Cowon X7 vs AK120

[Finlandia]

C&C, you have a portable studio there

SGirl, if you are considering two players, why not keep the X7 (unless it's totally buggered) for the battery life and portability, then get the Hifiman for superb sound when battery and portability is not needed.

[SGirl]

You know, that's actually not a bad idea. My X7 is fine, I just fancied a change to something that's less likely to brick itself.

I'll read up on the Hifiman over the weekend. I had a quick look at some reviews today and it looks good from what I've seen so far. Although I need to make absolutely sure I wouldn't prefer the AK120 instead before I buy anything, otherwise I'll end up buying both and regretting it!

Just a mo - the HM901 only uses SD cards for storage? It has no onboard storage at all?

Edited by SGirl on Friday 13th March 22:10

[Finlandia]

You're right, the HM901 has no internal memory, and it uses SD cards.

I can guarantee you will prefer the sound of the Hifiman over the AK

[C&C]

Finlandia said:

You're right, the HM901 has no internal memory, and it uses SD cards.

I can guarantee you will prefer the sound of the Hifiman over the AK

Yep - a lot of people commented that the previous Hifiman 801 only had 8Gb of on-board storage and an SD card slot, but in years of using it, I've never put anything on the on-board storage - it's much more convenient using a 32Gb SD card, then pop it into the PC/Mac to upload the music (in my case FLAC files).
Also as I tend to carry it in a case for a compact camera which has a little zip pocket in it, it's easy to carry several SD cards giving pretty much unlimited storage.

If you are thinking about the Hifiman, do be aware that when it is said that the UI is not great, I cannot stress enough that it is nothing like an iPod, or iPhone. I tend to listen to music an album at a time, which is fine, but I have never managed to put a playlist together (although I haven't really spent a lot of time trying). Intuitive it is not.
Having said that, pretty much my only criteria is SQ, so I'm happy with all other compromises.

Finlandia is right re. the SQ.
One of the big problems in choosing the high end music players is that it is very difficult to demo one, and nigh on impossible to compare several back to back, however the head-fi forum guys organised a meet a couple of years ago in London where lots of people brought their kit, so both Mrs C&C and I went along and tried our favourite music on the best AK, iBasso, Cowon and several other players with our own headphones and IEMs. We were actually looking to see if there was anything better (and possibly smaller) than the HM801 for Mrs C&C, but we both came away independently agreeing that the 801 sounded significantly better than the other options.

I know time has moved on and new models are out from the manufacturers, but I'm definitely going the Hifiman 901 route as the only thing I'm interested in is sound quality.

[ianrb]

So to load FLACS onto SD cards for the HM901 is it a simple drag & drop, on a Windows 7 PC, or does it require any fancy processing/formatting?

[Finlandia]

ianrb said:

So to load FLACS onto SD cards for the HM901 is it a simple drag & drop, on a Windows 7 PC, or does it require any fancy processing/formatting?

Pretty much all players except iPods are drag & drop, load the SD card with FLACs and insert it in the HM901, no software or other processing needed.

[SGirl]

[quote=C&C]Yep - a lot of people commented that the previous Hifiman 801 only had 8Gb of on-board storage and an SD card slot, but in years of using it, I've never put anything on the on-board storage - it's much more convenient using a 32Gb SD card, then pop it into the PC/Mac to upload the music (in my case FLAC files).
[/quote]

Good point. My PC has a perfectly good SD card slot. My X7 is a pain because its USB cable doesn't seem to fit anything else, so whenever I want to put new stuff on it I have to rummage through a dozen cables to find the right one - always assuming I haven't lost it! Although I'm not keen on the idea of keeping all my music on SD cards, I can see the logic in not having to have a separate cable.

I'm not really looking for "the iPod experience". I love my iPod because it's so convenient, but iTunes is just one more piece of marketing software to clutter up my PC and the whole sound experience is just okay. Sound quality is my main concern too, it would be nice to have a player with decent sound quality and build quality and an excellent UI, but I think I've arrived at the conclusion that no one device can meet all these criteria. I'd be staying with the X7 if it weren't for the constant worry of "will today be the day it'll turn into an expensive paperweight?". It has bricked on me a couple of times, but I've always managed to get it going again. One day I won't be lucky.

I wonder why high-end players are so hard to demo? Presumably because there's such a small market for them. I can demo all kinds of weird and wonderful hifi equipment at all price levels, but not music players. I suppose it's because people who buy high-end hifi equipment don't buy music players. Surely they don't all use iPods?!

Thanks for all your input, everyone. I've nearly made a choice now.

ETA: I wonder why my quote tags aren't working??

