New X7 doesn't work, Are there any _good_ players? [Archive]

dissapointed!

01-11-2011, 05:03

I'm really frustrated with mp3 players in general. There don't seem to be any decent ones any more, everyone follows Apple's awful fad-driven design decisions!

Firstly there was the switch a while back to built-in rechargable batteries - I thought at the time that this would mean players becoming unusable after a year or two, and that's exactly what happened to my (otherwise great) Sony players - replacing the dead battery costs as much as the player did. No user replaceable batteries available for those models.

On top of that the costs of players seems to actually be _higher_ than they were a year or two ago, even for the same capacity.

Then there's the incredibly tiresome 'touchscreen' fad, something that is pointless on a pure music player, making it harder to operate than with buttons. But every manufacturer goes for that now, because its what Apple do, and 'the market' demands everyone copy Apple.

The X7 certainly suffers from the last of these, its interface is horribly clunky (though at least it has physical volume controls, unlike Creative's offering - having to operate a touchscreen to tweak the volume is insane). And its touchscreen is really inaccurate - you have to touch adjacent to some icons for it to respond.

Now, the good thing about the X7, as everyone says, is its more like Sony sound quality (in fact slightly better) than it is Apple's, and it doesn't have the stupid low-volume that Apples have long had and that Sony now has as well. Also, awesome battery life, something quite important to me. So it gets some things absolutely right.

But...as everyone has said, playlists don't work (how did they manage to mess this up?) and the UI is awful. In what way is repeatedly dragging your finger across an inaccurate touchscreen a better means of scrolling than just pressing an up or down button?

Most of all, though, upon receiving this thing I tried loading my music on it and found it (a) kept disconnecting part way through, and (b) finally locked up entirely, even the reset button doesn't help, it just freezes in the 'initialising' screen, leaving strange white dots and lines on the display. Unusable.

So its going back. But I can't find anything else worth buying (gimmicky touchscreens, low volume limits, poor sound quality, bad UI, stupid built-in non-replaceable batteries, higher prices than a year ago - every player seems to have several of these traits now). So I might be digging out my ancient minidisk player or going back to tapes or something! Or perhaps just make do with humming to myself!

I blame 'the market' for preferring stupid gimmicks to getting the basics right.

Why can no manufacturer avoid screwing something up? How can Cowon get the sound quality so right and then mess up playlists?

Mr. Black

01-11-2011, 07:27

I like my Sansa Clip+, so much that I'm going to buy a backup one .

meurglys0

01-11-2011, 07:52

So its going back. But I can't find anything else worth buying (gimmicky touchscreens, low volume limits, poor sound quality, bad UI, stupid built-in non-replaceable batteries, higher prices than a year ago - every player seems to have several of these traits now). So I might be digging out my ancient minidisk player or going back to tapes or something! Or perhaps just make do with humming to myself!

I know nothing I will say will clear out your disappointment... I partially agree with you: there are many brands out there, but so little real options. I did my research before buying my X7 and I had narrowed my options down to two: Cowon X7 and 5.5 Generation Ipod (240 GB).

These both have:
- Customizable EQ (Ipod + Rockbox)
- Great HDD Space
- FLAC Support
- Drag'n Drop Support
- Gapless playback (Believe me even Zune 120 can't handle gapless playback; they say it can but it CANNOT)
- Good sound quality [IPOD 5.5 has good SQ due to the Wolfson DAC inside it - which later generation IPODs no longer have. Only yesterday I compared extensively the SQ of IPOD 5.5 vs Cowon X7 and I assure you the difference in SQ is negligible. Even there's little difference between IMOD (headphone out) and X7 in means of SQ. Zunes are also fine. What I'm trying to say is that all the major mainstream portable players have fine SQ, but of course reportedly they are not even close to Hm-801 and other audiophile players which also have major problems like hdd space, UI, size, cost etc.]

Then you have an imperfect interface and an average touchscreen on the X7. You have the wheel on the IPOD, a "genius idea"? No. [thumbdwn] Still, neither the interface and touchscreen on the X7, nor the wheel on the IPOD are trash. They are imperfect, but good enough.

