iAudio X5 reviews?

[aaronw]

Anyone have an X5 and have anything to say about it? It looks pretty interesting from this vantage point.

[CrowdAds]

[Kisuke]

What vantage is that? But more seriously, I don't think it looks so amazing. It is a hard disk player (i have a bias against them from experience), and the design looks a little...quirky.

[EnzoTen]

I have not had a chance to check out the X5 but I have the iAudio 6 and the U3 and i am impressed with both of them. Cowon iAudio MP3 players are well built feature filled easy to use players. I dont have much bad to say abou them. Also Cowon updates the firmware often to squash bugs and add user requested features.

I think they would sell alot more in the US if they had better distribution.

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by aaronw

Anyone have an X5 and have anything to say about it? It looks pretty interesting from this vantage point.

There are lots of reviews about iAudio/Cowon players on http://iaudiophile.net/ to be found.

I have the X5L 30GB, and wouldn't want any other player in the world.

[Lacene]

yeh, the X5L has outstanding battery life, for one thing. At 35 rated hours for audio, it may have the best battery life in terms of HDD DAP's. The web site for it, however, doesn't disclose battery life for video - anyone seen spec's for it?

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by Lacene

yeh, the X5L has outstanding battery life, for one thing. At 35 rated hours for audio, it may have the best battery life in terms of HDD DAP's. The web site for it, however, doesn't disclose battery life for video - anyone seen spec's for it?

I think I got at least 7 or 8 hours of video playback out of the X5L.

[aaronw]

So I was reading the reviews on http://iaudiophile.net/content.php?review.61 and noticed:

Have your music ordered before you start - you cannot change file names on the player, and ID tagging (the most common naming tool, used by Apple and others) is not currently supported.

It doesn't read ID3 tags? This seems fairly ridiculous to me - it's not like this is 2002. I guess I'll need to keep looking for a player:

20GB or more (30 preferred)
ID3 tag reading (would never have thought to have this as a 'must have' until I read this review)
UMS compatible
Color screen

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by aaronw

[...] and ID tagging (the most common naming tool, used by Apple and others) is not currently supported.

It doesn't read ID3 tags? This seems fairly ridiculous to me - it's not like this is 2002.

It does read and display ID3 v1 and v2 tags. You see artist/album/title/tracknumber on the X5's display.

Only the navigation is file/folder-based, not ID3-based. For my needs much more intuitive: I can have the same folder structure on my X5 like I do on my computer. I am not confined to genre/artist/whatever-structure players like the iPod oppose on the user.

If your music collection is well organised, the X5 and its folder-navigation is a much better choice than ID3-navigation. ID3 navigation is for people who don't feel the need to organise their music properly, who just want to load a bunch of tunes on their player, quick & dirty...

[aaronw]

I still don't think I'm getting it.

On my computer I have one folder for each album, named 'Artist - Album', and then in there I have mp3s with 'Title'. I only have full albums (I only have ones that I own, and I copy every song from them).

It sounds like you're saying there is no way to play all songs by an artist with the X5 the way that I have my collection setup. Would I need to put each folder into a sub-folder with the main folder named 'Artist' or something?

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by dfkt

I can have the same folder structure on my X5 like I do on my computer. I am not confined to genre/artist/whatever-structure players like the iPod oppose on the user.

I meant, you can have any order you want on the X5...

If your MP3s really only have "Title"-filenames, that might be a problem for playing songs in the correct order. Not only on the X5, but on most DAPs. My tracks are named "Tracknumber - Title.mp3", and they play fine on any DAP, even on my rather strange Samsung.

But renaming those files isn't hard at all - there are lots of applications like MediaMonkey, Ultra Tag Editor, Media Tagger, Tag&Rename... who let you rename all your files with one click.

[aaronw]

Originally Posted by dfkt

I meant, you can have any order you want on the X5...

If your MP3s really only have "Title"-filenames, that might be a problem for playing songs in the correct order. Not only on the X5, but on most DAPs. My tracks are named "Tracknumber - Title.mp3", and they play fine on any DAP, even on my rather strange Samsung.

True, I guess they are 'Number - Title.mp3' on closer inspection (was reading quickly).

However, the question still stands - can I easily say 'play all songs by artist' by just selecting the artist from a list, or would I need to select all the albums that I want to play by myself?

[drwowe]

RockBox supports playing by ID3. If Cowan never gets around to it.

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by aaronw

True, I guess they are 'Number - Title.mp3' on closer inspection (was reading quickly).

However, the question still stands - can I easily say 'play all songs by artist' by just selecting the artist from a list, or would I need to select all the albums that I want to play by myself?

Yes, you can just select the folder of the artist and press play. The X5 has many different play modes. Play all / play only the selected folder / play selected folder plus subfolders / play one track. And all modes are available as random or normal-mode, too...

And, as drwowe said, Rockbox supports ordering by ID3 tags (which isn't really necessary if you know where your files are and how you ordered them).

[aaronw]

Ok, so then I would need to make a (small) change to my current dir structure when I copied it over to the MP3 player - make a new artist folder for each artist I have and put the albums in that folder.

[dfkt]

Yes, if you want to play all songs by one artist, disregarding the different albums, the best structure would be something like "artist/album/tracknumber - title.mp3" ... but with Rockbox you won't even need that.

(I have my music sorted "genre/artist - album/tracknumber - title.mp3", because I usually don't play albums in random-mode, and only one album at a time. When I do random, I do it over the whole genre.)

[Sokudo Ningyou]

I love it, except for the subpack, and my currently battery problem (which, from the Cowon forums, seems to be because I use Ogg Vorbis). Having spectacular video is hardly something I honestly need, and for gods' sakes, why would you be so concerned over it when the screen's too small to be worried over?

Plus, the filing system rules. I don't know about anyone else, but I like being able to order my files by my own system, and not by iPod's. I know where everything is.

And, wow, is the sound amazing. My Koss plugs go so well with it.

[Surfing Monkey]

I have posted an extensive review in the review section of the forum. Now that I have used the player longer, it is true love.

[dfkt]

Originally Posted by Surfing Monkey

I have posted an extensive review in the review section of the forum. Now that I have used the player longer, it is true love.

Uhhh... what review section? Could you post a link?