Customer Reviews

Cowon S9 16 GB Video MP3 Player with Touchscreen (Titanium Black)

5 star:		(97)
4 star:		(43)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(13)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

While the ipod Touch has wifi and games, its audio and video quality are mediocre. If you sincerely care about your music and videos, the Cowon S9 is superb at bringing out the best of both. Cowon's legendary sound quality is as one would expect from its latest media player, but the AMOLED screen is what made me decide to purchase this over the itouch. It is 1000x more responsive than LCD and has 10,000 to 1 contrast ratio improvement, making watching videos on this thing quite amazing. Everything is very sharp and high quality videos don't blur in movement. Best of all, there's no need to spend six or seven hours converting a 2 hour movie if it's in AVI or WMV, so it's much easier to enjoy videos. If you're more into music, the S9 supports FLAC and OGG for audiophiles, allowing you to enjoy your music the way it was meant to be listened to.

The UI is not THAT clumbsy. It's not as crystal smooth as the touch, but it's much better than a lot of touchscreens IMO. The UI takes some getting used to, but once you know all the shortcuts, you'll be handling it like a pro, easily getting to where you want to go. With a dual core 500mhz processor, it's more than capable of handling whatever you throw at it, so that's not what's causing the occasional lag, but rather some firmware bugs that will likely be resolved quickly.

Cowon loves the S9 and will be sure to improve it even further than it is now so that everyone can enjoy it. Already people are customizing the interface to how they see fit and soon programmers will fix issues and offer alternatives, so there's no reason not to buy the S9 if you're afraid of its interface being faulty.

The itouch is the jack of all trades, but the S9 is truly the ace of music and video performance. If you're looking for quality over quantity, the S9 is sure to please. If you find the lack of uselessly abundant features a turn off, then feel free to try something else.

Cowon is famous for it's media players. Latest in the line is this beautiful S9 Curve. The first thing I look for when I get a new player is the latest firmware. Cowon is on the ball. Version 2.05 came out before mine arrived, and I ordered mine from Jetmall.net the first day they were available in the U.S.. Version 2.06 came out 12/24. We're already up to 2.30 and the S9 just keeps getting better. I've always thought Cowon's players were bulky and not very practical or portable. The S9 changes the rules. Clearly Cowon has noticed that beautiful, innovative looks can help sell players.

What they didn't do was forget it's a media player. Music is best is class. Video is amazing shown on it's 3.3" AMOLED widescreen. Photos follow suite. If you're old enough to need reading glasses the Zoom feature makes apps with text easier to read/see with a simple slide of your finger. File format support is broad. You can drag and drop media directly onto the S9, use Windows Media Player, or use the Jetaudio app that comes included to put media on it.

Now with 32gb capacity you'll have room for movies and photos worth watching on that beautiful screen. Get the inexpensive video output cable and serve up movies to your TV. You'll get up to 50 hours music and 10 hours video playback with one battery charge. Don't forget FLASH game/app support, FM radio with recording, voice recording, and Bluetooth for wireless headphones. There is no Wifi or what it brings, but it's also $100 less than the iPod Touch of the same memory capacity.

Be sure and keep the firmware updated. Cowon is sending updates out each month, and each one has brought significant improvement. Best touchscreen player of 2009 I'll predict.

Pros:
Excellent Sound Quality
Amazing OLED screen
Infinity tweakable interface
Great codec support
Frequent firmware updates and new features provided by Cowon

Cons:
Screen difficult to read in bright direct sunlight
Default user interface can be a bit un-intuitive

Conclusion:
This is a great player. The screen is absolutely great, except in direct sunlight, which makes it pretty much unreadable. The price is great for the capacity, and the fact that you can run different user interfaces (UI) means that if you don't like the way it is by default (which isn't bad), you can just download one that you like. If you know how to program flash, you can make your own, because Cowon makes it really easy.

The greatest thing is that Cowon is constantly updating the firmware, about once a month. Each one brings new features, such as the latest (as of late July 2009) was gapless playback for many music formats. Just make sure that you rip your music properly.

The S9 has great video format support, including Xvid, DivX, and WMV. The videos look great on the screen, and playback is smooth.

It supports both MSC (Mass storage, like a flash drive) and MTP (media transfer protocol, use Windows Media Player or equivalent to sync), so you can get the best of both worlds.

It's really a good player if you want a nice looking, touchscreen player,and you are moderately good with computers, but you don't want Wi-Fi and tons of other features you may not use. My thinking was that I would rather have something that does a few things really well, like the S9, rather than something that stretches itself too thin, like an unnamed Apple product.

This review is for Cowon S9 16gb with 2.09 firmware - note that future firmware upgrades *may* change what I write here! I will also not comment on sound quality as it is entirely subjective (and depends on headphones).

