How is the FM Reception?

[odigg]

When the S9 came out the few people that had it said the FM tuner had a terrible auto tuner and the quality of the sound wasn't all that great.

More people have the S9 now. Does anybody use the FM tuner on a regular basis? Anybody have comments on it?

To those of you who have the D2, can you compare the two? My experience with the D2 was that it had trouble picking up all but the strongest stations and even then those were very mono sounding. Hopefully Cowon improved the FM receiver.

Thanks.

[dfkt]

I don't listen to FM radio (ewww...), but I tested it. Quite a bit better than the D2.

[bxbomber]

Not really good, it could be that I tried it out in Midtown Manhattan, but I don't even bother. Now if cowon would put a dtv tuner, something like the DMB tuners in Korea that would be a great win imo.

[Samage89]

The Quality of FM radio on the S9 is good for what it is, It's not Audiophile SQ but it's not terrible to listen to either. The only problems I've got is when I'm moving while listening to the radio, It's usually perfectly fine when your sitting down or staying in certain space.

If you're recording off the radio then don't do it while moving.

[natrap]

Originally Posted by Samage89

The Quality of FM radio on the S9 is good for what it is, It's not Audiophile SQ but it's not terrible to listen to either. The only problems I've got is when I'm moving while listening to the radio, It's usually perfectly fine when your sitting down or staying in certain space.

If you're recording off the radio then don't do it while moving.

Do you mean moving like walking/running. What about if you're on a moving bus or train. Will it be bad then too?

[odigg]

Originally Posted by dfkt

I don't listen to FM radio (ewww...), but I tested it. Quite a bit better than the D2.

I'm happy to hear this. One of the reasons I've been holding off getting the S9 (other than waiting for the 32GB) is that I listen to FM. The D2 FM tuner was basically unusable.

[dfkt]

I tested it some more and have to say that in my area the S9 radio certainly is usable and sounds nice, even in stereo (contrary to the D2).

This thread might interest you (if you don't know about it already): http://anythingbutipod.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39525

[Adorabledan76]

i think the radio is ok sound quality just stay still i thought the p2 is much better sounding but i can live with it i dont listen to the radio all that much anyway

[SawaFish]

It's easy to scan for channels and though it doesn't always quite nail the best frequencies it's easy to finetune yourself and it sounds pretty good, not amazing, but nothing to complain about. As far as radio can sound good with all those awfull tunes they're playing most of the time

[ItaloDancer]

The FM reception is the best of the mp3 players I've had so far... (the most recent one being the Creative Zen).

[The DarkSide]

As long as it sounds better than my D2. The FM tuner is crap, and all my other players have had great tuners. S9 for me baby!!!

[rinzwind]

TO ME the S9 radio is excellent.
= Perfect reception;
= It finds alot more radio stations than for instance my Creative XFI Zen did (the screen broke of that one )

The only beef I have is adjusting the stations. I would rather have a scrollbalk that lets me slide through every possible frequence. I do not seem to be able to change from a saved station at 90.5 to a non-saved frequency 90.4 or 90.3. For some weird reason I can not get myself to do finetuning

[SawaFish]

Originally Posted by rinzwind

The only beef I have is adjusting the stations. I would rather have a scrollbalk that lets me slide through every possible frequence. I do not seem to be able to change from a saved station at 90.5 to a non-saved frequency 90.4 or 90.3. For some weird reason I can not get myself to do finetuning

Use the flip button to get the side with three buttons at the bottom, two arrow like buttons and a button in the middle, if the middle button has an arrow in it, push it and you can finetune your frequency.

[rinzwind]

Originally Posted by SawaFish

Use the flip button to get the side with three buttons at the bottom, two arrow like buttons and a button in the middle, if the middle button has an arrow in it, push it and you can finetune your frequency.

Excellent Sawafish. Thank you for your advice and the excellent theme you made too

[NigelS]

In my opinion, both the sound quality of the FM Radio and the quality of recordings made from the FM radio are INFERIOR to the same features on my iRiver 8GB Clix2.

The recordings made from the FM radio are particularly disappointing, they sound thin & harsh and are noticeably worse than the original FM broadcast. On my iRiver Clix2 I can hardly tell any difference between the recording made and the original broadcast.

NigelS

[Nephersir7]

hi. i have a Sansa E270 and i would be interested in buying a S9 eventually, for many reasons including the excellent sound and video quality and native bluetooth support. But even if im not that much of a radio listenner, i find it useful to be occasionally able to listen at hockey games when i am on the go. However i find that the FM reception of my sansa is somewhat poor.

Has anybody compared the S9's radio reception to the sansa's? How good is the it while on a bus? Also, is it good enough for use with bluetooth headphones (therefore without any kind of antenna)?

Thanks for answering my questions.

[Olley]

On the S9 you can change the bitrate at which the recording are made. I recorded 1/2 hour of a music channel at 256k and when I listen back they sound as good as the channel sounded originally. Look in the settings menu for recording. All three recording options have their own bitrate variable you can set.

[NigelS]

Yes I was using 256k recording.

It sounded so poor I had to doublecheck the recording properties to verify it actually had recorded at 256K. As I said, the iClix2 sounded better to my ears (wearing Shure 530SE by the way).

NigelS

[Birrra]

I live in Paris, and I found the radio reception pretty good for capting local radios.

[EddieE]

Anyone know if Cowon have mentioned anything at anypoint about a DAB S9? That would be sweet. :-)