[Flip Martian]

I loved my X7. I went through 2. After the second bricked for the 3rd and finally fatal time I replaced it with an X9. Same sound quality, rather better UI. Only 32gb of storage but with a fiddle or 2 its possible to plug a 64gb card into it. Also takes some of the 3rd party UIs that improved the X7 UI so much.

I do miss big capacity players though. I'd much rather have everything on 1 hdd. Still, I suppose 30 years ago, the best available was a cassette player and carrying a box of tapes with you!

[SGirl]

Interesting - do you find the X9 a big improvement over the X7? I still haven't bought anything - I haven't had time to do all the research I want to do before I buy anything. Have they sorted out the bricking problem by the time of the X9? My X7 has bricked twice but I've managed to revive it both times, after much faffing. That's the main reason why I'm looking to replace it. It's not dead yet, but I expect it to die every time I use it so it kind of takes the shine off it for me, even though the sound quality is fabulous.

I agree with you as regards the big capacity though. I like having everything in a single location, it's handy when you're out and about and you're trying to tell someone about a song you know - and voilà, there it is on a device in your pocket. This is why I'm resisting the thought of something offering great sound quality but only an SD card slot and no onboard storage...

[Finlandia]

How about the Cowon Plenue 1, just to confuse you even more

[Flip Martian]

SGirl said:

Interesting - do you find the X9 a big improvement over the X7? I still haven't bought anything - I haven't had time to do all the research I want to do before I buy anything. Have they sorted out the bricking problem by the time of the X9? My X7 has bricked twice but I've managed to revive it both times, after much faffing. That's the main reason why I'm looking to replace it. It's not dead yet, but I expect it to die every time I use it so it kind of takes the shine off it for me, even though the sound quality is fabulous.

I agree with you as regards the big capacity though. I like having everything in a single location, it's handy when you're out and about and you're trying to tell someone about a song you know - and voilà, there it is on a device in your pocket. This is why I'm resisting the thought of something offering great sound quality but only an SD card slot and no onboard storage...

The X9 is a nicer design, and lighter (obviously - no hdd). Sound is as good. The screen responsiveness is better but still not perfect. It doesn't brick though - at least I've seen nothing on the user forums about it bricking. I too revived my X7 more than once. But the last time really was the last time - nothing would do it, even leaving it on charge for 4 days. Very annoyed at Cowon - such a flawed design for an almost perfect player for the price (at least once another UI was installed). The X9 has 32gb on board - and with a 64gb card that takes you to 96, which isn't bad. I stick to 320 mp3s on the portable now - my ears aren't perfect and FLACs for me were a waste. I keep lossless for CD archiving. So 96gbs is room for a lot. I might end up with 1 card for a complete back catalogue or 3, but otherwise its ok.

In short, its a better player in every way - except capacity. And battery life isn't quite as good - but still better than an ipod etc. And the X7s battery life was mentally long.

[SGirl]

Finlandia said:

How about the Cowon Plenue 1, just to confuse you even more

OMG, another one. Cheers me dear! I'll have a read round, capacity doesn't seem too bad and the couple of reviews I've just found seem pretty positive. I was just trying this afternoon to find a supplier for the Hifiman, but I can't find one in the UK as yet. I don't really want to import from the US because of the import duty it'll attract. I'm still trying to get my head around the swappable bits, too - curious idea, but interesting. Gadgety! Which is a definite plus, I like gadgets.

Flip Martian said:

The X9 is a nicer design, and lighter (obviously - no hdd). Sound is as good. The screen responsiveness is better but still not perfect. It doesn't brick though - at least I've seen nothing on the user forums about it bricking. I too revived my X7 more than once. But the last time really was the last time - nothing would do it, even leaving it on charge for 4 days. Very annoyed at Cowon - such a flawed design for an almost perfect player for the price (at least once another UI was installed). The X9 has 32gb on board - and with a 64gb card that takes you to 96, which isn't bad. I stick to 320 mp3s on the portable now - my ears aren't perfect and FLACs for me were a waste. I keep lossless for CD archiving. So 96gbs is room for a lot. I might end up with 1 card for a complete back catalogue or 3, but otherwise its ok.

In short, its a better player in every way - except capacity. And battery life isn't quite as good - but still better than an ipod etc. And the X7s battery life was mentally long.

Thanks Flip! Hmm... I could live with shorter battery life, the X7's battery life is vast! Screen responsiveness is one of the things I don't mind trading for sound quality (just as well...), although I do get fed up with the X7 at times because I can never remember how to get away from an album that's playing and return to the home screen. (I use a different UI as well, the factory one was near enough unusable.) I wonder why Cowon never bothered to improve the thing, making it less susceptible to bricking, and just charged a bit more for it? I'd happily have paid more for a device that doesn't occasionally - and sometimes permanently - die to a point where it can't be revived.