The slim curved form of the player sure has gotten lots of hype - not undeserving - it feels great in the palm of my hand. The materials (though plastic) have good solid feel to them, as is the glass screen. Titanium color looks great and understated. There are however several issues: due to its curve, its thicker than lets say a P2, thus if you place it on an edge (of a stationary bike, etc) it is less stable. It is also impossible to operate the touch screen while the player is on a flat surface - it rocks back and forth. I actually prefer P2's form factor (though not its crappy build).

The touch interface is very nice - much better than P2, however the glass does not feel as smooth as I expect(maybe some scratch-resistant surface cover on it). Touch UI misfires sometimes, but overall it is acceptable. It is of course awesome that Cowon included hard buttons for all major operations of the player (volume, rev/ffw, pause/play, hold) - its awesome in the gym. Unfortunately the hold/power button is in a terrible position - right next to the phones jack - and if phones are plugged in, it is hard to access the power toggle at times (depends on the plug I guess).

The User Interface is mixed ... the music library browser is excellent, as is ability to zoom in almost any screen. However, I do not think Cowon used an actual usability designer - for example, when playing a track if I want to go back to list of artists, I have to press a soft-button on top left, then another button on bottom left (thus making it very hard to do this one-handed). Curiously there are NO customizations of the interface - NONE! Cannot even set a background! There are two sets of icons you can pick for the main interface that bounce into the main menu - but that bounce gets old real fast yet cannot be turned off. Note - there are now multiple themes available for download (not from Cowon - but from the user community) to address Cowon's shortcomings.

Playback is very good - we have access to file info (bit rate, file type), nice display of album art, and easy navigation. What is truly awesome is a 'bookmarking' feature that not only remembers your place in the file, but also pulls in entire playlist (which is great for mp3-based audiobooks). Unfortunately no dynamic playlists are available (only a single 'Favorites' list). There is also an odd - and extremely lame - coverflow feature. Besides being terribly slow, I have not ever figured out why its useful in a 16gb player. And of course there is no gapless playback (to disappoint fans of Pink Floyd I am sure).

Then there is the AMOLED screen - which is quiet spectacular. It is sharp and colorful, and is simply delight. The possibilities (if ever implemented by Cowon) are endless! The screen flips and rotates using a built-in accelerometer - a feature so annoying I wish there was a way to shut it off! . In reality its only useful for movies, text, and photo. I wish it was disabled in music mode (would be great for it to be a setting one can set: Disable G-Sensor in Music Mode: Yes/No). Update - Firmware 2.07 allows shutoff of the g-sensor in Music mode .

The radio is terrible. Probably worst I've ever heard (its related to the tuner I think - not to the sound quality). The UI for radio is ok, but sluggish 'analog' dial and a total lack of RDS support (that even P2 had!) is a shame.

Bluetooth audio quality is fantastic - and all sound enhancements are available via BT (unlike P2). Unfortunately performance goes downhill during BT streaming - especially in movies. Entire interface becomes extremely sluggish (generally not an issue except when watching movies). Unfortunately, no support for BT transfer is available. It may be slow, but in a pinch it would have been nice - especially transferring photos from cell phones.

So in summary,
Pros:
- Beautiful Amoled screen.
- Great feel in hand, excellent build quality, and nice titanium/black color.
- Good sound quality and decent number of sound enhancements.
- Well implemented media library navigation.
- File Bookmarking which remembers the playlist.
- Decent electrostatic touch interface.
- Bluetooth with great sound quality (to me at least).
- Support for FLAC and OGG formats.
- Great battery life (I accidentally left it running overnight - it was playing for 10 hours straight and barely lost the juice.

Cons (in no particular order):
- No RDS support for the radio and poor radio tuning quality.
- No Gapless playback.
- No UI customization - not even setting a wallpaper (still nothing from Cowon, though community has fixed some of Cowon's blunders there).
- Somewhat thoughtless UI implementation (I didn't bother going into all the different issues in the review).
- A 20-pin data cable that is hard to find in the USA. May want to order an extra or two online just in case.
- No way to shut off accelerometer (Fixed for Music mode in Firmware 2.07)
- No accessories of any kind (armbands, etc). Update - some accessories are available now - but still no armbands.
- Only a single on-the-go playlist (P2 for example had 5).
- No support for standard playlist files (like .m3u). Playlists not supported in MSC (standard USB drive) mode.
- Performance lag when BT is streaming.
- No BT file transfer support to feed the player.

I sincerely hope that majority of the issues I listed will be fixed by later firmware - but I have my doubts. If they do take care of all this - which they can if they really try - S9 will be truly awesome!

Updated with a few more pros/cons.
Updated on 1/10/2009 due to release of 2.07 firmware.
Updated on 3/6/2009 for BT and a few minor comments.

Update: I have owned the S9 for a few weeks now. Here are my thoughts...

