganDL for the detailed info. I wish I could demo the units before buying but Cowon recently stopped their office in India. Now I'm completely dependent on someone visiting India could bring it here.

 

[PaganDL]

Thanks a lot @PaganDL for the detailed info. I wish I could demo the units before buying but Cowon recently stopped their office in India. Now I'm completely dependent on someone visiting India could bring it here.

Hi @aaDee,

I heavily sympathise with the no demo option.

Where I am, there is no chance to demo quite a lot of gear for various reasons, so more often than not, it is taking a very calculated risk otherwise just have to leave said gear for either forever or just take that risk.
When I first got the original PD several years ago, I had to take a chance as I heard many good things myself way beforehand via Amazon at first but then when I had a serious but random technical issue, I found a local distributor who helped me out & so far, I haven't looked back or been disappointed.
Honestly, as stated, as long as your source files are recorded & encoded well, there will be no issues with sound quality, hard not to recommend Cowon but definitely your choice nor do I wish to influence it in any way.

Be interested to know what you decide.
As said, hard to go wrong either way.

Hope you have a great day !

 

[Live Music Addict]

Good Afternoon Or Morning whereever you are hopefully reading this,
I’m new to this site and joined just today so please be Gentle with me.
For a number Of years now I have been using my Sony HI FI NWZ ZX1 DAP
and listening to my varied music (Plus a Lot Of Quality Recorded Bootlegs) in
Either FLAC or WAV.
Over the years I have used Bose IEMs but lately I am using Shure 535 Special Edition Red
IEMs which I love right now.
The machine has been a great workhorse with my 1 overiding gripe being that here
In the UK being the Nanny State that we are there is a sound limiter stopping a higher
volume which you got on with but after a certain time the volume would go down to 0
and you would have to manually Jack it back up again, not good but I could never find
a Hack to override it sadly.
Anyway in the last year or so the battery is slowly dying still after about 6 years that s very
good I think and as it’s a sealed unit I’m knackered plus Sony’s Sonic Stage Sucked Big Time.
I have been looking to buy something new and came across Cowon PD2 and I liked the sound of
what I was reading except for I guess the GUI mainly but the SQ and Battery life interests me
as I listen to music consistently.
I came across this thread after Googling the model and found a link here, I have tried Ploughing
Through it but a lot of what you people “talk” about goes over my head as I’m not up on all this
Hi Fi stuff I have bought and just let my ears judge what sounds Great to me maybe Crap to you
experts, I don’t know.
So can I ask a few questions please if you are still with me this far down...
Can the Micro SD Card be formatted in the player or does it have to be done with a card reader in
a PC and if so please recommend a free software that even I can understand.
I have a Asus runing Windoze 10
Can and it’s really important to me the D2 cope with gap free tracks from WAV so a live concert
Will flow with no micro gaps?
I believe this is what’s called Drag and Drop, I’ve never used this system before is there now software
then and that’s the procedure for putting the music onto the machine?
Lastly for now can’t think of anything else until I bet I post this)
Could you knowledgable D2 owners give me some Good EQ settings to try please?
Well thanks in advance for reading this if you still are.
Peace,
LMA.

 

[SoundSquare]

Am i the only one here having stability issues with the Plenue D2 ? I scanned and verified each of the Flac files on my SD cards with Flac tools and no errors reported. Still the d2 crashes often when playing in shuffle mode, to the point that i don't really use it anymore and switched back to some of my other DAPs, none of them crash with the same SD cards. Flac compatibility must be improved i'm afraid.

 

[silverfishla]

Am i the only one here having stability issues with the Plenue D2 ? I scanned and verified each of the Flac files on my SD cards with Flac tools and no errors reported. Still the d2 crashes often when playing in shuffle mode, to the point that i don't really use it anymore and switched back to some of my other DAPs, none of them crash with the same SD cards. Flac compatibility must be improved i'm afraid.

I have a few Flac tracks that don’t play right. They are just silent. A few 24 192 tracks. But, they don’t crash the player. Hopefully that’s a firmware fix. What happens when your player crashes? Does it get stuck or shut down?

 

[SoundSquare]

I have a few Flac tracks that don’t play right. They are just silent. A few 24 192 tracks. But, they don’t crash the player. Hopefully that’s a firmware fix. What happens when your player crashes? Does it get stuck or shut down?

i turns off immediately. I have a few tracks that shows "invalid file" and that's fine, the player skips to the next one, but for a lot of tracks it simply turns off the D2. If only there was a way to disable the scanning at startup i wouldn't spend so much time waiting for it to reboot.

 

[silverfishla]

i turns off immediately. I have a few tracks that shows "invalid file" and that's fine, the player skips to the next one, but for a lot of tracks it simply turns off the D2. If only there was a way to disable the scanning at startup i wouldn't spend so much time waiting for it to reboot.

Do you have other files dumped on there besides music files? Sometimes that creates problems.

 

[SoundSquare]

Do you have other files dumped on there besides music files? Sometimes that creates problems.

only some .jpg files for covers. I made sure to remove everything else (pdf, etc).

 

[k_j]

Not sure if it's been posted already, but another stellar review of D2 - https://headfonics.com/2019/06/cowon-plenue-d2-review/

 

[willcycle]

The issue of the Plenue D2 not recognizing flac files was discussed before, however, I would like to summarize my experience for others who will probably have the same issue. Flac files saved to the unit's internal memory must have the ".fla" extension in order to be recognized. Files stored on an external microSD card can use the ".flac" extension. I don't why this should be but it is. The manual makes no mention of it.

 

[silverfishla]

The issue of the Plenue D2 not recognizing flac files was discussed before, however, I would like to summarize my experience for others who will probably have the same issue. Flac files saved to the unit's internal memory must have the ".fla" extension in order to be recognized. Files stored on an external microSD card can use the ".flac" extension. I don't why this should be but it is. The manual makes no mention of it.

I don’t think this is true. At least not on my unit. I have all .flac on my internal memory and they work fine.