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Technical Details
- 32GB Portable media player with BBE+ Audiophile Sound Hardware
- Movie playback
- 16.7 Million colour 3.3-inch AMOLED capacitive touchscreen
- 55-Hour battery life
- Bluetooth wireless support
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Product Description
Manufacturer's Description
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The Cowon S9 is here...
If you've been sleeping under a stone, you may have missed our excitement about the latest player to arrive from the masters of quality - Cowon. The S9 has teased us over the last year or so with the promise of the Cowon player we always wanted, but never dared hope would turn out as well as we could imagine.
Well, we're astounded to say, it's better than we could have ever hoped for.
The main points to focus on are the new BBE+ sound architecture, the amazing AMOLED widescreen display, full Bluetooth support and the superb new user interface.
Zoom UI
This is a real step forward for Cowon's players, which have had a reputation for being slightly complex to use. With this new totally touch screen user interface, Cowon have kept the depth of control possible with previous players, but made day-to-day operation simplicity itself.
Your main functions are represented by a set of simple icons on the main screen and on entering any of these options, you're presented with a simple list of track, or videos or photos. Text too small? Use the zoom bar and make it bigger. Not sure what a certain video file is? A looping thumbnail shows some footage from it, right there on the menu. And again, you can zoom in.
It doesn't stop there - the S9 features G sensor technology, so it knows which way up it's being held. So, you can turn it on it's side and scroll through a list of album covers, instead of a textual track list. Watching a movie, it doesn't matter what way up you hold it, the S9 will re-format the file to display the right way up and as big as possible on the 3.3 inch - 480 x 272 pixel AMOLED screen.
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| Easy and cool to use |
Audio
Normally, on a player with such a ground-breaking screen, we'd start with Video, but on the S9, we really want to make special mention of the audio and why it is the best sounding player we've ever listened to - by far.
That's a pretty big claim, but we're totally confident that you will not in any honesty be able to listen to it back-to-back with any other portable player with the same files on it and say it's anything but the best. We have - it's true.
The S9 uses Cowon's new BBE+ audio architecture, personally integrated with the player by the CEO of Cowon - Mr Park.
Mr. Park majored in Control and Instrument at Seoul National University and got a masters degree in 1990. Some of his awards as the CEO of COWON Systems include the Korean Presidential Award, the Korea Digital Award, the Digital Prize from Han-kyo-reh Newspaper, the Global CEO Award from the Mae-il Economy Newspaper and the Industry Resource Ministry Award.
Before the foundation of COWON SYSTEMS, Namkyu Park worked at LG Electronics for 5 years as a senior engineer of Multimedia department. He is known within the industry as “Golden Ears” for his outstanding ability to distinguish even in the smallest differences in sounds.
This is the man in charge of this company - perhaps a small indicator of the sort of importance they attach to ultimate sound quality.
So, what is BBE+? It's a range of sound processes that give incredible reproduction of good quality sources and can boost the quality of low-quality sources beyond comparison. It includes upgrades to BBE, Mach3Bass, 3D Surround and MP Enhance that featured in earlier Cowon players, with the addition of better EQ facilities, stereo enhancements and approximately thirty different specific profiles for different music and acoustics.
Codec support is customarily comprehensive for Cowon. It will play MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, WAV and APE - offering compatibility with easily found files and also the most high quality lossless audio. Even better, you can listen to music for up to 55 hours continuously before needing to recharge the player.
All of that is just words, however. To truly appreciate this player, you need to listen to it - you'll be blown away - as we were.
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Now, we've spoken about audio before video, but the video capabilities of this player are, if anything, even more impressive than the audio. This is the first ever use on a portable device of a 3.3" 16 million colour AMOLED display.
What does that mean? Well, traditionally, portable screens use LCD displays. These have a mask layer of pixels, which can change colour - filtering light from a backlight to create images. The technology is well-proven, but has some limitations. There is a lag time with the pixels changing, which can cause rapidly moving images to get slightly 'muddy'. Also, their very design means they waste energy - they filter and cut down light output from a backlight.
TV Out Functionality
The S9 has the ability (with the separately available TV-Out cables) to display the contents on a full size TV. Imagine, you've gone round to a mates house with your favourite movies saved on your S9 in DVD quality. Simply plug the cables into the back of the TV to show those movies in the original quality on the full-size TV display. It also works with photos, so you can show holiday or family photos when you go to friends for dinner.
AMOLED works differently. It still uses individual pixels (480 x 272 in the S9) but the pixels themselves emit light and change much quicker than LCD. This means the screen is sharper, pixel for pixel, much brighter and movement is pin-sharp.
