[shrimants]

Here is what I know:

cowon x7 and j3 sound quality is the same. with J3 i get a pants-wettingly good screen and with X7 i get easy music management/usb hard drive.
With both, music management and sound quality is amazing, but with both i've read multiple reviews about bad build quality and worse cowon support.

I have no idea how the SQ is on an ipod touch or an ipod classic. AFAIK they have the same internal chips by cirrus logic. I know I have shoddy flac support on both, but i dont have a problem with converting from flac to alac.

I have a problem paying the same price per gb on the J3 that I would pay for itouch because itouch has so many more features. I have a smart phone and having a data plan lets me do all sorts of fancy things with it, but my smart phone blows c*ck at playing music.


First decision: I cant decide between apple and cowon. Cowon is actually more expensive if you take features and whatnot into consideration, and the whole warranty/support thing worries me.

Second decision: Space vs looks/features.

In both brands I have no idea if I should go with 160 gigs or 32/64. I'm fairly sure I only need the player for music since my smartphone does everything else, but I also really hate it when something tries to half-ass its way through features. like comic book reader, text files, etc. what is up with that, cowon?

If anyone can answer these questions it would be great. Ipod classic is what i'm looking at so far, but i'm not quite convinced yet. FYI i will eventually probably end up getting a portable amp and might possibly make a breakout cable for the ipod. I dont think thats possible with the cowon products.

 

[SpecR1]

First decision: Don't think about the additonal features that's not related to Sound since you already have a smartphone with data. I've had my J3 for a year and no problems with it.
 
Second: Space and look is up to you.
 
You say that the cowon is half ass in features department but its really good SQ, then you can also say the Ipod is half assed in the SQ department (since they don't have built in EQ, outofbox FLAC Support) and really good in other features.
 
I've had my J3 for a year now and when I first got it, I just used the preset EQ. Then I learned about the smiley face curve. Then I learned the actual effects of BBE, MachBass, ViVa. Just recently I'm doing alot of reading on parametric equalizers and how to use them effectively. The J3 is actually harder to EQ than other stuff because you kind of have to work around the BBE effects to get the best sound quality.
 
I guess my advice is, if you like to play around with your devices and learn about their features then get a J3. If you want a good sounding player out of the box with LOD and Amp then just get a Ipod.
 
Also, the J3 has incredible battery life. I'm not sure exactly how many hours I get out of it but it seems like I never have to charge it haha.

 

[zowki]

If you dont want to deal with horrible music management with iTunes then chose one of the Cowon PMPs (they supposedly have better sound quality than iPods). How large is your music collection in GB and how large do you foresee it increasing in the future? Chose your capacity based on that.

If you get an old iPod 5G or 5.5G you can install Rockbox (www.rockbox.org) and play FLACs and use drag and drop music management without iTunes. I recommend going this route.

 

[shrimants]

i dislike the 5/5.5 G. I found they have a noticeable lack of bass. The 5g, however, has been my favorite ipod to date. From the day I bought mine it lasted for a good 5 or 6 years. There was only once that I took it apart and that was to replace the battery pack with a high capacity one since my original was kaput.

I've basically knocked the ipod touch out of the running because my smart phone does everything I need. I never use EQ or sound enhancements because I always feel it screws up the sound quality, plus half the stuff I listen too needs custom EQing.

I really like the thought of having the 160 gigs, but that amoled screen looks so gorgeous. each thing i'm looking at, thus costs the exact same, about 250. The only differences are form factor and sound quality.


My music collection is already around 16gb and I'm still working on finding flac copies of all the music. I am currently trying to expand my musical horizons but it is hard for me to find enjoyable music because I like uniqueness, unpredictability, and either a moving danceable tempo or musical genius (or both, but thats hard to find). If I really wanted to I could shoot my collection up to way past 32 gigs just by downloading some singles I like. the only reason I dont is that I dont like having one song by one artist like some sort of grade schooler. I only listen to entire albums.

Regarding my home setup: I currently only have monster turbines as my "worth listening to" pair. the bose on-ears I have are so worn down that they sound like koss plugs. I'm looking into saving up for a decent over-ear pair and am currently deciding between various popular ones. I'm looking to spend no more than 800 on the over ear pair and having them last for at least 5-8 years without any unfixable problems. I am working on AMB Y1 and Y2 as I find time and I have Audioengine A5's.

i like bass, I enjoy some electronic music, and as I expand into different genres of music I think electronic will be the route I take if not some weird form of NuMetal. I love maximum the hormone and pink floyd, radiohead, system of a down. I'm going to first try finding more music like MTH and SOAD, and if that doesnt work i'll be finding electronic dance music that is imaginative and unrepetitive.

Knowing this, I'd say that while i could eventually fill up 32 gigs and possibly another 32 gig microSD expansion, it will not happen any time soon, and the chances of me needing the 160 gigs is miniscule. I WILL say, however, that with the 160 gig on either device I'd end up using it as an external hard drive a LOT.

I really like DIY too, so I figured ipod+LOD would let me experiment with various portable amps that i can make myself.

TL;DR
I'm leaning heavily towards ipod classic unless someone can provide a really really good case for X7 or J3, especially knowing I use external storage a crap load.

 

[Dojomoto]

 I think that Apple usually refreshes the iPod line in September, so you may want to wait a month, if possible, to see what improvements may be offered over the current iPod lineup.

 

[Achmedisdead]

Quote:

 I think that Apple usually refreshes the iPod line in September, so you may want to wait a month, if possible, to see what improvements may be offered over the current iPod lineup.

Good call.