Great form factor. Battery life is amazing -- the unit can go about 2 weeks before the battery runs low. Stellar audio quality. The UI has it's quirks -- navigation for common tasks can require a few presses, but it's still a lot better than other units I've owned. I've been using Media Monkey to manage my music library and sync with the S9, and this has proved to be a winning combination. I splurged and purchased the Pro version. It will take me some time to fix the tags in my MP3 files, but Media Monkey does a pretty good job at most library management that I need, and I have a lot of music. I am very happy with this player, and would still give it 5 stars.

Original review:
This is the 3rd MP3 player that I have owned. My first was an iRiver HP-120, which was absolutely awesome, but was getting a little technologically dated. I then made the mistake of buying a Zune 120 GB. The capacity, build quality, and form factor were awesome, but the walled garden of MS's terrible software eventually led me elsewhere. Furthermore, the sound quality was just OK (and no EQ settings!), and the battery life was way overstated by MS. The online 'social' was useless to me -- I'm a grown adult, and I own a vast music collection that I started when I was a kid. I purchased a Cowon i6 for my wife about 2 years ago, and she still loves and uses it everyday -- so I thought I would give the S9 a try. I read some encouraging reviews of it, and it's slim pickin's these days for a true MP3 player not aimed at the average teenager. I received it this morning, and let me tell you, this little device is awesome. The sound quality is truly impressive, as others have reported, which is one attribute that Cowon players are known for. The screen is also amazing -- the OLED technology really shows off it's stuff on this thing. The touch screen is actually quite nice, and responds well. Those with small or large fingers shouldn't have a problem here. The dedicated volume, track, play/pause buttons are welcome, and the build quality is high. The selection of materials, the fit in the hand, and the size and weight are perfect. I also purchased a Cowon leather case for mine, which fits like a glove, while allowing full access to all of the important bits. I'm still learning the UI and the various features, but it seems like almost every aspect of the device can be customized. The UI is great, fairly easy to navigate, and the device responds quickly. I can't comment on the battery life yet, but I'm sure that it will be as advertised. The unit charged initially for 2.5 hours on AC when unboxed, and I upgraded to the latest firmware before starting to use it.

In short, this MP3 player looks like a keeper. I feel like an idiot for not buying it sooner. I will post an update to this review as I continue to become familiar with it, but so far, this looks like the one for me. Check one out for yourself -- I think you'll agree.

As I chilled on my sofa playing my PSP,
a knock on the door caused me to jump up with glee.
As I opened the door, there stood the UPS man,
standing there with a tantalizing package inside his hand.
While outside, I signed happily with a smile on my face,
Gave me the package and then I went back inside my place.
As I set the package on the floor, opening it carefully with a knife,
The phone rang, yet I ignored it... hopefully it wasn't my wife.
After rummaging through the peanuts, what do I see in the corner of my eye,
The very item I've been waiting for, a smaller box holding my long awaited prize.
Tore the box apart and there it was, there was the Cowon S9,
As I held it in my hands, I whispered, "You're finally mine!"

Alright enough of this long nursery rhyme,
it's time to delve into my review of the Cowon S9.

The Cowon S9 has been called THE best MP3 player on the market (at least by non-apple users) and rightfully so. It's specs pretty much speak for themselves but let's look at the highlights.
- 55 hours for Audio, 11 hours for Video (That's freakin long)
- AMOLED Screen (LCD, you are doomed)
- Cowon Sound Quality (Best of the Best, cream of the crop)
- G-Sensor (disabled on Music but great for video)
- BBE+ (sound enhancements "better" than other Cowon players)
- Flash UI (very customizable, user created content already available)
- Sleek design (Curved, somewhat light weight, lots of buttons)

As MC Hammer's songs would put... Let's "break it down!"

Sleek design
After seeing the device in so many pics and in people's hand via videos, I thought this thing was going to be big... like Zune big (like the original Zunes, I know there is a few of us who've owned, previously owned, or seen one). After getting my S9, I've realized one thing about its size, I needed to chuck that Zune size thinking out the window (*Sound of a window breaking*, *Car Crashing noise*). This thing is really small, a pretty good portable size actually. It's 4 Inches long, about 2 and a half inches wide, and a half a inch thick, for those who were wondering (tape measure wise).

The device is curved but rests easy on its back and in your hands. I did grab the Titanium color because I know the device will get fingerprints on its screen but it wouldn't show up too badly on the back and sides as much. I know it would look far worse on the Chrome color in my opinion, as fingerprints would show up everywhere with no hassle.