Movies on the S9 are incredible - this is really the first pocket device we can wholeheartedly say we have no problem watching full length movies on. It's bright and crisp, but not taxing on the eye as there is no ghosting or blur. The S9 can play Xvid SP/ASP and WMV9SP/MP files natively, and supports SMI subtitles. Playback time is an amazing 11 hours of continuous video.
Capacities
The S9 is a flash-based player - so no moving parts, no skipping and no hard drive failures. There are three capacities available - 8GB, 16GB and the 32GB model. Of course, it doesn't stop there. Cowon have long believed in packing their players with additional functionality and thanks to firmware upgrades, have even added functionality (for free) to players long after launch.
Bluetooth
The S9 supports full bluetooth A2DP and AVRCP functionality. This means you can connect the player to bluetooth devices like headphones without a plug-in dongle and even use any buttons the headphones have to control the player. Audio quality is superb - for ultimate quality, we still recommend wired headphones, but the bluetooth output on this is easily the best we've heard.
Picture Viewer
Still images can really show off the incredible crispness and brightness of the revolutionary AMOLED screen. It accepts JPEG files and will resize any image for display - so you can bluetooth an image from your 8MP camera phone and the S9 will display in full 3.3 inch 16 million colour AMOLED glory.
FM Radio
With great reception using the headphone cord as an antenna, you'll not be bored with access to radio
Document Reader
A great use of the crisp screen, you can load text files (and a lot of classic books are available free online as text files) and read them comfortably on the widescreen display - with the benefit of the Zoom UI if you need to make the text larger.
Flash Player
A flash player, allows you to download flash games and utilities from the internet and integrate them with your player
Calculator
Already included is a handy calculator and this is indicative of the sort of accessory programs that Cowon tend to include with firmware updates for free
Box Contains
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
Amazon Verified Purchase
First things first...the design of the player makes it a joy to hold. In fact I can't let it go. Each time I put it down, I pick it up again for a feel! And equally important to me, how nice to have a player with simple drag and drop for files.
A 480x272 pixel, 16.7 million colour amoled screen beats anything else I have seen. Whether this is better than the Sony X series which also is amoled I cannot say. Can't afford to buy both to compare. 16.7 million colours is obviously good but I am sure a million here or there probably makes no difference at all. Amoled is the latest screen display. It uses less power as it does away with backlight and is also thinner. Also it responds quicker than other displays so movies play much smoother without any ghosting that I could detect. The blacks look really black. The screen is of the capacitative type. Basically what this means is that it needs no pressure on the screen. I have had an Archos 704 for quite a while and I can vouch for the difference. On the Archos screen, you have to dig in your finger or give it sharp taps. And every time I do this, I feel I am going to damage the screen. An additional bonus is rather than everything being touch screen, Cowon has added buttons at the top for volume, pause, play and reverse/forward. This is really good as I can change things while the cowon remains in my pocket.
This little PMP plays mp3, wma, ogg, wav and flac. Probably others as well. You can sort your music by the usual tags...album artist, genre and so on. It has a tilt sensor.
It is very light for its size. Some may feel this makes it feel cheap as if weight was a measure of quality. An age old hangup with gold I expect!!. For me the lighter a thing is the better. Battery life is great for music. They claim over 40 hours. I have never found these claims to be true on anything I've ever bought because they seem to calculate battery life on MP3s played at 128 Kpbs but even if it lasts 20-25 hours, that's good enough for me.
I chose the S9 over the Sony X series after a lot of weighing up. The Sony is cheaper and has wifi but no Bluetooth. The S9 has bluetooth but no wifi. In the end I decided to go for Bluetooth, so I could connect to Bluetooth speakers which I thought was more useful than wifi. I can't imagine I would use the internet on a 3.3 inch screen for too long after the novelty wears off. Unfortunately, trying out the bluetooth with the Linx B Tube speakers (which I have reviewed before and they are great!), I find that connectivity is not upto mark and the sound breaks up over a couple of feet. I have made this point on a cowon discussion board and lets hope cowon addresses this issue. A bit of a let down.
I won't go into technical details too much as these are easily available on the internet and I encourage anyone wanting to buy this to have a good read before they splash out on this expensive piece of kit.
It is a shame that there does not seem to be any plans to produce one with a flash drive of 64GB or more. 64GB flash drives are getting affordable so why stop at 32? Most people now rip music at 320kpbs and 32GB isn't all that much especially if you want to load high quality videos as well. A 64GB S9 would have run the iPod touch out of town but it seems every company, however good they may be, suffers from an inferiority complex and only wants to follow where the iPod leads.
If you are prepared to fork out the extra cash, buy this and let your friends look at you with envy!!
