Cowon S9+MediaMonkey

[JohnnyDead]

= Accurate album art, Playlist, Near gapless playback.

I got my Cowon S9 yesterday and it was a long day. I was baffled by the UI, I spent the entire day looking through forums, trying to figure why my album art wasn't showing up or why it was pixelated everytime I got one to show and then why my playlists were not showing up. I was so excited to get my S9 earlier in the day but at a certain point I was feeling like this may not be the player for me.


I was using MP3tag to embed album art into my music files and then using WinAmp to transfer the files to my player. I failed time after time, downloading more images to use as cover art, at different sizes. I notice that the album art for the song that came with the player has perfect album art so why dont my songs have it.


I tried looking for album art that was the same size and resolution but it would never show up clear in my S9. So I decided to download the only other mediaplayer I knew others had used with the S9 MediaMonkey. And thats when the Cowon S9 came to life for me. I could look up album art online throught MediaMonkey just like I did with WinAmp and then transfer the files to my player. When I did that the album art showed up perfectly everytime. I was so glad to see album art on my Cowon.

Then I had one other issue to tackle, making playlists, and with MediaMonkey all I had to do was make the playlist there and then send it to my S9 it automatically sends it to the playlist of the S9. You don't have the Sync your device with the entire library just the playlist you want. But there are two places in the S9 for playlist I realized, one never has anything in it so if you make playlist and then dont find them in there its because they never go there even though it says playlists. You have to look under folders and then select playlist and your playlists should be there. If you try to look under music it has a folder that says playlists too but its always empty.


So I got my album art and playlist issues resolved and I as an added bonus MediaMonkey seems to make my songs play right after one another sometimes they go right into one another, I am not sure if it is gapless because there seem to be small gaps between some songs, but most of the songs have a nice transition into one another. There is no loss of momentum throughout. It really makes for an enjoyable experience when listening to albums, playlists, etc. Though I know I am not the only one who uses MediaMonkey, in fact for some people MediaMonkey doesnt work the way they need it to. But I just wanted to share my experience and hopefully it will be useful to future S9 buyers.

[silvos3189]

i use mediamonkey with my D2 and i gotta say... it's wonderful!
i use it with mp3tag actually...
first thing i do when i rip songs is dump them on mp3tag to make sure they have the tags i want and change if they dont then dump them onto mediamonkey for editting and adding album art.
Wonderful =D

oh yea... johnnydead =[ if it's not too much to ask... could you seperate your paragraphs into seperate paragraphs or make it more easier to read?

[JohnnyDead]

Sorry I'm new here, I've never been in forums before. I hope its easier to read now.

[silvos3189]

much better =D

[zantoz24]

Let me know if you can keep the playlist on the device after switching the transfer protocol from MTP to MSC.

[Scarpad]

= Accurate album art, Playlist, Near gapless playback.

I got my Cowon S9 yesterday and it was a long day. I was baffled by the UI, I spent the entire day looking through forums, trying to figure why my album art wasn't showing up or why it was pixelated everytime I got one to show and then why my playlists were not showing up. I was so excited to get my S9 earlier in the day but at a certain point I was feeling like this may not be the player for me.


I was using MP3tag to embed album art into my music files and then using WinAmp to transfer the files to my player. I failed time after time, downloading more images to use as cover art, at different sizes. I notice that the album art for the song that came with the player has perfect album art so why dont my songs have it.


I tried looking for album art that was the same size and resolution but it would never show up clear in my S9. So I decided to download the only other mediaplayer I knew others had used with the S9 MediaMonkey. And thats when the Cowon S9 came to life for me. I could look up album art online throught MediaMonkey just like I did with WinAmp and then transfer the files to my player. When I did that the album art showed up perfectly everytime. I was so glad to see album art on my Cowon.