There are too many complaints about the X7, so I believe it's a shame for Cowon to have manufactured a device so susceptible to failure. (But then my Zune 120 died on me after 8 months without warning.) However there are not many options out there that harbor so many positive traits. So send your X7 back, but don't turn away from it, get a replacement, start anew. That's my recommendation to you...

Hope things turn out well.

Regards.

kyleclay

01-11-2011, 09:41

Totally agree with you......I kept my X7 simply because there is nothing out there I like...To me...you might as well have an Ipod.
I am viewing this X7 as a temporary at best. Simply for HDD size and Screen size. Thats it. Getting playlist on this thing is a pain in the rear.
It is by far, without question, the buggiest device I have ever owned.
I was so proud and happy to try something else but, I can never go back to Cowon.
I do have experience so before you try to give me all the work arounds for this device, I will say; I have in my arsenal beginning about 7 years ago, creative labs 1g mp3 player, Ipod classic, Zune 32g, creative zen, Ipod touch. I have worked in IT.
I, as a consumer, just want to buy a media player that works, that I do not have to spend time with figuring out work arounds and other crap. I want to hook it up, sync, drag and drop other docs and thats it.
This X7 has totally turned me off to alternative MP3 players. This is why people use apple and the likes.
Oh it sounds all noble and cool to bash others and talk of fads and the like, yeah I have done that too but, reality is, the masses buy these because they work. We tout alternative and better but reality is people buy the popular because its popular because it works and is easier.
I wanted X7 to work so bad, gave it all the positives I could but in the end, can't even really enjoy it. Too much work.
Bottom Line is X7 miserably failed and will turn people back to Apple.
Peace

JackBauer

01-11-2011, 17:12

JackBauer

01-11-2011, 17:17

These both have:
- FLAC Support

Regards.

sorry, but apple will never have flac support (actualy maybe 5yrs down the line)

kyleclay

01-11-2011, 17:32

sorry, but apple will never have flac support (actualy maybe 5yrs down the line)

After this experience, I am not concerned with FLAC files. My understanding is that IPOD will play WAV files. I haven't tried it but message boards says it does, and if so, well all the better.
I will go back to quality next generation that increases storage, trash the X7 and never look back. [surrend]

JackBauer

01-11-2011, 17:46

there is nothing wrong with flac files, its the player that has the problem!!

kyleclay

01-11-2011, 18:02

there is nothing wrong with flac files, its the player that has the problem!!

Yeah true, very true, love the FLAC files, just so turned off by this player....never ever have I had this kind of problem. This was an expensive experience for me. What I meant was that I will go with WAV files if need be for the non-compression or low compression. However, in the end, the sound simply was not worth it, all my other MP3 players just played...just did playlist....just worked. And that by far is the most important of all.

meurglys0

01-11-2011, 23:22

sorry, but apple will never have flac support (actualy maybe 5yrs down the line)

Ipod generation 5.5 is rockboxable which provides the flac support.

Still, even if you choose to buy a newer Apple product, there's Apple Lossless codec you can turn to. Just convert your flacs to apple lossless and you will have lossless files playing on your Ipod. But will you be able to enjoy your music with no customizable EQ, that is the question....

dissapointed!

01-12-2011, 05:57

well i'd never go for sony, cant see what the fuss is about, creative have been ok, their Zen vision M, was the don!and then came apple touch...really poor sound, but great user interface-heck even mediamonkey transfered all my files to it without problems!! but cos of the poor sound and the 64gb space, i moved onto the Cowon!!!

now everyone agrees that the cowon sound is the don at the moment, esp with its equilaizer settings. Cowon released the X7, now with a massive hard drive and great battery power, i'd have to be crazy not to get it!

well what a disaster the X7 is!!! went through two of them!! it was like going back to the stone age!!! transfering playlists was a disaster, i encountered more problems with the x7 than all my previous mp3 players put together!!!

now i'll just wait for cowon to get off their fat ar55es and do something about it! or wait for creative to come up with a more decent player, or apple to improve their sound (i doubt that'll happen though)

Well, in my opinion Sony _used_ to be very good, in the short period between the point when they ditched Atrac/Sonic Stage and the point when they embraced touch screens, hugely increased their prices and imposed a volume cap. During that period they had very good sound quality and good capacity for the price and better volume than Apple, and were reliable and well built. And amongst the best battery life. Now they seem to have given up competing and have lost most of those advantages. (They were actually pretty good as hardware even before then, but Sonic Stage was a piece of crap and the use of Atrac was a major limitation).