Now the exterior is made out of plastic and I know people are groaning by now (*"AAAAWWWWW"*) but when you hold it yourself, you get over it pretty quickly. The back does feel like it's made of plastic but it has a very smooth finish feel to it. The sides of the S9 are a different story as I know both of the sides are made out of plastic but it sure doesn't feel like it, it feels a little bit cool to the touch like metal and taping it with your fingernail sounds just like metal as well (unlike the back of the S9, which tapping on it sounds like plastic). Some people have said the screen on the front of the S9 is made out of plastic but it has been mentioned it is glass from numerous sites (Gorilla Glass actually). I did do a test though, I... put my S9 in my pocket with... my keys (only for a little bit mind you). There was not a scratch on the S9, my D2 wasn't so lucky when I put it with my keys (I didn't know better at the time). So if it's a plastic screen like the D2... it's some pretty tough plastic. Also, the Cowon S9 has a capacitive touch screen, so a stylus isn't even needed (the D2 did have a stylus because it had a resistive touch screen), all you need is your smooth finger (not a dirty one, go wash your hands!)

The buttons on the device are pretty self explanatory and placed *somewhat* in good places (huh, I'll get to that later). I had the D2 as my first Cowon device and will say the S9 has a lot more buttons this time around when it comes to Cowon's recent MP3 line. There are five on the top; Play/Pause, Volume Up, Volume down, previous track, next track. Now these are multifunctional and even though they were meant for your music, it also can navigate the menus within the device. The play/pause button is kinda unique as I've never seen a device do it like the S9. If you've seen the pics, it's that middle silver button near the top and... Oh hey Donald Bell from CNET, I was just about to... what are you doing... IT'S NOT A STYLUS YOU IDIOT! Get out of here! (*Sound of smashing dishes*)*Cough*As I was saying, the silver button on the top is curved and slides easily when you press it to play or pause your sound (also when depressed it for a few seconds, it will take you back to the main menu *Thanks pseudohippy*). There's even a >/II stamp on the back of the S9 underneath the play/pause button so morons like Donald Bell can see that it's not a stylus (The S9 doesn't even need one).

The bottom of the player consists of the power on/off and hold switch on the right, headphone jack in the middle, and the USB (20-pin) plug on the left. Alright... I'm going to put this out there as my first negative in this review... why is the headphone jack in the middle. So there's no misunderstanding, I can live with it being there (in that way) but I raise my hands up and ask Cowon... "WHY"? (*"Why" Echoing in a cave*) Maybe it's because I've dealt with many mp3 players in my life that has the headphone on the far right or far left. I know the D2 has the headphone jack on the far left because I've owned one, so maybe that's why I'm criticizing it... I'm just not use to having the headphone jack in the middle. It also doesn't help when you're laying it down while it's charging or transferring music that the headphone jack get's somewhat blocked because of the cover for the usb jack. You can move it down a bit of course but you have to do it almost everytime. Not too much of a big negative but I thought I'd bring up one I've found so far.

Let's jump to weight; I'm not that big... I weigh just... Wait, we're talking about the Cowon S9 here. After seeing some... Questionable reviews (oh I'm looking at you CNET), I was afraid the device was going to be so light that it either felt like a toy or was as light as a feather, flimsy if you will. I'm here to tell you that the Cowon S9 carries a bit of weight (maybe it ate a bit of cake). This thing is lightweight, but still is heavy enough not to have your pinky picking it up easily. It carries a bit of weight, maybe the same amount as a D2 (I'm sure owners of that will understand what I mean about weight better). No it's not as heavy as a brick but it isn't light as air either. It's more of a middle ground, not too light, not too heavy, which I like. I prefer a MP3 player that doesn't feel like I bought at Toys R US but also not like I grabbed a large stone from the front yard.

Pros+: Sleek Design, lots of buttons that are also multifunctional, love the play/pause button, REAL scratch resistant screen, solid construction, not too heavy/not too light- I like it!
Negatives-: Headphone jack could be in a better place than in the middle, Headphone jack can be possibly blocked

G-Sensor
The G-Sensor is pretty cool, glad Cowon grabbed it. Sorta acts like the ... ooohhhh, you almost got me to say that four letter word ($%^&)! The G-sensor works best while you are watching your favorite Movies, TV Shows, Anime (yep, I said it), and even trailers! You can watch your movie vertical but when you turn the player it goes horizontal, it's... pretty cool (Someone slap me, why do I keep saying that *SLAP*). Pictures are pretty much the same way but you can do this in 360 degree fashion. Right side up, side-ways, upside down, sideways again, I was having fun for a bit. The G-Sensors Cool factor got killed when I got to music though. I'd be listening to my music, enjoying the big album art and with one slight turn of the S9 and BAM (*sucker punched in the face!*), Coverflow. Good thing you can disable the G-Sensor now in Music mode cause that would have been quite annoying and added as a negative in this review, good thing Cowon was listening.

