Mac/iPod possibly user coming over to the S9.

[chronism]

I am a long time Mac and iPod user and have been thinking about coming over to the S9 after reading about it's outstanding sound quality. I have some concerns as to how limited I may be using the S9 on a Mac. Do I understand it correctly that I will be able to mount the unit on my desktop when plugged in to USB and transfer music/video via disk?

What kind of limitations will I run into? Will I be able to update the firmware via my Mac?

Thanks

[CrowdAds]

[WalkGood]

As long as you set it in msc/ums mode it will mount as a portable drive. All firmware updates must be done in msc mode, so I can't see any problems updating fw and as long as you are ok with drag & drop for your tunes you'll be fine.

[chronism]

Thanks for the feedback. What about setting up playlists? I assume I would have to do that manually within the S9 player itself?

[WalkGood]

AFAIK it does not do playlists, but you can read the manual here.

[shadowfox952]

But you can make folders

[chronism]

Thanks for the feedback. A couple more questions:

The manual says that OSX is only compatible for direct file transfer, so what things would I be missing out on that you can do with a PC?

Do you have to use the included headphones for the radio antenna or will any headphones work?

Thanks

[jbc]

I am rather interested why are you interested in an MP3 player at all? My experience with mac users shows me that most of them would never consider the possiblity that there might be something better for them then their beloved mac and ipod.

[chronism]

Well, you are correct, I hadn't considered anything other than my Macs or iPods for years, but times do change. Though I would still never go away from a Mac and I still love the iPod, I am looking for a mp3 player that does just that, plays mp3's and does it well.

The iPod touch does have it's moments and crashes and has to be re-synced. (I've run into this with the 1g & 2g) And from reading the reviews about the sound quality of the S9, I was intrigued.

Another key factor is that this is one of the better mp3 players that are somewhat compatable with a Mac.

My only reservations at this point are the loss of easy made playlists, album art, and being able to update firmware, etc. from a Mac. As foralbum art, I use a ID3 Editor program to add the album art to the file, so I assume that the S9 will recognise it.

Don't get me wrong, the iPod is great for everything that it does do pretty well, but from what I have read, the S9 does what it is suppose too great, that is play mp3's.

[iPoo]

Originally Posted by chronism

As foralbum art, I use a ID3 Editor program to add the album art to the file, so I assume that the S9 will recognise it.

It does, but if you transfer a lot of files at once a couple of files will have problems with album art transfer. Save yourself the time fixing that and transfer in groups of 100 or smaller. Some still won't have album art, but not as much as when you'd done everything in one go.

[chronism]

I'll probably play it safe and just transfer a few over at a time.

With Apple's anouncment today concerning DRM free iTunes, I have another question. At a small cost to convert my DRM AAC files to non-DRM AAC via iTunes, will these play on the S9? I thought I read somewhere about just changin the file extension from AAC to mp4 or something?

[dfkt]

The S9 doesn't support AAC, as far as I know. The "MP4-to-AAC" trick you're referring to works on the Cowon D2. AAC was never officially supported on the D2, just some users found that trick to work.

Maybe someone could try if the S9 supports AAC with the same file extension change?

[iPoo]

AAC support is coming with a firmware upgrade, but that could take months. I'm willing to try the 'trick', I just don't have any AAC files...

[chronism]

Well, I may just be doing the whole burn to CD and re-import as MP3 process...

iTunes wants to charge me $111 for roughly half of the DRM AAC files I have to upgrade. The other half I would have to either wait until the upgrade is available or burn to CD/re-import. For $200+ total for 600 some odd songs, I might as well invest $25 in CD's and spend the time converting to MP3.

Is it true what I read that doing the whole burn to CD & re-import as MP3 process degrades the sound quality of the file?

[dexterslabmi]

hello fellow mac-er....
itunes will convert non drm aac files to mp3 .... ctl mouse click... if you change preferences to rip media to mp3.

[chronism]

Originally Posted by dexterslabmi

hello fellow mac-er....
itunes will convert non drm aac files to mp3 .... ctl mouse click... if you change preferences to rip media to mp3.

Oh wow, I never knew that! Thanks! One of those little things I overlooked.

I'm still on the fence about the protected files, don't want to fork out $111 for half of them now and another $100+ later if they get upgraded. I only have about 10 non DRM AAC files out of the 600+ AAC files...

[chronism]

Well, I bit the bullet this morning and ordered the S9 from B&H. Now to get all those songs converted...

[Olley]

Congrats, chonism! You'll love the S9, although give yourself a week or two to get used to the quirky interface. As for converting music.... slow and steady wins the race.

[chronism]

Thanks, I am anxiously waiting for it's arrival tomorrow. I still havent straighten out my AAC conversion situation yet. Looks like iTunes only offers drm free upgrades on half my drm AAC files. Prolly have to go the route of cd burn/convert, but wanna try a couple things first once I have the S9 in hand before doing any mass converting for nought.

[Nephersir7]

Use a virtual drive program, it will be faster

[dexterslabmi]

Hello mac-er....
New firmware 2.07 allows you to cancel the auto flip feature on music ... go to cowon website. With the firm ware update, you can also save album art as jpg files (cover.jpg i think like the cowon d2 - amazon has all of the album art you would want).

Dex