Part of my reasoning for going for the X7 was that if I'm going to have to pay 2 to 3 times as much as I did for the last player I bought, I might as well get one with massively more storage so I can just bung everything on it and forget about it, and don't have to keep changing the tracklist.

Now it looks like the ipod classic is the only option (no point getting a Touch and paying 3 times as much as my old Sony for just 2 times the storage and _worse_ sound quality). Shame it has no radio (I want a radio!) and dodgy sound qualty, mediocre battery life, _and_ a volume cap though.

There just are no good options these days. Looked at Creative's offering - idiotic control system, you have to go through menus on the touchscreen just to tweak the volume! How do you do that when its in your pocket?

I don't understand the way this market works - surely if someone produced a _good_ player it would sell? Why are they all flawed in one way or another? Cowon looked good till it turned out they employ chimpanzees to write their firmware.

Just make something with top sound quality, simple WMP/drag-and-drop loading of tracks and playlists, and a simple button-based control system (NO touchscreen nonsense!). And either 32Gb+ of flash or a decent sized hard drive, and at least 40 hours or more battery life. Ideally go back to letting you insert AAA batteries instead of the short-lived built-in rechargeables. If they must use built-in ones, make them user-replaceable!

That's it (maybe gapless playback and a radio as a bonus). It's not asking a lot, surely?

kyleclay

01-12-2011, 06:16

No its not a lot to ask for in this day and time. Companies have had plenty of time to learn the market and have an MP3 player meeting most desires of the consumer.
I struggled on what to buy, it was between IPOD classic and X7.....shoulda went with the Classic.
By the way, I have IPOD classic 64g first generation bought in 2005.....my daughter is still using it, same battery. Can't get her to part with it.

kyleclay

01-12-2011, 06:20

Ipod generation 5.5 is rockboxable which provides the flac support.

Still, even if you choose to buy a newer Apple product, there's Apple Lossless codec you can turn to. Just convert your flacs to apple lossless and you will have lossless files playing on your Ipod. But will you be able to enjoy your music with no customizable EQ, that is the question....

Wished I had went with the IPOD classic....I was at a fork in the road with X7 and classic.....there is a reason the road is less traveled....its been a bumpy ride....X7 froze up on me 3 times in an hour last night......just another reason to turn around and go back. [unsure]

JackBauer

01-12-2011, 13:22

meurglys0

01-12-2011, 15:46

Wished I had went with the IPOD classic....I was at a fork in the road with X7 and classic.....there is a reason the road is less traveled....its been a bumpy ride....X7 froze up on me 3 times in an hour last night......just another reason to turn around and go back. [unsure]

How does it freezes and then comes back?

The touchscreen of my X7 froze 3 times in the month that I've had it. It happens when the music is playing and suddenly the screen stops responding while the music is still playing. The tactile buttons all function normally but the screen is dead. I turn off and on, still no change. I noticed that everytime this happened the battery was either full or near full but never close to drain. Then I plug the recharge adaptor to the device, it says "battery is recharging", after a few seconds I unplug it, then comes the screen back on! I also noticed that all three times this happened, I had the sleep mode on. I had been undecided about whether to keep the sleep mode on or just have the device turn off completely, so I had changed the setting a few times. Every time The freezing touchscreen phenomenon took place it was on "sleep mode" setting set to "on" and the battery was far from drained. Another odd bug...

kyleclay

01-13-2011, 05:07

How does it freezes and then comes back?

The touchscreen of my X7 froze 3 times in the month that I've had it. It happens when the music is playing and suddenly the screen stops responding while the music is still playing. The tactile buttons all function normally but the screen is dead. I turn off and on, still no change. I noticed that everytime this happened the battery was either full or near full but never close to drain. Then I plug the recharge adaptor to the device, it says "battery is recharging", after a few seconds I unplug it, then comes the screen back on! I also noticed that all three times this happened, I had the sleep mode on. I had been undecided about whether to keep the sleep mode on or just have the device turn off completely, so I had changed the setting a few times. Every time The freezing touchscreen phenomenon took place it was on "sleep mode" setting set to "on" and the battery was far from drained. Another odd bug...

