Cowon d2+ 16GB

[clausdk]

I just got me a Cowon d2 as you might have guessed by reading the title..

It has made me so happy that I just need to make a thread on it.

What do I love about it ??

The shear power is amazing, it goes louder than my Ipod with amp..

It has a fantasitc sound, actually beats the crap out of both my Meizu and Ipod and it does it without loosing breath.

It should be able to play 50 ! hours on one charge, 10 hours of video if anybody cares about that.

It plays lots of different formats.

It looks nice.

Easy to use.

It can drive my DT880 without an amp.

I can extend the memory with SDcards.

It feels nice in my hands.

The sound can be adjusted in a lot of ways, not that I use it, but nice to know.

It is fairly easy to navigate and find the music I want to hear.

Did I mention that it sounds awesome ?

What I am indifferent about ?

Well being a dinosaur I feel uncomfortable with the touchscreen, but I will learn to live with it, no problem.

It has a FMradio

It can stand on the table tilting in two angles, with the provided touchpen.

What I do not like ?

It can not play applelossless

It is hard to read the screen outside, in daylight that is.

the icons for play and skip, covers the title of the song and artist, so it is hard to read what song you are listening to, when you have "unknown" new music is on the player.

In conclusion.
This is an awesome little device and will be my player of choice in many situations, I really do not see myself using any other of my players in the future, it is just that good..

I even got it on a nice discount (100 $ off).

[elysion]

Hi Claus,

I'm a bit suprised that this thread has got no attention so far.

At the moment, I'm thinking of getting the Cowon D2+ DAB, which is a slightly revised model, almost the same as yours (the difference is basically the additional DAB tuner).

I'd not use the Cowon only for playing digital files on its flash storage. I'm very interested in its FM and DAB capabilites. What I really need is FM, but DAB is a nice bonus.

Can you tell me how good the FM tuner in the D2 is?


Christian

[funk1969]

Hmmm...

[clausdk]

The FMtuner is OK, it is not very powerfull, so I can not use it at work with all that metal objects on the plant..

Outside or in my home it works good, it is not as good as an old "transistor radio", but it works..

Compared to the Clip+ it is superior, both in radio and overall soundQ..

I resently got myself a "Studio" and that one is better in the sound department, but has no radio..

I now use the Cowon for audiobooks only, my Clip+ I use at work and the studio is my preferred player every where else, I even use it at work sometimes..

The Cowon never got the use it was intended to as it is/was a little bit to big for work, I am not sitting at a desk so it needs to be ultra portable and the Clip+ does that better than the Cowon..

I am still happy with the player and use it everyday..

I would not care for the DAB as DAB is not sounding particular good to my ears, FM is a lot better..

[elysion]

DAB would have only one advantage for me: To know which frequencies are used by DAB stations.

My real interest is in FM though, more exactly FM transmitters...

Think of it as an alternative to wireless headphones. That's why I need a really good FM sound quality. Or in other words: I'm searching for a mobile audio player with really good FM reception, good audio output, that is comfortable to use and has a long operation time on battery. The size of the D2+ should be no problem for me.

Archos has also a few interesting models and Cowon offers also other models that would do the job. The Cowon iAudio 9 would be also nice, the Archos models are quite cheap compared to the Cowon's, but I guess the Cowon's have more balls on the output side.

I don't want to buy a current iPod nano, although I have Macs. The FM reception of the iPod nano should be very good (according to Ian), but I want also a few features that the iPods don't offer. The SD card slot of the Cowon D2+ is nice and I'm almost sure that I can go cheaper for FM reception than with the iPods.

Some of the Archos player have also a built-in FM transmitter. Think of the nice applications possible with something like that.

[elysion]

I've bought the Cowon D2+ DAB, which has FM, DAB and DAB+ reception.

I have this nice little thing only since a few hours. The first impression is very good, but only time will show if the first impression was accurate.