Now if only Cowon was listening about making the G-Sensor getting implemented in the Text Viewer or Flash (games). I'm a person that likes to read ebooks but it would be really cool If I could read them in widescreen mode. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks this (hopefully). Now imagine if the G-Sensor was used for some Flash games like the ... ooohhhh, you almost got me to say that four letter word again (#&%@)! Cowon needs to pop some G-sensor games on this baby to maybe make it a bit more interesting when we are playing the Flash. At least allow it so that some games that use widescreen formats can be used like that, widescreen (sideways).That way they aren't being cut in places. The G-Sensor is still pretty cool though... somebody shoot me, that's the third time I've said th... (*BANG!*)

Pros+: Used very well in Pictures, Movies, glad Cowon gave us an option to turn it off in Music mode
Negatives-: Wish it was implemented in Text Viewer or Flash (Games)

AMOLED Screen
First thing I noticed when I first turned on my Cowon S9... the AMOLED screen. Sorry... is that drool on my keyboard, I need to stop staring at the Cowon S9 sometimes. This is going to be a hard section to go over... I don't know if I have the words to explain how beautiful this screen looks. My jaw literally dropped when I saw even the sample pictures and movies (Cowon provided) on the screen. The color was so vibrant, so rich, so eye popping that I could swear up and down that I was looking at the real thing. The screen was so sharp; it stabbed me in the eyes (AAAAAUUUGGGHHHH)... I'm kidding but the resolution on this thing is absolutely wonderful! With 16million colors too, I've not seen a screen, big or small, look this good (especially since it's only a 3.3 inch screen)! Again, I can't really explain how it looks; you have to see for yourself.

AMOLED is a new technology that requires no backlighting, it uses organic substances that produces its own light ("Does that mean I can glow in the dark?", "Man get outta here!") LCD's like the D2 and O2 use backlighting and causes some viewing angles to look weird, blacks aren't as deep, whites aren't blinding (my eyes!!!), colors aren't extremely vibrant, and blur is a killer. AMOLED's colors is so vibrant... no words can express how great it is! Colors literally jump off the screen and are drop dead gorgeous! Blacks are super deep (better than plasmas in my opinion) and whites are way better than LCD! You can literally view the screen at any angle and still look AWESOME (not being washed out like LCD's) and there's no blur at all either (unless you are watching The Matrix or F.E.A.R gameplay videos of course). Like to mention The Dark Knight looks FANTASTIC on the S9, looks better than DVD, almost Hi-def even (saying it looks like Bluray may be pushing it ).

The Cowon S9 does support XVID, AVI, and WMV, and pretty much no conversion is needed. Well... except for other video formats of course. What strikes me about Cowon (oh boy, this sounds like it's going to be another negative), is that with such a beautiful AMOLED screen, why not allow it to accept any video format. I mean, I got Divx files and H.264 and would love to just toss them on the S9 without converting. I would have actually liked Cown to allow the same Video formats that their Cowon O2 supports. Why let such a great looking screen on the S9 not be used to its full glory? I know the Cowon S9 can do it because of its 500mz dual core processor is pretty fast enough to handle it (slower mp3 players can do it too). I don't know... XVID, AVI, and WMV still look great on this so I guess I can't complain too much. I would like to mention the screen is a fingerprint magnet, so please buy a soft cloth to clean it (or use your shirt if you want, the one with the recent mustard stain...)

To those wondering what I used for converting, I used what's great for my PSP; Xvid4PSP.

Pros+: Awesome AMOLED Screen, better than anything I've ever seen, flat out gorgeous colors, sharpness, vibrant, I'm at a loss for words at how great the AMOLED screen is!
Negatives-: Only XVID, AVI, and WMV support, would have loved more file format support

Flash UI
I'm so glad Cowon gave this option up front; being able to customize the Cowon S9 anyway we wanted. Flash UI is great as we already have a lot of themes created by the Cowon Community and some people got really creative. Some made the S9 look like our favorite game, anime, or even mimicked some other players interfaces like the P3. I still like how Cowon made its original Interface, very clean, easy to use, pretty much friendly even to new users. I even applaud Cowon for making big album art finally (*"Hallelujah, Hallelujah!"*) The D2 only allowed user created content on the Music portion of the player and album art was really small (user created content made it bigger of course). Now, my only gripe about the Cowon S9 is that I wish my album art was bigger, so Nova came through for us by making it bigger and more people made listening to the S9 that more enjoyable by making very unique themes (please people, slow down on all the anime themes though, we got plenty already).