I have reset it every time. Do a reset will take care of it as well.

kyleclay

01-13-2011, 05:08

did u tell cowon?? u need to tell them!!

Yes I did tell them.

JackBauer

01-13-2011, 16:28

mine use to do some freaky shlt!!, for example once it froze so i had to reset it, when it came back all it displayed was chinese letterings and only played songs called "Cowon S9" god knows where it got them from, cos i didnt install em! am gald i sent the brick back!

dissapointed!

01-13-2011, 19:03

Well, it went back, and I got an ipod classic. And, to be honest, I'm still not happy (no pleasing me!). The Apple is very clearly not as good sound quality as either the Cowon or the Sony. And no radio of course. But at least it works!

Also, I've never before tried Apple's much talked about 'wheel control' and frankly I think its a bit crap, though not quite as bad as touchscreens. Can't believe this clumsy control has been so talked about over the years. Didn't the designer get some sort of celebrity status out of this weak idea?

Its just bad design - uses 2 dimensions to perform a 1 dimensional task. Sony's button based system is far better (press left/right to go through the alphabet, press up/down to scroll the list, list accelerates if you hold button down). It makes my thumb ache having to spend several minutes going round and round to go down a long list of tracks/artists. Simply holding a button down to scroll is much less effort.

If only I could have felt any trust in the X7 I'd have stuck with that, despite its poor touchscreen. But no way would I risk getting another one and having it freeze up later when I couldn't easily return it.

Did anyone try making playlists with the Cowon media software that came with it? Would that have worked where WMP failed? I didn't get a chance to try that before it died.

kyleclay

01-14-2011, 05:09

You said the most important thing about apple "It works". A consumer just wants to use their product. Not mess with it for hours or days only to finally listen to music and freeze up. I feel like this device is from 8 years ago.

I used the jriver software they recommended. Playlist are a pain. You can make them. You can't sync them. You can do them a couple of ways but I found the easiest by far was to create the playlist in jriver, but add the songs to the playlist from the X7 and then export the playlist to the X7 playlist folder as .M3U unicode. This was easiest for me instead of editing the playlist path of songs.
I posted a step by step in another forum about playlist.
I actually liked the ipod wheel....I didn't think it was that bad, but, not as good as a button and far better than this touch screen design.
I kept my X7, gonna wait on a large capacity flash drive from apple or creative I think.
Cowon was a nightmare experience for me.

Vic!

01-23-2011, 07:24

Tommifier

01-23-2011, 14:17

Vic, Cowon tends to release players with bugs. The S9, for instance, was certainly not nearly as good as it is now when it was first released.

The X7 will most likely get some firmware updates to fix it, as that's what Cowon normally does with the players, but it might not get a whole lot of attention, seeing as they just released the D3. My advice would be to wait and find out.

meurglys0

01-23-2011, 14:18

Hello!
First, sorry for my english, I'm french and you know french with english... ^^
Currently I own a cowon S9 and I'm satisfied concerning the audio quality (I like jet effect and the EQ) : I want to keep this caracteristic, but the capacity is just by 32go, I need more than 80go, 160go is actually perfect. Moreover I need a player which is able to play my AAC, and the S9 doesn't. Does really the X7?
Some features are to my mind necessary, FLAC support, more than 25 hours autonomy, UMS protocol... Basic no? :)
I have read almost all the topics about the X7 and I'm desespered to read all these problems: froze, playlist, etc... Do you mean that a future firmware will be repear all these "dysfunctions"? I want to buy one next week and I'm very astonished by cowon in order to the precedent players quality... All the X7 serie has problems, or is that just a bad probability?

Thank you for answers or just reading :)

Look, if you search the web, you'll see that some users of every brand out there have complains about their devices. So it's not only Cowon X7 that may have defects. So if I were you, I would focus on my preferences, choose the brand and model I want to get, and then I would pray that my device is not one of the defected ones.

As for battery life... I have observed that using only FLAC files, having the display and the EQ "on" all the time, the battery of X7 lasts about 8 hours. If you play mp3 files, the battery life will increase immensely: the more the bitrate, the more energy will be used to play the music. If you set the display to go off after 10 seconds, it will increase the battery life dramatically etc.

Vic!

