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Ben Aldhouse
Joined: 03 Jun 2007
Posts: 48
Location: twitter.com/benald
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 Posted: Sat Jan 23, 2010 3:14 pm Post subject: A gadget that suits me. The Cowon D2+ DAB. |
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A week ago I wrote a review for the Cowon D2+ DAB music player for Amazon but it they never put it up. So I'm putting it here instead.
I gave the player a 4 out of 5. This high score should be seen in the light of fact that I don't mind a bit of fannying about as long as it pays off. And I have to say that the big pay off came just after I sent the review to Amazon - when I installed Rockbox on the player!
It was a bit of a worrying process installing Rockbox involving running a program to piggyback some Rockbox software onto Cowon's own firmware installation. I only went down that route because there is a serious issue on the Cowon (in that it doesn't actually access all of files you put on it!). Rockbox DOES access all of the files on the device and the memory card AND has a great selection of utilities for making/using playlists etc. I use m3u8 playlists that can be made easily with console commands, simple home made applications or whatever.
The Rockbox software for the D2+ isn't complete yet. The web site says there are issues with the SD card. I found that the Rockbox software with respect to the SD card to be far superior to Cowon's, though.
The Rockbox installation turns out to create a dual boot system on your player which means that you can have the best of both worlds. The Rockbox software doesn't play the DAB radio. You need to boot up the Cowon software for that (so far - Rockbox is in constant development - so perhaps, one day, there will be a DAB radio on it). Dual booting involves simply switching on to boot to the Cowon software. To boot up to Rockbox - you switch on and slide the lock on. I managed to overlook this after I'd first installed it. I turned it on, got Cowon and thought the installation had failed. It hadn't. I just hadn't pushed the slider 2 millimetres further along into the 'lock' position. That's all it takes. The unit then boots up Rockbox, you slide the switch out of 'lock' and (ahem, excuse me) you're ready to rock.
Here's the review of the D2+ I sent to Amazon last week but which never appeared...
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The sound is amazing. There is a truckload of features for tweeking the audio - which justifies the fact that not only does this player/radio come with presets and user setable presets for the graphic equalizer but you can create your own presets for the whole array of tweekable features in what is known as the 'JetEffect' presets list.
I asked my wife for the D2+ DAB for my birthday mainly to replace a Pure Digital Pocket 1000 I'd been using that had problems with its display. The reception is at least as good as the Pocket 1000's. It's also smaller and has a more convenient, internal rechargeable battery.
I used to use NiMH batteries with the Pure Digital Pocket 1000 which it got through quite quickly. The D2+ DAB has non replaceable internal rechargeable battery which lasts for ages. My D2+ DAB came ready charged and ready for playing with. It seems to recharge fairly quickly through its USB connection when it's plugged in to my computer. It didn't come with a mains charger but I bought a generic USB charger kit from a supermarket for around £10 that (which also has a plug for charging for car cigarette lighters) for charging overnight or when we're away camping.
A feature of the D2+ DAB that seemed almost too good to be true was the SD card slot. The Amazon write up claims that you can add up 32GBytes to the player via the SD card slot. These gargantuan cards are still a bit pricey so I asked for 16GByte card to go with the player (Thanks, Mum and Dad!). As you know the phrase 'too good to be true' has connotations I'm afraid there exception here. Unfortunataly, with 20GBytes available (4 from the unit and 16 from the card) I have been unable to get the unit to 'see' more than around 4,300 files even though there are more in its memory. Worse still, if I try and play one of the files that hasn't been acknowledged by the player's software the unit crashes. I am hopeful that Cowon will release a firmware upgrade that will correct this problem (My unit is running version 4.12). I have done some research, though, and it seems that the unit plays no more files than on ancestor devices on which (according to a thread I have just been looking at on a forum on anythingbutipod.com) has been an issue since early 2008. At least I didn't ask anyone to splash out on a 32GByte card for me. The extra expense would have been wasted.
I am giving this device a score of 4 out of 5. The SD card issue is a disapointment. Other than that - it is a truly wonderful player/ radio. Even with the SD card issue it is well worth the money with many delights for true gadget lovers. If or when a firmware upgrade is released that cures the file limit problem I would give it a 5 out of 5 without hesitation.
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