Excellent MP3

"I originally bought a Cowan iAUDIO X5 30GB MP3 from Amazon. I wanted to return it, only so I can buy the larger GB60 unit, which I did buy. I liked the iAUDIO so much, I decided to keep both the 30GB and the 60BG units. I loaded the 30Gb with music, and gave it as a gift to my older brother. The reception is excellent. I can hear the bass and the cellos to perfection. It took a little learning for a neophyte to learn how to use it; but after it was loaded with music, I couldn't let go of either unit. It is a great product. I recommend it to all neophyte MP3 buyers"
Henry J. Zeiter, M.D., F.A.C.S. Author, "From Lebanon to California," at Amazon


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COWON America where are you ???????

iaudio x5 is a very nice player, but the company that stands behind it is missing. You can't reguster your x5,no phone numbers to call for help,if you are luckey you will receive some help on line, tech. don't know how to fix problem. My x5 stopped working 3 weeks after I got it,still trying to find were to send it for service. Will I buy another IAUDIO product NO not the player falt only the company.


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iPod? Sucks next to this.

Besides the fact that iPod is a skinny little waste of time, let's also mock the fact that it plays about two formats: whatever Mac plays, and MP3. Woohoo. What a selection.

Then, we have the iAudio. It has perhaps a half inch thickness, at most, over the iPod for the standard battery model (20gb and 30gb anyway; 60gb is as thick as an XL), though it includes so much more bang for your buck, even if some of that bang is kind of useless. But come on; an FM radio isn't iPod standard? Almost every other portable HD player has that by now.

About the only thing iPod has over iAudio is movie quality, which is, admittedly, better. But I'm fairly basic; I'm buying it for my music, not to watch a bloody movie on a tiny screen. If I want to do that, I'll buy a portable DVD player. For pictures, unless they're ridiculously high quality, this suits just fine. But it's not the pictures you should be interested in when buying one of these sweet players; it's the sound quality.

Which. Is. Marvelous. It consistantly beats iPod, it has BBE equalizer, and it not plays MP3 and AAC, but WMA, WAV, OOC, and FLAC. *FLAC.* And if you download Rockbox (which is something you'll have to research on your own, kids), you can create themes, boost your battery life, and augment your listening pleasure even further.

The only drawbacks are the battery life if you don't use playlists, skip around a lot, or play high bitrate files (all of which are fixed rather well by Rockbox), and the subpack. What is a subpack? It's a fairly good idea done badly. It's a piece of [...] plastic you can easily lose that clicks into the bottom jack of your player. In it are the power jack, line-out (which has a bad bass roll-off problem, unfortunately) and line-in jack, and USB port. The general idea was to make the player smaller by moving all of these jacks onto something else, but it wasn't executed too well. Buying a charger from [...].com solves the power jack and USB port problems nicely, and is recommended most highly.

(And did I mention recording with the built-in mic is amazing? You can get good quality concerts with this puppy.)

Plus, it's black. iPod comes standard white. And the X5 is just better.

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