01-23-2011, 16:51

Ok, thank you guies!
I tought the same things for the S9 and now I'm satisfied! I will pray for a good device and releases that fixe bugs.
I don't use the EQs but I use a lot the BBE effects and Mpenhance because of the real improve of the sound. I don't search 104 hours battery life ^^ , but minimum 25h.
And it's the truth, actually all brands have bugs, there is no Graal...

masterwels

09-30-2011, 21:40

After many frustrating hours, I have found that .m3u playlists do work.
The trick is that they must conform to the full syntax .. not just a list of files.

I created a playlist folder in music folder on X7 hard disk.
The paths in the playlist are relative to this folder.

Syntax of .m3u files is..

#EXTM3U
#EXTINF:123,01 Come Together
..\Pop\Classics\_Band\Beatles\Abbey Road\01 Come Together.mp3
#EXTINF:123,02 Something
..\Pop\Classics\_Band\Beatles\Abbey Road\02 Something.mp3
etc.

where the EXTINF line shows the duration (any value will do) and the text following the comma is what appears in the playlist (I use the filename which for me is usually the "artist - title")
The following line is the corresponding path of the music file.

I wrote a series of dos cmd batch files to convert a list of files to this format.
(after many hrs of work) I got this to work, but had to remove "&" from any folder or filename due to the piping.
(use of "&" in batch files treats string as multiple command separator)
This was an exercise in itself!
These batch files need to be in the same folder as the playlists and the path has to reflect the path that will be used on the X7.

2 things i found:
1) no trailing spaces on any line .. (I had trailing space on lines beginning with #)
2) limit of m3u size .. appears to not recognise playlist if > 64k in size

Anyway, if you only have a couple of playlists (I generate mine from paths using another batch file), then saving a playlist from winamp, media monkey or other players that use this syntax should also do the job.

Good luck

avih

10-03-2011, 14:21

id recommend the cowon D2/D2+ they are pretty good-
small, good sound quality, very good battery life, quite indestructible, and even though its old its still considered a very high quality player.
check out the forums:)

Hudson

10-15-2011, 11:15

I know nothing I will say will clear out your disappointment... I partially agree with you: there are many brands out there, but so little real options. I did my research before buying my X7 and I had narrowed my options down to two: Cowon X7 and 5.5 Generation Ipod (240 GB).

These both have:
- Customizable EQ (Ipod + Rockbox)
- Great HDD Space
- FLAC Support
- Drag'n Drop Support
- Gapless playback (Believe me even Zune 120 can't handle gapless playback; they say it can but it CANNOT)
- Good sound quality [IPOD 5.5 has good SQ due to the Wolfson DAC inside it - which later generation IPODs no longer have. Only yesterday I compared extensively the SQ of IPOD 5.5 vs Cowon X7 and I assure you the difference in SQ is negligible. Even there's little difference between IMOD (headphone out) and X7 in means of SQ.

Hope things turn out well.

Regards.

Can i ask, do all the Ipod Classic 5th generation players have this Wolfson DAC in them or just some of them ??

Cheffums

10-26-2011, 11:26

I know the OP is very old now, but I think this is worth pointing out: Apples 'it just works' philosophy is all fine and dandy, but Apple products break too. I'm sorry, but this is the nature of technology. You spend 400 bucks and you expect it to just work, but that's not the case. All iPods I've owned and iPods my family has owned have had weird bugs, like songs and whole albums randomly not showing up, or being duplicated, or other strange things. Sometimes the volume will freeze. Sometimes videos freeze. Sometimes the headphone jack just messes up and you stop getting half the sound. It happens. It doesn't mean apple is bad. If your mp3 player from another company breaks after a few months, it doesn't mean they're bad either. Providing stability while competing with bigger and bolder features is not always easy. I'm not saying feel sorry for the companies, I'm not saying don't be pissed you spent 400 bucks on something that bricked in a week (although it was probably your fault), I'm saying don't pin it all on one company or act like Apple is the saviour. All electronics suffer from this. If you don't want to deal with that, stay away from them.