A 480x272 pixel, 16.7 million colour amoled screen beats anything else I have seen. Whether this is better than the Sony X series which also is amoled I cannot say. Can't afford to buy both to compare. 16.7 million colours is obviously good but I am sure a million here or there probably makes no difference at all. Amoled is the latest screen display. It uses less power as it does away with backlight and is also thinner. Also it responds quicker than other displays so movies play much smoother without any ghosting that I could detect. The blacks look really black. The screen is of the capacitative type. Basically what this means is that it needs no pressure on the screen. I have had an Archos 704 for quite a while and I can vouch for the difference. On the Archos screen, you have to dig in your finger or give it sharp taps. And every time I do this, I feel I am going to damage the screen. An additional bonus is rather than everything being touch screen, Cowon has added buttons at the top for volume, pause, play and reverse/forward. This is really good as I can change things while the cowon remains in my pocket.
This little PMP plays mp3, wma, ogg, wav and flac. Probably others as well. You can sort your music by the usual tags...album artist, genre and so on. It has a tilt sensor.
It is very light for its size. Some may feel this makes it feel cheap as if weight was a measure of quality. An age old hangup with gold I expect!!. For me the lighter a thing is the better. Battery life is great for music. They claim over 40 hours. I have never found these claims to be true on anything I've ever bought because they seem to calculate battery life on MP3s played at 128 Kpbs but even if it lasts 20-25 hours, that's good enough for me.
I chose the S9 over the Sony X series after a lot of weighing up. The Sony is cheaper and has wifi but no Bluetooth. The S9 has bluetooth but no wifi. In the end I decided to go for Bluetooth, so I could connect to Bluetooth speakers which I thought was more useful than wifi. I can't imagine I would use the internet on a 3.3 inch screen for too long after the novelty wears off. Unfortunately, trying out the bluetooth with the Linx B Tube speakers (which I have reviewed before and they are great!), I find that connectivity is not upto mark and the sound breaks up over a couple of feet. I have made this point on a cowon discussion board and lets hope cowon addresses this issue. A bit of a let down.
I won't go into technical details too much as these are easily available on the internet and I encourage anyone wanting to buy this to have a good read before they splash out on this expensive piece of kit.
It is a shame that there does not seem to be any plans to produce one with a flash drive of 64GB or more. 64GB flash drives are getting affordable so why stop at 32? Most people now rip music at 320kpbs and 32GB isn't all that much especially if you want to load high quality videos as well. A 64GB S9 would have run the iPod touch out of town but it seems every company, however good they may be, suffers from an inferiority complex and only wants to follow where the iPod leads.
If you are prepared to fork out the extra cash, buy this and let your friends look at you with envy!!
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful
Cowon s9 review
Nearly Perfect
****
I've had the Cowon S9 for about a month now and I have to say it is the best mp3 player I have ever had. The sound quality has to be heard to be believed and the screen picture is crystal clear.
There have been comments made about it being "too light" and flimsy but I don't think that is the case, I got the official Cowon leather case for it and it is metal covered in leather, this bulks up the weight and makes it feel more durable.
The UI it has to be said isn't as intuitive as it could be and takes a while to navigate your way around although the firmware upgrades are helping with the customisable main menu.
The audio quality is fantastic, it will play mp3, wma, flac, wav, ape and ogg, the level of customisable EQ settings is excellent and really enhance the music, especially Stereo enhance which really improves the stereo separation. The Bass is thumpy and clear and the treble is crystal, you might want to dump the bundles earphones and buy a decent pair, I am using Creative's Aurvana Live and they sound fantastic with it. You can view all your album art in landscape mode which is nicer I think than the iPods coverflow.
Video is superb and the player has an accelerometer which allows you to view in landscape aswell as portrait. It plays in AVI and WMV but not H264.
The radio is funky with a big dial but I haven't found out yet if you can name the stations. Bluetooth is nice aswell and pairs easily with the Sony BT SRS 100 speaker but will only stream music not transfer files. I don't know how to use the Flash player feature but I believe you can play games on it; I have no interest in this feature. The battery life is fantastic although it takes about a month to get it up to its full potential.
One of the big selling points for me on this player is the external buttons Play, pause, fwd, rew and vol this allows you to control the player while it's in your pocket unlike the Creative XFi-2 which is totally touch screen. You can also lock the touch screen so it doesn't go on and off in your pocket. I would have liked if the headphone socket was at the top of the player, as having it on the bottom means the headphone jack gets bent if the player is in your pocket, I don't see any locigal reason to have it at the bottom.