Regarding the radio reception, I have already discovered a little secret:

The quality of the radio reception is VERY depeding on the type of 'phones you are using. I've tried with the DT 770 Pro's first because I've wanted to try if the Cowon could drive the 250 Ohm's without problem. That was not the problem. But the coiled cable isn't a good antenna (to say the least). It sounds like shite. I've changed to the HD25-1/II's afterwards. They have 1.5m steel cable which seems to be an almost ideal antenna for the Cowon. Now the radio reception is extremely good, even if I'm moving.

DAB/DAB+ works also very good and the quality of DAB radio in Switzerland seems to be quite good (compared to the FM radio stations).

I'm very curious if the 1.5m steel cable of the HD25-1/II's also does the job for other people (and other players with radion reception). Please post if you have something to tell abou that.

[natospec]

ive had a j3 since they came out. i love the thing to death, the only thing i wish it had was a slightly faster processor in it, just so i ould get to my muisic a hundredth of a second faster cowon products, even there midiocre ones, all have great sound.

[clausdk]

Sept 18, 2011 1:44:54 GMT elysion said:

I've bought the Cowon D2+ DAB, which has FM, DAB and DAB+ reception.

I have this nice little thing only since a few hours. The first impression is very good, but only time will show if the first impression was accurate.

Regarding the radio reception, I have already discovered a little secret:

The quality of the radio reception is VERY depeding on the type of 'phones you are using. I've tried with the DT 770 Pro's first because I've wanted to try if the Cowon could drive the 250 Ohm's without problem. That was not the problem. But the coiled cable isn't a good antenna (to say the least). It sounds like shite. I've changed to the HD25-1/II's afterwards. They have 1.5m steel cable which seems to be an almost ideal antenna for the Cowon. Now the radio reception is extremely good, even if I'm moving.

DAB/DAB+ works also very good and the quality of DAB radio in Switzerland seems to be quite good (compared to the FM radio stations).

I'm very curious if the 1.5m steel cable of the HD25-1/II's also does the job for other people (and other players with radion reception). Please post if you have something to tell abou that.

The Superlux models and others that use the metalrods for signal must have the best antennas, just guessing here

[elysion]

Even better if the Superluxes work also well... I'll give them a try soon...

BTW: There's a reason why I'm so fond of FM radio/transmitters recently. I'll tell it soon...

[elysion]

Until now, I've not found a possibilty to show the bitrate of the DAB/DAB+ stations on the Cowon. Ian told us that DAB/DAB+ in UK isn't really good compared to FM since the bitrate is usually very low.

At least with the Cowon in Switzerland, it seems that DAB/DAB+ reception is better than with FM (absolutely no noise, even if you move and also good sounding otherwise).

I have plans to get a state-of-the-art FM/DAB tuner from Cambridge Audio later, maybe I can aquired also a slightly older model used. 24-bit/192KHz upsampling with radio could be great, I guess.

[elysion]

I miss also something: It seems that the FM tuner of the D2+ DAB/DAB+ doesn't have RDS. What a pity...

[elysion]

Here are the Swiss DAB/DAB+ bitrates:

www.digiradio.ch/dab/programme/ch/index.html

Not very high bitrates mostly... the top is at 160kbps, but the most interesting stations are only 128kbps or even below. That's probably not more than in the UK.

Maybe the Cowon sound enhancing techniques are responsible for the good impression I have with the DAB radio.

FM radio is usually available in excellent quality in Switzerland, but it seems that the FM radio of the Cowon isn't as good as many hifi FM tuners. My Yamaha TX-592RDS is much better in that regard (even with a lousy cable as antenna).

[elysion]

We have a couple of private DAB+ radio stations here in Switzerland. With the HD25-1/II's and the D2+ DAB/DAB+ the reception is absolutely excellent. The sound quality is outstanding for radio.

I guess the sound enhancing features of the Cowon have a quite big influence on the perceived sound quality, but nevertheless it sounds very good.