And that's my rant :) Truly some companies are worse than other and make things that don't work at all, but Cowon in my experience is about equal to Apple. S9 and J3 seem to be their most stable product if you want to try again, however if you care about multiple playlists no they're not very convenient for that either. IMO people should start listening to albums from start to finish anyway ;)

AshenTech

11-30-2011, 01:40

I had to "recover" a bunch of ipods a while back for a friend because their power went out and all of them where in their docks with itunes running(Fluke i know but....) he buys music for his family twice a month, hes not a tech moron but he couldnt get the players to recover, I had to use itunes to fully restore them to factory defaults....they had to reload their music....

point is, not even apple makes devices without some...risks of problems.

years back I had 2 iPods I won that I discovered I could effectivly brick by putting poor quality mp3's on them, for some reason just having them on the device made the device lock up...

again, in short, no device is perfect, cowons all have their firmware issues when they first come out, but at least cowon dosnt tend to just dump devices without support(i know they have had a couple misses on that)

I would still take an x7 160 over my c2 16+32gb or my iriver h10 (i have considered tossing a large drive into it), or my fuze, or hell a j3 even, I like to carry around alot of music and audio books, the x7 would save me the hassle of constantly converting everything to ogg(not that i wouldnt encode my flac to ogg to save space and sync time)

Cheffums, I tend to use file/folder browsing setup with each band/group in their own folder and each album in its own folder, this makes finding what i want easy, and i also just listen album by album, I mean it would be nice if you could make play lists with mtp mode OR make m3u's using auto m3u or the like, but the fact is, on my older samsung and like players I mostly made play lists to save the time getting to folders(small screens and/or bad folder browsing setups)

I agree, its easier and for me, more fun to just listen by album :)

having played with a patients x7 at my mothers office(i help out at her office when i can) I liked it, and the person said they had 3 of them in the family and have had no issues, BUT they follow the rules I do with id tags(cleaned up and in good shape) and they dont use play lists so I guess that could be part of it :)

what cowon should do with devices they stop supporting is opensource the firmware and let the community have at it, its not like it would hurt them any if they released the firmware for the d2/d2+ for example now that they dont make/sell/support them anymore.

meh its still better then sandisk with the view or creative with their abizmal sdcard management/support, or or or....again i could go on and on.....and on and on and on....hey we all should be able to agree, cowon's worst firmware is still better then the likes of the s:flo2's firmware!!!

Hudson

12-25-2011, 17:19

WOW.... This post has made my current decison not to buy an X7 Even more so.... i may try and look for an ipod 5.5 gen classic with that nic DAC you talked about, but an X7 is just out, i do not have the time or inclination to deal with that number of firmware issues, i am so glad i came onto this forum, i was looking for info on buying but seeing all these issues has simply put me off..... i bet Cowon hate this site !!! Just where is the best place to get an ipod 5.5 ???

smackfreek

12-25-2011, 18:01

WOW.... This post had mad my current decison not to buy an X7 Even more so.... i may try and look for an ipod 5.5 gen classic with that nic DAC you talked about, but an X7 is just out, i do not have the time or inclination to deal with that number of firmware issues, i am so glad i came onto this forum, i was looking for info on buying but seeing all these issues has simply put me off..... i bet Cowon hate this site !!! Just where is the best place to get an ipod 5.5 ???
Sorry to tell you this but I have had my x7 for a few days now and after fiddling with it and learning my way around it it SMOLDERS the ipod . Ipod's dont have nearly the options to adjust the sound quality. I play it through the aux set up I have in my Lexus and the ipod(s) I had in it before don't even COME CLOSE to matching the audio quality. The highs stand out and the bass is silky smooth and if I don't like it I can go into Jetaudio and tweak it so it's "just right".........try doing that with an ipod lol

Hudson

12-26-2011, 12:47

AshenTech

12-26-2011, 14:53

I hate to have to explain this to you, but alot of people only find forums or do reviews when they have problems, not when they have a perfectly working wonderful device.

taking the few posts you have seen here, or on abi as proof the x7 is a bad device is like taking newegg reviews for hardware such as my sata card as fact, its a bad idea...

example with the card i have, its default drivers are the first ever published for the device, and the card also comes with very old firmware+bios on the card, after a quick run to station drivers all these issues are non-issues....but most people rate the card on using it with default drivers.
oh yeah and they try and raid 2 ssd's on a pci-e 1x card(idiotic)

the X7 has had its issues, but no more so then an ipod or any other device of this nature, google around you will find plenty of people who have had problems with ipods, many more so then cowon devices, this is because they sell so well.

