Cowan iAudio

[davinp]

The Cowan iAudio player supports a bunch of audio, video, and photo file formats which include: MP3, WMA, OGG, FLAC, Xvid, JPG, PNG, BMP, and TXT. Most notably is the support for FLAC coded which is rarely if ever seen in a flash based MP3 player. Add to it your standard features such as FM radio, voice recording, EQ, clock, USB 2.0 and line-in recording to a nice compact 31.5 X 72 X 18 mm and you will get what looks to be a pretty nice player.
http://www.anythingbutipod.com/archives/2005/10/cowon-iaudio-u3-specs.php

[Rev. Nathan]

One thing they don't show you online is how great the sound quality is. That little thing churns out the power.

[comfortablyNUMB]

This will be the first flash player that plays back FLAC files. And like Rev Nathan said, the sound quality is unbeatable, as well as the features.

[Nova_442]

There's a good reason flash players don't play lossless codecs: they take way too much space. How many songs are you going to be able to fit on a flash player at 20 MB/song? :)

Still this does look like a nice player. Looking forward to real reviews on it!

[comfortablyNUMB]

There's a good reason flash players don't play lossless codecs: they take way too much space. How many songs are you going to be able to fit on a flash player at 20 MB/song? :)

Still this does look like a nice player. Looking forward to real reviews on it!

Yeah hah I know, you'd barely fit any FLAC encoded songs at all, but still it does play FLAC.


Cowon should come out with a micro drive player, with about 8 gigs, I would've bought it already.

[merouby]

First off - we dont know how much RAM this has. Secondly, still the only thing I see that makes it 'nicer' than the Nano is the amount of audio file formats available, line in recording (wished it had a Mic), and the FM tuner. Having said that, many people stick within three (MP3, WMA, AAC/MP4) anyway. When's the last time you seen a FLAC file on the internet for download?

Anyone who's ever seen a Nano in person (like I did for the first time yesterday) will walk away from these 'me-too' products in my opinion.

Still an interesting product. If it has 4GB of RAM and cost less than $150, it would be pretty cool - but we don't know that yet.

[ihsan125]

u guys r rite about the sound. i have the u2, it sounds amazing they came with cresyn earbuds, the buds feel weird but they sound great.

[comfortablyNUMB]

First off - we dont know how much RAM this has. Secondly, still the only thing I see that makes it 'nicer' than the Nano is the amount of audio file formats available, line in recording (wished it had a Mic), and the FM tuner. Having said that, many people stick within three (MP3, WMA, AAC/MP4) anyway. When's the last time you seen a FLAC file on the internet for download?

Anyone who's ever seen a Nano in person (like I did for the first time yesterday) will walk away from these 'me-too' products in my opinion.

Still an interesting product. If it has 4GB of RAM and cost less than $150, it would be pretty cool - but we don't know that yet.

RAM? I think you just mean capacity. And it probably won't come in 4 GB capacity, and definitely not at 150 bucks. But hey this plays video and shows pictures. And even though it's a pretty small screen for video, it'll support a million formats. And it's sound quality is unbeatable. Not comparable to an iPod's sound quality because its much much better. AND it has features like FM tuning, recording, voice recording, and inline recording.

[RepubliDAN]

The only thing that pisses me off about my X5 is that the joystick kind of sits to the left now.

[merouby]

RAM? I think you just mean capacity. Not comparable to an iPod's sound quality because its much much better

Both players use [i]RAM[/i) as in Random Access Memory as their 'capacity' as you call it, as they are both flash RAM players.

The Cowan does not have better sound quality. Pls state facts here. The Wolfson chip used in the Nano is beyond approach. It processes below and above what the human ear can hear at 100+ decibals SNR. Where do you get your info from? :shrug:

[davinp]

Check out the Cowan iAudio X5 MP4 Player at http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/. Like the iPod, it can play video

[comfortablyNUMB]

Both players use [i]RAM[/i) as in Random Access Memory as their 'capacity' as you call it, as they are both flash RAM players.

The Cowan does not have better sound quality. Pls state facts here. The Wolfson chip used in the Nano is beyond approach. It processes below and above what the human ear can hear at 100+ decibals SNR. Where do you get your info from? :shrug:


Sorry, you might be right. But i know that just about all the Cowon players sound great, read anywhere about the Cowon players and sound quality will be rated highly. So this player cant be much different.

[BinaryRaven]

When's the last time you seen a FLAC file on the internet for download?


I download FLAC files all the time, and almost every week (yesterday actually) I have to convert an album over to .mp3 that was encoded in FLAC.

It's a great flash player with a lot of features, but it's a flash player, space is limited and for the same price you can get a drive based player for 20x the space. If a Drive based player had all thoses features with a great battery life, then I'll go ape crap over it all i can say is, cool beans.