Is the X9 smaller in size, or about the same as the X7? One of my bugbears with the X7 is that it only just fits in my back pocket with its case on, so it's a pain to have to keep removing it when I want to switch to something else in the collection.

So many choices! I wish the hifi supplier we go to would start keeping samples of these things, but you can't swing a cat in his shop as it is. Can't complain though, he's just got me some gorgeous STAX SR-Lambda SR-507s after lending me a set to try a few weeks ago. Must get round to going and picking them up one of these days!

[Flip Martian]

SGirl said:

Thanks Flip! Hmm... I could live with shorter battery life, the X7's battery life is vast! Screen responsiveness is one of the things I don't mind trading for sound quality (just as well...), although I do get fed up with the X7 at times because I can never remember how to get away from an album that's playing and return to the home screen. (I use a different UI as well, the factory one was near enough unusable.) I wonder why Cowon never bothered to improve the thing, making it less susceptible to bricking, and just charged a bit more for it? I'd happily have paid more for a device that doesn't occasionally - and sometimes permanently - die to a point where it can't be revived.

Is the X9 smaller in size, or about the same as the X7? One of my bugbears with the X7 is that it only just fits in my back pocket with its case on, so it's a pain to have to keep removing it when I want to switch to something else in the collection.

So many choices! I wish the hifi supplier we go to would start keeping samples of these things, but you can't swing a cat in his shop as it is. Can't complain though, he's just got me some gorgeous STAX SR-Lambda SR-507s after lending me a set to try a few weeks ago. Must get round to going and picking them up one of these days!

I too often thought "this is a killer player - why can't they sort out the bugs?". Serious design flaw they didn't know how to fix, I suppose. You could google the X7 and X9 to be sure but from memory, the X9 is smaller (it's definitely lighter). I did without a case for the X9 and it fits perfectly fine in pockets (although, bizarrely, the headphone socket is on the bottom edge and not the top).

[Flip Martian]

Finlandia said:

How about the Cowon Plenue 1, just to confuse you even more

I tend not to keep tabs on developments as I know I'll be lured into wanting "product x" - but I just googled that and it looks worth investigating. I really shouldn't... Perhaps SGirl would like my X9.

EDIT for approx 700 UKP you really should be expecting the perfect portable music player. 8 hours playback time and 4 hours to charge the battery... Whereas Cowon quote 110 hours for the X9 (although its more likely half that in practice). 8 hours is nothing, really, and would quickly become annoying. Gorgeous design though.

Edited by Flip Martian on Wednesday 8th April 22:35

[Podie]

Finlandia said:

Podie said:

Finlandia said:

Podie said:

Finlandia - I've seen "upgraded cables" for Sure headphones... ever tried any of these? (I can't imagine they're any good, but interested to know your thoughts)

I haven't tried them, but to be honest, I kind of treat them as cosmetic upgrades. There may be some small differences in sound, but are they even big enough to notice?

I've found the biggest difference in sound on IEMs comes from the use of different sleeves/tips, my favourite is the long Westone Startip.

Thanks. Still using the supplied rubbery things - which are pretty comfy

Will look at sleeves / tips in due course.

I'm pretty sure you can get custom made tips for them too, maybe worth checking out.

Finally found some Westone Star Tips - pretty comfy

Certainly easier to keep clean than the supplied foam jobbies.

[Flip Martian]

Had an interesting day reading up on all these players. And not coming to any final conclusions, in truth. 1 minute I'm thinking "ooh Fiio X5..." and then reading that a new and improved Mk 2 version is due very soon... iBasso players sound like a possible, with the removable batteries. But they look so clunky!

Given up on the Cowon after checking out a forum thread and finding the usual Cowon quality control issues and stupid design flaws once again in evidence. And people referring to it more as "transportable" rather than "mobile", given its poor battery life.

All been good info on here though, thanks. Still, my next 2 credit card bills will stop me buying for a while, so plenty of time to keep looking, I suspect...

[Flip Martian]

I see "open box" 32 gb Cowon X9s are available at AMP for under a hundred quid - an incredible bargain, to be honest.

Beginning to think the iBasso, with the ability to just plug in an external drive, as well as the different firmwares, seems an excellent upgrade option. Taking that and an external HDD whenever away from home would cover the whole collection really. Fabulous. Not to mention that they use Galaxy S3 batteries.

Pity about the Cowon Plenue P1 though - such a gorgeous looking bit of kit. But Cowons just seem to be inherently quirky, God knows why.

[C&C]

SGirl said:

I was just trying this afternoon to find a supplier for the Hifiman, but I can't find one in the UK as yet.

Only one I've found is AdvancedMP3Players - apparently based near Edinburgh.

[Flip Martian]

They're very good - used them before myself and people on other forums rate them highly.

[Finlandia]

They are good, and owned by a PH'er too.