there are forums dedicated to dealing with issues on apple devices like applefix (to many for me to even try and list them all) I remember finding one dedicated to ipod/ipad/iphone issues, NO device is perfect, I have seen boxes of dead ipods (talking literally not figuratively) when i worked at a retailer years back we literally had a box full of them we had to bubble wrap and ship out ever few months, the classics it was almost always the hdd that died, the smaller units it was more common battery or headphone jack issues, the funny thing was we sold as many samsung and sandisk players as we sold apple devices and had far lower returns, but then again, we would at times get returns on apple devices with a demand for a replacement despite the fact it was user error that caused their issue......

TL;DR dont take the few reports here as proof the x7 is worse then an ipod, the fact is people only tend to find these places when they have issues and the sames true for apple, google around a bit and you will find ipods have just as many people complaining about problems as any other device, if not alot more due to high sales numbers.

I will still take a cowon over an ipod if only because I have had less troubles with cowon support then apple support(apple always wanted to charge me when i would rma a defective device for somebody....cowon never has....even on a couple our of warr items, they just fixed them and sent them back...)

hippo

12-26-2011, 19:19

I know the ipod is not as good at SQ as the X7, but that is only of use if it actually works ! And going off a lot of posts on this forum that is a case of hit and miss.... not good enough in my book to take the chance.
I have my X7 almost a year now.I am always on the move - airplane,bus,train,hotels etc.I is being exploited by me without much care,
traveling in bags,dropped few times..
It has never failed me.
I treat it as - super mp3 player with music videos.
I use it also to watch cartoons/movies and listening to fm radios in my exotic destinations.
Can you try it somewhere before buying?or you live in the middle of nowhere
without access to electronic shops?then buy such stuff on holidays,or bizness trips.

paddlaren

01-14-2012, 05:26

I agree with the initial post.

As Apple got share of the market everyone make the same thing and there are no alternatives.

Just take a look at the head phone connector. I used buy angled one but those are joust impossible to find today - apple decided how the connector shall look like an now all follows that. Sorry this does not work on an iAduio X5 as the contact inside will lose and I have to solder it again (20th time lucky)

Now I have read that the SDXC memory cards can be used in many Android mobile phones if formated with FAT32 and this is where I will spend my next Euros on. €90 for a 64GB card will be cheep enough for a test and if it works I will go for a 128GB later on (€220).

Meanwhile I will pray for a decent HD player.

AshenTech

01-14-2012, 13:21

headphones with angle jacks arent hard to find...you just need to stop buying stuff from retail outlets only.

every set of brainwavz I have had has had angled jacks, all my soundmagic's have had angled jacks, and even before apple, it was hit or miss to find angled vs strait, depended on brand and model, as it does now....

cans tend to have strait, iem's it can go either way.

the 64gb cards and 128gb cards will work in the x5 just have to format them to fat32, for android, some devices now support exfat, its just file system driver so i would expect more and more to support current gen sdxc cards in native format....may even start seeing NTFS support(that would be great).

as to size, the x5 is still a great player if you rockbox it, replace the hdd with a larger hdd(60gb can be had for under 40bucks for example) toss in a fresh high capacity battery and your set.

if you want to do the mod a friend of mine did to the x5, he replaced the built in headphone jack with one on a wire(used a high end headphone extention and soldered the wires to the pcb replacing the internal jack)

most people have this bad image in their minds of hdd players, mostly derived from early hdd based units like the old ipods where the hdd would die at times form a 6inch fall to a table top....this just isnt the case anymore, current hdd's are far more durable....

i know a person who has 3 x7's and has had ZERO issues even with the one thats used with a mac(they have an app on the mac that cleans the junk files when you eject external devices), hes had zero issues with any of them after the last firmware update, and before that he only had minor annoyances from what he says.

I would love an x7, had i the money I would order myself one and trade/resell my c2....dont see myself ever needing more then 120gb for on the go use.....

paddlaren

01-14-2012, 15:18

Hi!

The x5 I got is a 60Gb version and I have been Rockboxing for a few years now and since then everything is about to get as close to Rockbox as possible. It just have exactly what I need (and a lot more I can ignore).