Ahhh, Now... If only that fixed what Cowon blundered on (hide under the bed, the negative is coming!) Me and dfkt was discussing this one time before I owned my S9 and now my eyes have opened up to what he was saying since I now own one. What the heck is Quicklist and Coverflow for? Seriously Cowon! The way it is implemented is so freaking weird that I'd rather it not even be there. If I was in charge of making Coverflow and the Quicklist, I would create Quicklist and Coverflow so that you could flip between albums and have the Now Playing screen switch between songs. NOOOOO! It isn't like this whatsoever, Both the Quicklist and Coverflow flip between songs just like the now playing song, WHAT THE FLIPPIN PANCAKE COWON! I guess I can live with it and cross my fingers that someone from the Cowon community will fix it (or give us something better), because I'm pretty sure Cowon isn't going to fix it unless people start emailing Cowon like crazy (*"Inbox Full"*).

Pros+: Great freedom to make almost anything to the flash UI, a lot of user created content from the Cowon Community already, Original interface still great and friendly
Negatives-: Seriously Cowon... what the flippin Hamburger were you thinking when it came to Quicklist and Coverflow, just rewrite the Quicklist and Coverflow so it flips albums not songs like the Now Playing screen...

Cowon Sound Quality and BBE+
This doesn't need to be said because almost everyone knows this on this website but Cowon's devices are undeniably the best sounding mp3 players on the market. Music on Cowon players sound so much clearer, feel a lot warmer, and richer sounding than any other player I've ever listened to. No question, Cowon's players are the best in producing high quality sound and that's not considering EQ settings or BBE, just Flat. Cowon's S9 is not any different by providing great sound but with the new BBE+. Now the Cowon S9 still has excellent sound with it being flat with no sound enhancements, it's a Cowon Player after all. It's personal preference of if you want to use BBE, EQ, or nothing at all, everyone's tastes are different when it comes to this choice just like music. I believe there is not right or wrong way in my opinion. So if you aren't into BBE or EQ, you may want to skip to the next section because I'm going to be talking about it.

Now I believe BBE+ adds a lot to the music, making songs feel more alive and making compressed music sound almost like the original. Here are my findings when it comes to BBE+, sorry if they are kinda rough.
A) Normal- Everything Flat
B) BBE- Boosts BBE only
C) BBE Viva 1- All enhancement varying in settings to sound good, MachBass is low
D) BBE Viva 2- Same as Viva 1 but some enhancements were upped like MachBass
E) BBE MachBass- Basshead #1
F) BBE MP- boosts BBE up and MP Enhance is turned ON
G) Headphones 1- Same as Viva 2 but is louder
H) Headphones 2- Vocals are clearer
I) Headphones 3- Bassheads #2
Other settings are your usual preset EQ setting for various genres (with a kick of BBE enhancements at the lowest settings). You also got your own USER created slots that can be configured any way you like.
All I can say is to each their own, but my Personal Favorite BBE is BBE Headphones 1 and Personal Favorite EQ is Rock. What your favorite is entirely your preference, not wrong or right because YOU are the one who likes it and your ears like it too!

There are a few negatives that were brought up to my attention that I should mention. The Cowon S9 doesn't support AAC or any other format that the elppa (what does this say backwards, I'm clever) mp3 players force you to convert to, so that may be a downer to a few people. Same can be said for DRM related music... it's a no-go, sorry (who cares anyway, DRM should be dragged in the road and shot *BANG!*) Gapless is going to kill a few people too, Pink Floyd may not sound right at all. I can't believe still no gapless though Cowon? I know a few people who would be upset.

Since I got that off my chest (*got done shaving my chest hair*), let's continue. The Cowon S9 has a broad range of accepted audio formats and is what really got me into the Cowon brand! The Cowon S9 supports what most people accept now a days, compressed music of MP3 (MPEG 1 audio and MPEG2 Audio also), OGG, and WMA. Now for the Music Purists, the Cowon S9 also accepts Lossless audio of WAV, APE, and the Famous FLAC (*"Mr. President!"*). As mentioned before, Cowon players make all these audio formats sound so much better than any other player. Now a simple tip is to toss those headphones Cowon gave you. I had those ones and thought music was great on my Cowon before until I grabbed me a good set of headphones (I have Yuin PK3's now) and couldn't imagine my music sounding even better yet it was! I was hearing stuff that I never heard before and instruments were so much more lively! A good pair of headphones makes all the difference in making your music off the great sounding Cowon MP3 player oh so much better.

Pros+: Supports the popular compressed and Lossless formats with no problems, sounds excellent like all Cowon Players, a good set of headphones make your music sound even better off the Cowon S9
Negatives-: No Support for Gapless, (and If you want to call these negatives...) No support AAC or any other format that the elppa mp3 players, also no DRM support, and may have to spend a bit for some good headphones

To those wondering what I use for tagging my Music, I kinda use 3 different programs, all free !
A) SonicStage 4.3 (uses gracenote/does album art too)
B) MP3tag 2.42 (rips album art out embedded MP3's)
C) Media Monkey 3 (Grabs info/album art from online stores)
Battery life

Let's touch base here ("You're out!", "No I'm not you son of a ..." *Bat smacked across dude's head*). This is what looks extremely enticing and sold me the first time I saw it, Cowon Devices have a long battery life, more than normal players out there. Look at the flash devices Cowon makes for example...
iAudio7: 60 hrs
Cowon D2: Music- 52hrs, Movies- 10 hrs
Cowon O2: Music- 18 hrs, Movies- 8 hrs (due to size, it's pretty long battery life)
Cowon S9: Music - 55 hrs, Movies- 11 hrs (making it the longest video player on the market!)