The only gripe I have is with the Playlist function which is a big problem for the S9. You can only make playlists in mp3 or wma codec but not FLAC (not sure about the others) and the player must be set to MTP mode. If you change back the player to MSC (for drag and drop facility or to send FLAC files to the player) and reconnect it to the PC your playlists are lost, I don't know why this happens and will hopefully be fixed in the next firmware upgrade.
The bundled software Jet Media Centre is worse than useless, the basic version you get with the player doesn't rip to mp3 and the player doesn't like wma as it mixes up the tags. Having said that there is a single "Favourites" playlist on the player which does play FLAC and you can easily add songs or video to and that doesn't get lost when you convert from MTP to MSC.
There is however light at the end of the tunnel with two third party pieces of software "Playlist Creator" which allows you to make any file type of playlist on your PC and save it to the S9's playlist folder as a m3u file. Also "Claw UI" which you will have to install onto the player and this allows you to make any file type playlists on the player itself. I don't know why Cowon couldn't have come up with this themselves as it the only thing letting down this fantastic piece of kit.
Overall I'd recommend the S9 if you want a top quality audio and video player and are not bothered with playlists or wi-fi. If Cowon can get the playlist problem sorted then it is on its way to being a real iPod beater for audiophiles and music snobs everywhere.
Pros
Unbelievable sound quality with fully customisable EQ
A-B feature for repeating sections of songs or video and tempo and pitch adjustment
Supports Flac and other lossless codecs
Crystal clear screen resolution
Accepts flash and has customisable screen
External buttons which can be controlled from the pocket
Beautiful coverflow showing 18 albums per screen
Bluetooth compatibility with speakers and headphones
Fantastic design
Continuous firmware upgrades
Massive Battery Life six weeks now and counting between charges
Cons
Playlist functionality is limited, it won't let you make playlists for FLAC or under MSC (drag and drop) mode
Although it plays WMA files it won't recognise the tags so the tracklist will be all jumbled up
It won't support gapless playback unless it's a FLAC file (so you can't have a playlist with a gapless album)
You can't name the radio stations
Headphone socket is at the bottom which can lead to damage of the headphone jack
UI takes a bit of getting used to
Battery life is considerable shorter than advertised if you are using EQ and large files with large headphones
Nearly Perfect
****
I've had the Cowon S9 for about a month now and I have to say it is the best mp3 player I have ever had. The sound quality has to be heard to be believed and the screen picture is crystal clear.
There have been comments made about it being "too light" and flimsy but I don't think that is the case, I got the official Cowon leather case for it and it is metal covered in leather, this bulks up the weight and makes it feel more durable.
The UI it has to be said isn't as intuitive as it could be and takes a while to navigate your way around although the firmware upgrades are helping with the customisable main menu.
The audio quality is fantastic, it will play mp3, wma, flac, wav, ape and ogg, the level of customisable EQ settings is excellent and really enhance the music, especially Stereo enhance which really improves the stereo separation. The Bass is thumpy and clear and the treble is crystal, you might want to dump the bundles earphones and buy a decent pair, I am using Creative's Aurvana Live and they sound fantastic with it. You can view all your album art in landscape mode which is nicer I think than the iPods coverflow.
Video is superb and the player has an accelerometer which allows you to view in landscape aswell as portrait. It plays in AVI and WMV but not H264.
The radio is funky with a big dial but I haven't found out yet if you can name the stations. Bluetooth is nice aswell and pairs easily with the Sony BT SRS 100 speaker but will only stream music not transfer files. I don't know how to use the Flash player feature but I believe you can play games on it; I have no interest in this feature. The battery life is fantastic although it takes about a month to get it up to its full potential.
One of the big selling points for me on this player is the external buttons Play, pause, fwd, rew and vol this allows you to control the player while it's in your pocket unlike the Creative XFi-2 which is totally touch screen. You can also lock the touch screen so it doesn't go on and off in your pocket. I would have liked if the headphone socket was at the top of the player, as having it on the bottom means the headphone jack gets bent if the player is in your pocket, I don't see any locigal reason to have it at the bottom.
The only gripe I have is with the Playlist function which is a big problem for the S9. You can only make playlists in mp3 or wma codec but not FLAC (not sure about the others) and the player must be set to MTP mode. If you change back the player to MSC (for drag and drop facility or to send FLAC files to the player) and reconnect it to the PC your playlists are lost, I don't know why this happens and will hopefully be fixed in the next firmware upgrade.
The bundled software Jet Media Centre is worse than useless, the basic version you get with the player doesn't rip to mp3 and the player doesn't like wma as it mixes up the tags. Having said that there is a single "Favourites" playlist on the player which does play FLAC and you can easily add songs or video to and that doesn't get lost when you convert from MTP to MSC.