I am very interested in the headphone jack mod. How did he fix the jack? I have been into replacing it but gave up and went with the Archos 5it 500Gb instead. It died yesterday and is a piece of crap if things starts to mess up. No support. Can't even replace a faulty hard drive as the serial number is burned into the damn thing. Stupid. A very closed and protected system. Currently I cannot even load the original firmware.

The angled and straight jack is mostly about Koss The Plug for me (I think it is the plug). I cannot stand the popular versions with silicon tops, I like the foam ones from Spark. Fits my ears very well. Those are just perfect for audio books. For music one shall use real headphones :)

Do you know if the x7 have bookmarking? I need it when I switch between audiobooks and music. Bookmarking is vital for me. Rockbox can bookmark on stop and the iAudio D2 have bookmark. So did original firmware in x5 but by the time I bought that I hadn't discovered audiobooks so it where never an issue :)

If I will conitnue with my x5 I have had thoughs of make some modifications. First I like to replace the buttons and headphone jack and put it in a slightly larger case. The little joystick cannot be found no more and have started to mess. I am also looking into using a IDE<->CF card converter with a SDXC <-> CF converter and put a 64 or (as it will take some time) 128Gb flash in it. With a larger box a 50pin PATA<->SATA or -> ZIF will fit and I can go for a larger disk.
This is a project though and projects tends not to fit in my life. Sad somehow.

AshenTech

01-14-2012, 20:59

my friends jack had issues and he just got a good quality/high end extention cable(non-coiling) and cut off around 6-8 inches, then replaced the players jack with the extention, wasnt that hard, you can use F4 Tape OR epoxy putty/plastic putty at the player end(inside/sticking out) to give the setup a bit more security.
e
as to tips on IEM's, I cant stand sil tips outside the hybrid style tips, if you want max comfort with an L plug try the sound magic pl-50's, with a bit of EQ they can go quite low and quite high(much more balanced), by default they are mid centric.

the pl-50's IMHO are still one of the best bang/buck pairs for comfort in their price range as long as you get a set of sony hybrid style tips for them.(they come with ALOT of tips, the foamies are loved by many, but most of us prefer the hyrbids)

Im pretty sure the x7 would have bookmarking, every other cowon I have used has had it, will have to wait to hear from another owner OR till i get to play with one again at the office.

the cf/sd setup is quite easy, helped do a few to various players, if your use to doing this stuff you can do it in 15 min or less, if not, give yourself an hour and take your time...IMHO its worth it....

I would be happy to have an x5 with 60gb to be honest, the closist i have is an iriver h20 with 20gb hdd for now....and i need to get a new lens for it.

paddlaren

01-15-2012, 02:31

Thanks for the tips. The pl-50's seems to be an alternative. As it seems they are not sold in Sweden at all so I would never find them in a store ;) Will have to purchase over the Internet I guess.

The tense is high while I am waiting for a clear answer about the bookmarks. Maby someone else have an answer?

For those Rockboxers with Android phones listening to audio books I can recommend the "Smart AudioBook Player" [thumbsup]
https://market.android.com/details?id=ak.alizandro.smartaudiobookplayer

It have almost everything I am used to for audiobooks:
* Separate location for audiobooks
* One directory == one book
* In the book library listing there is a little slider indicating progress on each book. Still to find out what it will look like when I listened to some books.
* History for each book (when and where in the book did I play, pause, fast forward etc).

The on feature I miss is a repeat. Sometimes I sleep with a book in my ear and when I wakes in the middle of the night I like to have the book in my ear (I fall asleep) instead of a sudden though from my work (I stay awake).

On the desktop I use Clementine player on Linux. Works on Windows as well.

AshenTech

01-16-2012, 12:13

you can get soundmagic a many places.

amazon
focalprice
mp4nation
dealextreme(slow as hell)

among others, if you go mp4nation they also have their own line of IEM's that are quite good for the most part.

I currently own the proalpha's and m4's of the brainwavz line, and they are VERY VERY good, the proalpha's come with hybrid style tips, the m4's come with less friendly silicon tips and comply foamies, BUT you can replace the m4's with hybrids for far better comfort.

the pl-50's are still better comfort wise due to their small nozzle and TINY size tho.

honestly I cant say enough about the price/perf ratio or sound magic or brainwavz sets.