In other words, Cowon has been consistent when it comes to battery life and the Cowon S9 is no exception. Due to AMOLED using no backlight and no expansion bay being used (yeah, a downer but few won't care), Cowon S9 users are most likely getting the longest battery life Cowon has ever given (besides the iAudio7). A staggering 55 hours for music and 11 hours for video is freakin awesome (I don't even think I could listen to music for that long in one sitting without falling asleep either)! Results will vary of course but Cowon has mentioned from their tests that the hours can be reached. I believe them and it's great knowing the Cowon S9 will last a very long time!

Pros+: Fantastic Battery life both for music listening and Movies watching!
Negatives-: No expansion slot...

Conclusion
Hey you, Wake up! I know this was a long review but it's the conclusion for crying out loud. Now, The Cowon S9 looks to be the best MP3 player Cowon has ever made! Awesome battery life, Beautiful AMOLED screen, fantastic Cowon Trademark Sound quality with new BBE+, great Flash UI customizability, this look like the best MP3 player I've seen in a long time. Cowon has a winner here in my opinion and me as a customer forever with them. I may have gotten my Cowon S9 yesterday but have spent enough time to make this review and believe this is the best MP3 player I've bought in a very long time. The Cowon S9 once held, seen, and heard will cause you to have a pure desire to want it, love it, and be glad you own it!

P.S. Take into account this is not biased like some reviews comparing this to the itouch and iphone, I personally could care less about wifi or phone capabilities(I have a blackberry already). With that in mind, I compared this actually to other TRUE PMP players (Sound, Video, portability). Extras are ok, but not required, in my book...

Yes, this is a beautiful player. It has a stunning screen with deep contrast and brilliant saturation and is protected by a highly scratch-resistant screen. It supports a wide range of audio and video formats (except for AAC) and any operating system will recognize it as a USB drive so you don't have to deal with MTP software. The sound quality is excellent and highly configurable. The FM receiver is very sensitive.

Unfortunately the user interface is needlessly cumbersome. I honestly feel the designers had never used any other MP3 player. I have several examples. On my Creative Zen, deleting a video is simply selecting "Delete Video" any time I'm playing it. The S9 will tell you that you can't delete it -- the "X" which means delete will be grayed out. What? Oh yes, you have to go through the file browser, find the video file in the "Video" folder that you were playing and delete that. You'll find that most of the interface is file-oriented so get used to thinking of your songs as files again.

There are countless other confusing methods of doing what are mundane tasks on other players. Selecting random shuffle will give you silence. You didn't know you had to select a song before it would play anything? Adding a song to an active dynamic playlist is a series of confusing operations, and without third party interfaces like Claw, the S9 wouldn't have more than one playlist. Even trivial operations have surprises. Start recording FM radio and you'll discover now you can't adjust the volume. Why? I guess they never thought anyone would want to listen to what they're recording.

But there is a major problem that many S9 owners are experiencing. Sooner or later you'll copy something to the S9 and that will be the last thing it ever does. The copy will abort, you'll restart the S9 and it will say "No fonts No resources" and that will the The End. Nothing will bring it back. Mine lasted eleven months before dying but others have had their S9 die as soon as they start copying all their music to it. It's a hardware defect and Cowon, being a small company, ignores it.

I certainly can't recommend a $200+ product that didn't last a year.

I've owned the Cowon S9 for about 5 months now, and it's still going strong after nearly daily portable use. I've considered getting a Sansa Clip or Fuze for more space and micro SD/SDHC storage capability, but the Sansa players' poor reviews regarding durability and screen errors have made me appreciate the quality of the S9. For the price, size and functionality, I'd say it beats my iPod Touch 2g hands down.

Pros:

1. Format flexibility - this player is a must if you have access to FLAC files and use high-quality headphones. No need to convert .avi video files and FLAC files to .mp4 and .wav like with iPods.

2. I love being able to lock the sideways display; you can prevent a song's album photo from appearing when you turn the player sideways. I always thought that the sideways album photo display is a worthless feature, and something that really annoys me about my iPod--I'd rather just have the same display even if I accidentally turn my player sideways.

3. Frequent firmware updates show that Cowon is committed to improving functionality and customer support.

4. Drag-and-drop system from Windows Explorer/iTunes is so incredibly quick and easy. The file transfers take a little while, but are not as excruciatingly slow as adding files to iTunes.