Then I had one other issue to tackle, making playlists, and with MediaMonkey all I had to do was make the playlist there and then send it to my S9 it automatically sends it to the playlist of the S9. You don't have the Sync your device with the entire library just the playlist you want. But there are two places in the S9 for playlist I realized, one never has anything in it so if you make playlist and then dont find them in there its because they never go there even though it says playlists. You have to look under folders and then select playlist and your playlists should be there. If you try to look under music it has a folder that says playlists too but its always empty.


So I got my album art and playlist issues resolved and I as an added bonus MediaMonkey seems to make my songs play right after one another sometimes they go right into one another, I am not sure if it is gapless because there seem to be small gaps between some songs, but most of the songs have a nice transition into one another. There is no loss of momentum throughout. It really makes for an enjoyable experience when listening to albums, playlists, etc. Though I know I am not the only one who uses MediaMonkey, in fact for some people MediaMonkey doesnt work the way they need it to. But I just wanted to share my experience and hopefully it will be useful to future S9 buyers.


I'm a registered Mediamonkey owner, it simply has worked with everyplayer I've ever thrown at it including an S9, O2 and A3. It's good stuff.

[jaimy]

Can someone maybe give specific instruction as to how to make the music art show with Media monkey?

I can't seem to make it work. it's all similar, grayish and dull.

It's not the end of the world but i will prefer it working then not.

[rockphantom]

I just started using Media Monkey a few days ago with my S9 for tagging my FLAC album collection. All you have to do sync the artwork to your audio files is to choose 'tag art to files if possible' in the option menu.

Artwork looks very sharp on the S9.
I am very impressed!

Milan

[34.50]

I am using mediamonkey, and I tried tagging many albums, but the album artwork just won't show up on the S9. I tried WMP to sync the files the first time, so maybe that's where I went wrong. I'm going to finish tagging my library, and delete all the songs on the s9, and try syncing it with mediamonkey.

[Arminius]

There's already been a few threads about it. I've been having trouble with the same problem, too.

The crappy implementation of included cover art (in ID3v2.4.0 tags) leads to many songs which are not properly recognized by the S9. There are 2 workarounds which aren't really acceptable but do work at least. One is changing the tags to v2.3.0 instead of 2.4.0 - at least that seems to work most of the time. The other solution means deleting the cover art from the tags and adding a "cover.jpg" file to the folder of the album. This way worked for me with all faulty files.

Yet, it is pretty annoying to me since I'd really love to see a proper implementation of the tag features which shouldn't be that hard to do - it does work for 2.3.0 obviously...

[Restless101]

So how exactly can I get a playlist on my Cowon S9?
I use Mediamonkey and I created a playlist called 'The Chill' (Gavin DeGraw, nevershoutnever, etc.)
Anyways, do I just right click it and click on send to Cowon s9?
Would that duplicate some mp3 files?
Would I still find the playlist under 'Playlists'?

Oh and off topic question: is 128 a good bitrate for a pop/rock song?

[Warhawk]

Sorry can't answer your main questions, but I can your off topic one.
128 is a horrible bit rate, especially if its mp3.
I suggest using at LEAST 192, preferably 256 or 320.

Of course, if you only have a few albums and have space to spare, just put pure flac files on it. :D

[TheDarkSide]

From my 2 days w/the S9, I've used J.River Media Jukebox to sync about 8 playlists, and all work perfectly. If you decide to switch from MTP to MSC mode, the playlists disappear from the S9. After you go back to MTP mode you will need to resync the playlists. No music files will be transferred, just the playlist files themselves.

[Ghisy]

One is changing the tags to v2.3.0 instead of 2.4.0 - at least that seems to work most of the time.
I'm using Easy CD-DA Extractor and I'm not sure how to check the ID3tag version. Is it possible to check/change version? Or do I have to switch to Mediamonkey?

I'm always cautious with programs like MM because of the automatic features. Like, I have custom cover arts for certain songs (like alternative covers for JPOP for example) and I don't wanna lose those.

Thanks to anyone who can give me some info!