Cowon IAudio 7 16GB MP3 Player - Red

I spent a lot of time searching for a replacement to my beloved, but now defunct, iRiver. I was looking for a machine with quite specific characteristics but this player was everything I was looking for and a bit more. I'll get the negatives out of the way first because I want to you to finish with the same positive impression I've been left with. I'll try to keep the tech jargon to a minimum.

Downsides
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1 - It's expensive. You could get a hard-drive player with 10x the storage for the same price. No way around this one.
2 - The touch sensitive controls offer next to no feedback. After a few months using any piece of tech, most of us get so familiar with it that we can do the simple stuff without looking. Never gonna happen here.
3 - Can only be charged through USB and naturally this takes a while.
4 - Cable on included headphones is pretty short.
5 - There's nearly no custom accesories out there for it, though if people actually bought it, this would change.

Upsides
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1 - It's light. Seriously. Ridiculously so in fact. I have to trace the headphone cable back to remember which pocket I've put it in.
2 - It plays most formats you can think of, a far wider range than nearly any other player on the market.
3 - Though the screen is small, it's excellent quality. I wouldn't recommend inviting people round for a movie but an episode of Futurama is perfectly enjoyable.
4 - Unlike a lot of players, it can handle more than one task at a time. You can create playlists while listening to music or listen to music while watching a slideshow.
5 - This is a big one. Though the controls are a bit fiddly, the interface is wonderful - in no small part because of it is so customisable. EVERYTHING, from which controls are affected by the hold button (useful!) to exactly how the menus are arranged and manipulated, can be set to your own tastes. Spend 20 minutes setting it up when it arrives and it's a pleasure to use forevermore, no matter what your tastes.
6 - Battery life is obscenely long. Without the visualisations and with some of the battery saving features on, it will last 3 times longer than most players. That's about 2.5 days of music.
7 - By selecting an option in the interface, you can choose whether to make use of the audio software which comes with the item (which is fine) or merely plug the player in as a Removable Storage Device. This for me was a vital feature. I've gotten very tired of players which come with so many frivolous features they can't even be plugged in on computers without their supporting software (I'm looking at you iPods). The included software is functional and useful (though not spectacular) but I like being able to drag and drop any type of file and access them from nearly any computer. This is something you have to hack an iPod with Linux to accomplish (not that I would dream of doing that *cough*).
8 - Audio quality is great. Absolutely top notch. With a good pair of headphones (and no audiophile would dream of sticking with the phones included with an mp3 player), this is as close to perfect as makes no difference.

So that's a brief summation. In the end, Cowon have made a player that doesn't attempt the sheer range of features found on the bigger names. This will never keep your appointments or call your mother, but what it sets out to do, it does nearly flawlessly. This is for those who know what they want. For a large number of people, this is going to be their ideal mp3 player.

Let me ask you a question. What do you want in an MP3 player? a device which is so easy to use your grandmothers blind dog can use it... while making him look 'cool' in an instant, something that instantly gets you accepted in to the fashion clique? OR Would you like to listen to, and enjoy music?

Well.. I have been an iPod owner, as I have always been apple loyal with my products, But, I've had 2 so far, and both have failed in around a year. My latest, a 30GB ipod, the disk has run out of its will to live, shortly after the battery started weezing (I changed the battery, and still it ran at the same short time.. It literally would only keep charge for a few hours of shorting listening, work and back... so I believe there is some hardware programming for shelf life of battery that is independent of actual battery power)

and ipod is a joy, link it to itunes and off you go.

BUT, I was starting to think that my ears don't work properly, as music never sounded 'like it used to'

It seems that people prefer convenience these days, over actual function, iPod is a case in Proof of that.

I received yesterday my iAudio 7, having decided that I would not blindly buy another ipod, regardless of how cool they look, and at the last moment, canceled by ipod order, in favor of the i7.

Wanting to have this time a flash player, in preference to a hard disk player (knowing that having 200 albums on player is great but really, I only listen to a small percentage of that), and I don't believe that it is wise to use a hard-disk in a storage device that spends most of its time in my pocket. 16GB is more than enough.

Yes, the i7 is not an ipod, but, it does look cool and appeals to my sensibilities, but it is (in theory) a little less friendly than ipod... But not in a way which people describe... To copy songs.. I simply drag and drop to a folder (I have mac)... which means.. I can copy easily from other computers etc... and FROM the thing easily also.. (I buy music don't worry).

HOWEVER, what really sets this apart, and i absolutely must stress REALLY sets this apart, is the Sound... (assuming you have good headphones)...

It sound beautiful... I am again in love with my music collection... Rich deep defined bass, full range up to highs... Everything is distinct and clear, separated and audible. AMAZING.. I sounds like music SHOULD, and did.

FLAC is my new love.. on the i7 is amazing. and is well worth the larger file sizes... but also my normal MP3's still sound wonderful!!!

I would encourage everyone, don't get sucked in by the "I look good in my hand" appeal and expensive marketing that make the iPod Attractive... go rather for the "I Sound Good in my ears" player, that is the i7... you will not regret it, and you will ask yourself how you survived with an iPod for so long... Music is not dead, long live Music.

Ok, the first reason I bought one of these was for music quality, so I'll deal with that first.

Its very good, but not perfect. There are trade offs to it. The highs are very clear, but fatigueing. Its hard to listen to this thing for a long time, but while you do you'll hear most of whats going on. The stock headphones are DREADFULL. But you should really get decent headphones anyway (I've been using it with sennheiser CX95s). The mids are open and detailed. No complaints there. The lows are fast and clear, but they also lack extension and a sense of space and depth.

Overall I'd describe the sound as 'clinical'. This can be good or bad. Its actually a usefull unit for referencing mixes on (if you record music, which I do) because its very accurate and gives very detailed reproduction, but its not that much fun to listen to. It sounds more like a monitoring setup than a hifi setup - its quite unflattering, transparent and unhyped, and as such will allow a good mix to sound good, and will give a bad mix enough rope to hang itself with. This can be a blessing or curse depending how you listen to music - whether just for fun, or whether you like to really pick apart a sound and think about what youre hearing. I gravitate toward the latter, so I'm pretty happy, but I also want the former, and this doesnt let you do much of it.

Features wise it is, as far as I can tell, peerless. It will play any format you can shake a stick at. You have a large degree of control over the sound with EQ and the 'jet' effects, but as ever you cant get rid of its various sonic signatures. Some of the effects work better than others, too - for example the 'mach' bass is pretty good, but the BBE is dreadfull - its just a compressor, as far as I can tell, and more than very very slight use of it makes anything sound horrible. It has a radio, video playback, photo viewer and its interface with a PC is effortless - you plug it in, and thats that: drag and drop as though it were a memory stick. The headphone power amp is decent, the battery life is superb, and on top of all this its very compact and light. Overall its an excelent and extremely well appointed design.

My final gripe is the control system. Its managable, but it sometimes has a mind of its own, can be over-sensitive or under-sensitive depending on, as far as I can tell, what it feels like doing at the time, and the navigation isnt terribly intuitive, but it isnt hard to learn either.

On the whole I give it a totally unscientifically formulated 4 out of 5, just from my gut feel about the thing. It sounds very good, but the sound has its flaws (the best sounding MP3 player I've heard remains my old Sony Vaio), it has a huge array of features, but its undermined by a slightly irritating interface.