Cons:

1. Takes a few days to learn the unique lock/sleep/screen off system--it's not as quick and easy as the iPod Touch's. Can't lay it face down if it's not locked, since this will keep the player on.

2. The file and folder navigation system is foreign to anyone coming from an iPod background, but makes plenty of sense once you learn it.

3. The screen is a little smaller than the iPod Touch's.

4. I'm not aware of many good, compact case options. Certainly nothing like the DLO case/stand for the Touch, which lets you stand up the iPod hands-free on a table to watch videos. I ended up getting a cover glued onto the screen, there are stalls in various malls that provide this service for about $20.

5. Screen is a bit unwieldy, you have to learn how and where to touch in order to get precise control.

6. Can take up to 15 seconds to start up the first time you've added a lot of new files (but this time gradually decreases).

7. The sound quality can be flat and dull on some headphones, but that's what all the EQ options are for. However, it can be a never-ending process to find the perfect EQ settings for the headphones and genre you're listening to. I have 4 different settings, 2 for my Westone 3 headphones and 2 for my Sennheiser IE8 headphones (one to bring out the bass and soundstage width for dance music and one for the clarity which jazz/classical/acoustic music requires).

8. No micro SD slot like with the Cowon D2. This is a major drawback for anyone who uses large files like FLAC or wants to put a large collection of music and videos on the player.

Overall, the features that this player offers and its strengths easily outweigh its weaknesses. If you only listen to mp3s and don't have high-quality headphones, you may be best served by the iPod Touch, but anyone who has higher standards for audio quality and hates the iTunes system for adding files must give the Cowon a look.

Here's the purchase decision: iPod Nano 16GB (USD $200) or Cowon S9
16GB (USD 240). For the incremental $40 you get w/ a S9 :-

a) *NO* DRM- the S9 is a FAT filesystem: you can load and play on
*any* Mac, Linux machine or Windos box, via GUI (Finder / Explorer)
or command line / xterm,
b) S9 screen is appx 2x the size if Nano and works / looks better,
c) audio quality on the S9 is clearly superior (dynamic range
and max volume/richness of sound are the most obvious differences) as
have compared s/ same mo3s to iPod Touch w/ identical earbuds, no
question,
d) if you are an audiopile and rip your CDs w/ EAC and compress to
FLAC, the FLAC codec on the S9 is just utterly brilliant (ipod -> no way)
which makes a 64GB S9 a clear future purchase when available,
e) videos: simply shovel the AVIs into the S9 by whatever means, any
OS, and they just play and are visually impressive and,
f) did I mention no Digital Rights Mismanagement / DRM? The Cowon
S9 is just a filesystem (functionally equivalent to USB key), so you
can plug in *anywhere* and just play / backup / copy your music or
videos or data, on any OS w/ no additional software (i.e. iTunes,
not at all needed w/ S9). Though the USB cable is apparently
non-standard. The version 2.05 software works for me.

So the purchase decision between a Nano 16G and a 16G Cowon S9 is...
You decide.

##

I am in looooooove with this thing. I was looking for a mp3 with 1) GREAT sound quality, 2) that plays all video formats without conversion, 3) great video quality, 4) long battery life, 5) good design (i like pretty things...).
soooo. based on that specs, i did lots of research, read reviews, etc, and bought the cowon. And it is, indeed, a perfect match for me.
Other perks: The screen is amazing, all sharp and shiny colours -and responsive-. I can change the wallpaper, the look of the icons, decide which icons i wanna see in the main menu, etc. The device is really light so is easy to carry around. I upgraded the headphones and the sound is just delightful. So clear. and it has like 20 preset options for the equilizer (hip hop, dance, jazz, ballad, blues, rap, pop, xbass, vocals, rock, techno...). I have saved a bunch of pdf books as text format and i can read them on the s9 (the background in which one reads the text can be changed to like 12 different colors). And you can erase pics, videos, etc, directly from the device. Aaaand i also bought the tv out cable and everything in the world is just peachy: I can watch my videos saved on different formats on my tv.
To keep in mind: true that the interface isn't the most intuitive out there. I took me a while to figure things out but, hey: DONE! i master it now.
Another thing: THE PLAYLISTS... now this may be an issue to some. Playlists can be saved to the s9 (change the usb mode to mtp and save the playlists, then you can switch back to msc) BUT if, after you have saved them and another day you decide to add something else to the s9, say another text doc or more music, then your playlist is GONE. erased! So i've worked around that and created folders instead of playlists. But, you know, cowon might surprise us all and take care of that with some firmware. They've already corrected other things and added some fun stuff to the s9.
All in all: I LOVE IT. I am very happy with my decision. Great device!!!

Have fun!!!! and ENJOY YOUR MUSIC!!!