Cowon S9 - The official 'Ask The Editors' thread

All your questions relating to the Cowon S9 can go here, where we and other readers will help answer your questions.

So, what do you want to know?

Probably too early to tell as you haven't given it a full review yet, but here goes:

Which is better then? The iPod Touch or the Cowon S9?

Also, I thought that MPEG-4 and H.264 were the same thing?

And, horror of horrors, does it actually have less buttons than the iPod Touch? Jobsy must be shaking in his boots.

Does it have same loud but cold output, by default rather flat signature as D2, when unamped and unequalised? or is it quieter more smooth and bassy like cowon x5?

For D2, the mids sadly are recessed somewhat, the low frequency tends to roll off on more sensitive inear phones, as result generally signature is just not fun to listen to imo without using both attenuator and amp in comparison to sony players, but once amped, sony can in into the bin with the annoying background noise. Thus in short if it sounds identical to D2,have you tried how it responds to external amp?

It has more buttons than the iPod touch - volume and playback buttons on the top of the device.

And allegedly this MP3 player is the best sounding MP3 player ever made

hiya. i currently have the bril Samsung P2 but sad to hear it' s been discontinued. ever since i've heard of the the P3 coming out i felt excited but the excitment died down easily because IMHO i think it's just a "slightly improved" version of the P2. then i heard about the S9 with all it's features and capability. my question is...like Sammy's P2 does it have any "pre-set" empty playlist list wherein you can just add tracks "on-the-go" on the player itself then delete them whenever as well? and how about firmware updates? will it be as often and as easy as the P2?

Hi. Could you comment on your cnet colleague D. Bell's comment -

"The first drawback I've noticed on the Cowon S9 is that it just feels kind of cheap--which is a complaint I rarely have with Cowon. Unlike the glass and steel design of the iPod Touch, the S9 uses an all-plastic design that--though lightweight--has a hollow and flimsy feel. Even the all-plastic Samsung P2 feels a little more durable and substantial."

Agree? Rebuttal?

what codecs? is it your typical Korean product that supports every codec known to man?

is the coverflow slow compared to that of the ipod touch? also is the rest of the interface sometimes sluggish or not at all?
could u also let us know if it supports subtitles...it says on its site that it can read smi subtitles, so could u check if it does that because i read on another review that it doesn't support soft subs.
thanks...

About the Cowon S9 my question is i know it comes in 4Gb, 8Gb and 16GB internal memory however can you also have external memory as well like in some of ther older models via memory chip slots?

No. The S9 is not expandable with memory cards of any type.

The subtitles I tested did not work, however I've yet to test SMI-format subs. I'll get back to you on this.

The coverflow is slow, yes. It's nothing like the iPod touch, and frankly I hated it. The rest of the interface is okay. Again, it's no iPod touch, but it's the best Cowon interface to date.

1) The iPod touch is a low better. More responsive, more features, more intuitive. That said, the S9 destroys the touch in terms of sound quality.

2) MPEG-4 is a format in its simple profile, but H.264 is a codec in its own right, stored inside an MPEG-4 file. They're two separate formats.

3) No, it has a lot more buttons. Full roster of navigational controls, volume controls and lock switches.

I have to agree. I think it looks great, but to me and Donald it's not got the solidity of the touch.

In our tests, the following audio formats played without issue: MP3, WMA, APE, FLAC, OGG and WAV. However, AAC, AIFF, Apple Lossless, MusePack and Real Audio files did not play. And although WMA Lossless files began to play, after a few seconds the sound became distorted and the entire player locked up. Oops!

As for video file support, the S9 played DivX 5, Xvid and WMV. That's decent, but MPEG-4 SP would've been a bonus, as would H.264, which would not play in our tests.

Excellent question. I'll get back to you on this issue when I'm back at the office (stupidly neglected to bring it away with me over Christmas!).

Nate I was just wondering if you would recommend this to a Zen Vision M 30GB user. I'm kinda wavering away from the ipod touch because it relies on running itunes which I have a rather dislike for. Your initial report shows the cowan like the creative seem to support more formats and codecs than the Apple. One thing that I do benefit from the Zen is it's plug and explore feature a bit like a USB drive which comes in really useful for quick access and temp storage.

thanks a lot for the reply nate!

hi, i'm finding it very hard to pin down the actual maximum bitrate that the S9 is able to record to via the Line-In facility, some say 128kbps, some say 256, and some say 320

could someone confirm which bitrate quality it is?

also, will there be firmware upgrades available for the player?

The maximum line-in quality, I can confirm (because it's in my hand), is 256Kbps.

Firmware is already available from Cowon, and the company is pretty good at regularly updating its site with new firmware versions.