Offical ABI S9 Review

[Claw]

Concerning track sort:

I have to take my words back - I now encountered several albums where browsing of the tracks does NOT list them in track order. Nor does it list them alphabetically.

After some investigation and trial&error, it turns out that S9 uses ID3v2 - Track # field for sorting of tracks within individual album. So even though ID3v1 was correct for all tracks in the album, the track # field was blank in ID3v2 - thus that track showed up at the top (it uses alpha-numeric sort, in which case blanks go to the top). So as long as your media has properly configured track # in ID3v2, you'll be fine.

Also, once you import the tracks onto the player, fixing the tag won't work - as the data is already indexed internally. You have to delete the tracks, fix the tags at the source (I used winamp), then reload them back to the player. After I did that, that album showed up in correct order.

[CrowdAds]

[Olley]

Ah yes. The track info has to be in a format the player can understand. Mine is which is why every album I check has the tracks in the right order.

[SWEATY BUFFALO]

So if i use WMP will i be ok ? When i get my S9 i will use WMP to transfer all of my music so if i end with 7GB of music not in the right order im gonna be pretty annoyed.

How exactly will i know what version of ID3 im currently using ?

[The DarkSide]

Try Media Monkey, save yourself the heartbreak.

[SWEATY BUFFALO]

Yer il download that now then. A problem i had with my P2 was that WMP always got the album arts wrong, so i had to use Samsung's own software to get it right.

Does media monkey allow you to manually change the album art for a song or selection of songs ?

[The DarkSide]

Originally Posted by SWEATY BUFFALO

Yer il download that now then. A problem i had with my P2 was that WMP always got the album arts wrong, so i had to use Samsung's own software to get it right.

Does media monkey allow you to manually change the album art for a song or selection of songs ?

Yes, it does, and very well at that. It'll save you alot of trouble down the line.

[Claw]

Except ... MediaMonkey did not give me a view of just IDv2 tags - it just showed a unified interface - you can't just display v1 tags or v2 tags ... and with S9 it is important. I had to use winamp which has separate tabs for each version ....

I think though is if you re-tag all your work using MediaMonkey it will correct both v1 and v2 tags and all will be ok.

[SWEATY BUFFALO]

Im just gonna have to wait and see. If i get it and the songs arent in the right order then il just have to re-tag them. Im not particularly happy using MediaMonkey but then hopefully i wont have to.

Im gonna ask a random question now, if you have the player on shuffle, what songs does it show as previous and next in the quicklist (the little menu that pops out on the right hand side)?

[Twitchy]

The playlist shuffle is done when the option is selected, so it shows the previous and next songs that will be played in shuffle mode (rather than playlist order).

[ronnie]

Does S9 suport rmvb format ?

[The DarkSide]

Originally Posted by ronnie

Does S9 suport rmvb format ?

I do know that the S9 DOESN'T support RMBV format. You'd need to convert to play it on the S9.

[Clubcard]

Having read the other Cowon player reviews on ABi, I'm quite baffled why the S9 review wasn't assigned to Martin instead. Grahm's reviews are more compact and accessible, but Martin's in-depth, analytic style would have suited this one a lot better.

[EnzoTen]

Originally Posted by Clubcard

Having read the other Cowon player reviews on ABi, I'm quite baffled why the S9 review wasn't assigned to Martin instead. Grahm's reviews are more compact and accessible, but Martin's in-depth, analytic style would have suited this one a lot better.

Im sending Martin an S9 shortly so you can get his thoughts here in the forums as well.

Can i ask what was missing in my review? What else were you looking for? This so that i can improve the reviews in the future.

[Clubcard]

Originally Posted by EnzoTen

Im sending Martin an S9 shortly so you can get his thoughts here in the forums as well.

Can i ask what was missing in my review? What else were you looking for? This so that i can improve the reviews in the future.

Like I said in my post above, your reviews are brief and no-nonsense, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. However, Cowon is a brand that caters primarily to prosumers and audiophiles, and we aren't so easily satisfied. In his D2 review, Martin wrote 14 paragraphs on the device's sound quality and audio options, going into details about everything imaginable such as gapless playback, background noise, headphone compatibility etc. In the S9 review you made some remarks about its sound quality falling apart at higher volumes, but that's about it. I would have loved to see some information on FLAC playback and support (turns out 48khz is still unsupported), gapless (how long are the gaps?) and finally an analytic comparison between the S9 and D2 (is the sound quality improved, does the S9 do anything that the D2 doesn't and so on).

Last but not least, I must stress that your reviews are probably more than thorough enough for most readers. Only some of us prefer the hyperanalytic approach that Martin seems to handle so well.

[ronnie]

does the S9 play .MKV format ?

can some of the current owners pls try and let me know.. if .mkv format runs...
thx

[ronnie]

anyone tried .mkv video format ?

[trikon000]

that depends on the content format of the MKV file. MKV files are just containers of a video and audio stream. For example if your video stream was encoded in say RM format, your MKV file wouldn't play on the S9. If your video stream was encoded in any of the supported types, it would be fine.

[Mats.be]

Has anyone tried to hook up a headphone with a thick plug?
I have a Denon D1001 which has nice and sturdy aluminum plug; the only problem is that it is 11 mm in diameter.
Could someone who owns an S9 check if there is enough room around the headphone jack?

[waxernz]

I have the senn hd595 and the plug doesnt push all the way in but it works. The ridge either side is small enough that the jack still reaches far enough in.

[Mats.be]

Does it sometimes pop out when walking around with the player in your pocket?
For the moment I'm using a Creative Muvo² (ancient, I know) and lately the headphone jack sometimes seems to lose contact when I accidentally tug the cable. Probably worn out; it is 5 years old after all.
It's about the same effect as plugging the headphones only halfway in and it's extremely annoying.

Also, I've searched some pictures of that plug (on headroom) and it seems a little bit thicker than mine.
Is there any chance you could measure it?