There is however light at the end of the tunnel with two third party pieces of software "Playlist Creator" which allows you to make any file type of playlist on your PC and save it to the S9's playlist folder as a m3u file. Also "Claw UI" which you will have to install onto the player and this allows you to make any file type playlists on the player itself. I don't know why Cowon couldn't have come up with this themselves as it the only thing letting down this fantastic piece of kit.
Overall I'd recommend the S9 if you want a top quality audio and video player and are not bothered with playlists or wi-fi. If Cowon can get the playlist problem sorted then it is on its way to being a real iPod beater for audiophiles and music snobs everywhere.
Pros
Unbelievable sound quality with fully customisable EQ
A-B feature for repeating sections of songs or video and tempo and pitch adjustment
Supports Flac and other lossless codecs
Crystal clear screen resolution
Accepts flash and has customisable screen
External buttons which can be controlled from the pocket
Beautiful coverflow showing 18 albums per screen
Bluetooth compatibility with speakers and headphones
Fantastic design
Continuous firmware upgrades
Massive Battery Life six weeks now and counting between charges
Cons
Playlist functionality is limited, it won't let you make playlists for FLAC or under MSC (drag and drop) mode
Although it plays WMA files it won't recognise the tags so the tracklist will be all jumbled up
It won't support gapless playback unless it's a FLAC file (so you can't have a playlist with a gapless album)
You can't name the radio stations
Headphone socket is at the bottom which can lead to damage of the headphone jack
UI takes a bit of getting used to
Battery life is considerable shorter than advertised if you are using EQ and large files with large headphones
25 of 27 people found the following review helpful
This thing is beautiful. I converted my CDs to mp3s and my music collection outgrew my 8GB mp3 player. I needed a 32GB player, so after hours of googling and forum reading I got this.
Stick it in any computer and it acts like a USB stick, just drag 'n' drop your files.
It's a bit slow starting when the full 32GB capacity is used, but if you're buying an mp3 player to listen to music then I highly recommend the Cowon S9, the sound quality is excellent.
If you're not an audiophile and want to play games, surf t'Internet and stuff, get the Apple ipod Touch.
Stick it in any computer and it acts like a USB stick, just drag 'n' drop your files.
It's a bit slow starting when the full 32GB capacity is used, but if you're buying an mp3 player to listen to music then I highly recommend the Cowon S9, the sound quality is excellent.
If you're not an audiophile and want to play games, surf t'Internet and stuff, get the Apple ipod Touch.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Better than any iPOD
It has a great amount of EQ adjustment options and the sound it produce is sweet and amazing. I had it for 3 years and it has real good quality of sound production better than any... Read more
Published 2 months ago by S. Nath
Really good, if a little tricky at first
I bought this item some time ago now after reading review after review about the sound quality. The reviews weren't wrong, I haven't tested a player that rivals it since. Read more
Published 3 months ago by Weatherwax
Given up on this.
I hope the people at Cowon read a few of these reviews regarding the interface. I've really wanted to like this MP3 player but it has gone to the draw in the study and will... Read more
Published 15 months ago by Kevin
Great sound quality,great battery life, shame about the accessories.
After some consideration & a fare bit of research, I decided to go with the Cowon instead of the new range of apple iPods. I believe I've made the right choice, why? Read more
Published 17 months ago by mohammed
Feels like going back to DOS after Windows
Yes it does sound great, and it is light and sexy with a good battery life. But honestly, why create such a good device and then lumber it with such an awfully clunky... Read more
Published 18 months ago by Nuclear
Fast transfer speeds? Not with this one...
I bought this device mainly, because reviews were so positive about the sound quality. Since I wasn't happy with the lack of deep, punching bass, my UE Triple. Read more
Published 19 months ago by W. Luchner
A hugely overrated player (in terms of SQ)
When I received this item I had enormous expectations derived from all the glowing reviews I had read about this player. Epic sound quality, perfect sound etc. Read more
Published 21 months ago by VMR
Horrible little player!
I hate this horrible little player! The touch screen is awkward to use - scrolling through more than one screens worth of music artists is tedious to say the least. Read more
Published 22 months ago by X93250617
Very good player
Excellent sound quality, especially when compared to Apple's offerings. The menus are a bit confusing at first but easy once you get used to it. Read more
Published 23 months ago by Mr. P. J. Mcgrath
Great sound in a stylish piece of hardware
Works even better than expected. The sound quality is amazing. Nuff said.
PS The firmware updates fixes any gripes you might have.
PS The firmware updates fixes any gripes you might have.
Published on 20 Feb 2010 by Christian Hammer Nielsen
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