Slashdot Mirror

I just noticed that the iAUDIO U3 supports BBE!

I had BBE on an old AIWA cassette walkman type portable.

For those that don't know, BBE undoes the waveform inversion which occurs multiple times throughout the audible range when playing through typical transducers (speakers and headphones cause this problem). BBE performs the same inversion at the appropriate frequencies, so when the speakers/headphones do it, they are actually undoing that unwanted effect.

The sound difference between switching BBE on and off for me was like night and day. I never had it switched off it was so good.

Anyone with a BBE enabled COWON can confirm the effectiveness in their unit?

see iaudio. many of their players support ogg, and they appear as a normal usb drive to the computer.

http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/iaudio/x5/

I think most of these will do what you want (all the same company... hope I'm not sounding like a fanboy)

JetAudio iAudio5 1G(AAA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 1G(AA Batteries)
JetAudio iAudio G3 2G(AA Betteries)

All made by Cowon From the site about the iAudio5:
Playback:
MPEG 1/2/2.5 layer 3 (8Kbps ~ 320Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz) and VBR
All ranges of WMA7 WMA (20Kbps ~ 192Kbps) (8kHz ~ 48kHz)
WMA9 CBR(5Kbps Mono ~ 320Kbps Stereo)
VBR(48Kbps ~ 256Kbps)
* WMA9 Pro, Lossless and Voice Codec not supported.
OGG (Currently support up to Q10)
WAV (Up to 48Khz Stereo)

I use a Cowon iAudio 5 with 1 gig flash memory to play back my ogg vorbis files. They also have 2 gig models. (as well a hard drive models)

I am suprised that the iAudio X5 was not mentioned: its a superb device, marred by only 2 possible flaws that I know of:

1. silly "color sound" logo on front screen
2. audio jack is side-mounted, though it does make it more secure than a top-mounted one.

Maybe the fact that you cannot buy it in retail stores was a problem for the reviewers. Even so, video support, Ogg, USB host, full USB mass storage implementation, long battery life ... its hard not to gush.

The ui is great, just the one toggle on the front. It is more powerful than appears at first and many features are not even listed in the specs. You start to notice all of the subtle stuff once you get the manual.

I purchased mine BEFORE the video ipod came out. I bought it specifically because there wasn't ipod video available, and I dislike the closed nature of the ipod. Additionally they already have a successor to the x5 called the a2 due out soon, which even the most zealous of iPod lovers have to admit blows the iPod away. http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/cowon/a2/ Yeah, the ipod video has ALMOST caught up to their old offering, but it isn't even close to their a2.

Cowon makes a fantastic audio player that supports Ogg Vorbis. It's called the iAUDIO x5. I bought it to replace my aging Rio Karma(which also supports ogg), and am ecstatic with the features, battery life(35 hrs), storage(30 GB), and aesthetics of it.

That said, I'd recommend just getting a stereo with an aux-in port on it, and plug your player in whenever you get in the car. That way, you don't have to futz with primitive CDs either.

How is Apple a monopoly? I've had my video-playing IAudio X5 for months now....

I got my Iaudio X5L back in May. It plays video, lets you just drag and drop videos from your harddisk, its battery lasts for 35 hours, unlike ipod's 15, it looks sleek and nice, not the standard apple ripoff, but stylish black, has better sound than the ipod, and a grahic equaliser, and a better remote... and it was about a 100$ cheaper. Oh and it also lets you connect to virtually any other device through its USB host port...
http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/iaudio/x5/

i mean, people by ipod just for the sake of style and image. if they only bother to look a little bit beyond that there is a host of other devices available usually with better performance and lower price. Ipod is an image brand, and that is where their sales come from. so if this is a bad product, who cares, yuppies are going to buy it anyway.

Get one of these?

http://onlinestore.cowonamerica.com/index.asp?Page Action=VIEWPROD&ProdID=149

When and if my karma dies I will cry, it's a great product.

A popular aftermarket wing mod is vortex generators... little pieces of metal or plastic carefully positioned at stretegic intervals along the top of the wing skin, usually just a little ways aft of the leading edge. This induces vortices in the airflow to help keep the boundary layer across the top of the wing from separating off from the surface, and thus lowers the stalling speed by some small amount.

I am a pilot who flies my own small plane and prefer to simply keep my airspeed up to avoid stalling the wings, and keep the music in my headsets. An iAudio X5 mp3 player fed thru a set of Lightspeed Thirty 3G ANR headsets while you're flying is a great experience. ...and yes one of the very first times I took off with music playing just had to be with Steppenwolf's Magic Carpet Ride, as I was haulin' ass down the runway thru rotation and climb-out (ST:First Contact reference).

Are there any portable music players that support .ogg vorbis yet? (and are they any good?)

Yes, and yes. Linux friendly, also.

Are there any portable music players that support .ogg vorbis yet? (and are they any good?)

Yes, and yes. Linux friendly, also.

OH! Is Apple rebranding the Cowon X5 or something? http://www.cowonamerica.com/products/iaudio/x5/

How would the iRiver iFP-799 and iFP-899 compare to the:
- iAudio 5 and U2
- Samsung YP-MT6Z and YP-T6Z
- MPIO FY 400

Using a single device as both a USB key an an MP3 player is convenient.

abandoned? m3 firmware 1.36 was released on may 27 2005.
http://www.cowonamerica.com/download/iaudio_rn_m3. html ...only one bug fix though... so maybe they have basically dropped development on the m3.

one thing about cowon/iaudio that is kind of annoying is that they seem to have about 5 different websites, but not all of them are always up to date. e.g., there are better user forums here: http://www.jetaudio.com/forums/index.php

that and the bad korean->english translations.