iAudio X5 (vs ?)

Hi to all,
I've not read a lot about this player in this forum (or perhaps I've not been good enough to find out ...).

It's starting to think of the iAudio X5 as a good candidate to replace my NW-HD5.

Anyone can offer any info about it ?

I see it is seen as an external HDD without installing any software, which is something very useful to me. I also see it supports the creation of dynamic playlists and bookmarking inside tracks, features that I appreciate a lot as well. The X5L version feature a (non user-replaceable ) battery lasting 35h, and that's wonderful and close enough to the 40h declared by Sony for the HD5.

Has it any known problem ? Buggy ? Slow ? Lacking features ? Noise while playing ? Gap...-full ? Low volume ? Build quality ? Failures ?

How does the navigation (apart from the File-explorer-like feature) works for the music ? Is there the possibility to browse by Album, Artists, Songs, Genre basing the the ID3 tags as, e.g., the HD5 offered ?

It doesn't seem to have a separated LineOut from the earphone jack, isn't it ?

How is the accompanying software ? Or does it play music files in the hard disk in the supported format, however you put them on it, so that I'm free to use any ripping software and just drag&drop files onto the device ?

Anyone can offer a comparison with major contenders like iPod and HD5 (or any other on-par device) ?

Any information will be greatly greatly appreciated

Peppe

Nobody can tell anything interesting about this player ?

Well ... perhaps this is an interesting thing in itself already ...

[MR2Harvey]

If a little expensive it is a very good player and you don't need any crappy software to load music onto it, just drag and drop. I'm considering one

Originally Posted by MR2Harvey

If a little expensive it is a very good player and you don't need any crappy software to load music onto it, just drag and drop. I'm considering one

Me too, but I'm having some problems finding a good offer in Italy.

Also, the fact that nobody here is able to tell anything or showing any interest about it is keeping me a little bit. I can't believe everybody here are either HD5 or iPod fans and don't bother to evaluate other significant players. So probably there's some reason why this player is not taking off ...

[MR2Harvey]

Originally Posted by rp92

Me too, but I'm having some problems finding a good offer in Italy.

Also, the fact that nobody here is able to tell anything or showing any interest about it is keeping me a little bit. I can't believe everybody here are either HD5 or iPod fans and don't bother to evaluate other significant players. So probably there's some reason why this player is not taking off ...

From what I have read elsewhere it's agreat player, not sure why everyone on here has a Sony, Ipod maybe as they are the most popular. Sony has nothing to compete against the Iaudio X5 but they have some good basic players. The otherone I'm looking at is the Samsung YH-J70 not out til August

Originally Posted by rp92

Me too, but I'm having some problems finding a good offer in Italy.

Also, the fact that nobody here is able to tell anything or showing any interest about it is keeping me a little bit. I can't believe everybody here are either HD5 or iPod fans and don't bother to evaluate other significant players. So probably there's some reason why this player is not taking off ...

I think simply the X5 is the best player out there.. the only thing that stops me from buying it is the price..
I think I'll go 4 the sony 4 this only reason.. I can find it 65€ cheaper than the iaudio... and it's quite a difference.

The reason why Iaudio isn't selling as good as sony or apple IMO is very simple.. the badge..

Originally Posted by 17mika

I think simply the X5 is the best player out there.. the only thing that stops me from buying it is the price..
I think I'll go 4 the sony 4 this only reason.. I can find it 65€ cheaper than the iaudio... and it's quite a difference.

The reason why Iaudio isn't selling as good as sony or apple IMO is very simple.. the badge..

hopefully the budget issue will be soon fixed once they realize they aren't selling as expected ... if they think we're rich, they'll change their mind sooner or later ...

[j0nners]

I have one and like it very much. AFAIK the only way to browse your music is through the explorer style folder navigation which i prefer anyway. The build quality seems excellent - it feels very robust and not at all plastic. It appears in windows as another drive so you don't need to use the software to load music/pictures etc - just use explorer. As well as MP3 it plays OGG, & FLAC. I haven't seen it crash once in the week that i've had it - my ipod crashed all the time, before it finally died completely (just after the warranty had expired...)

jon

[extremelydodgy]

Originally Posted by rp92

Hi to all,
I've not read a lot about this player in this forum (or perhaps I've not been good enough to find out ...).

It's starting to think of the iAudio X5 as a good candidate to replace my NW-HD5.

Anyone can offer any info about it ?

I see it is seen as an external HDD without installing any software, which is something very useful to me. I also see it supports the creation of dynamic playlists and bookmarking inside tracks, features that I appreciate a lot as well. The X5L version feature a (non user-replaceable ) battery lasting 35h, and that's wonderful and close enough to the 40h declared by Sony for the HD5.

Has it any known problem ? Buggy ? Slow ? Lacking features ? Noise while playing ? Gap...-full ? Low volume ? Build quality ? Failures ?

How does the navigation (apart from the File-explorer-like feature) works for the music ? Is there the possibility to browse by Album, Artists, Songs, Genre basing the the ID3 tags as, e.g., the HD5 offered ?

It doesn't seem to have a separated LineOut from the earphone jack, isn't it ?

How is the accompanying software ? Or does it play music files in the hard disk in the supported format, however you put them on it, so that I'm free to use any ripping software and just drag&drop files onto the device ?

Anyone can offer a comparison with major contenders like iPod and HD5 (or any other on-par device) ?

Any information will be greatly greatly appreciated

Peppe

The line out is on a separate minidock which plugs into the underside of the X5. It'll also give you the USB, power and line in port. It's not something that's quite portable as is, because the connector is a little flimsy.


Cowon is apparently working on a database update for the X5 so that you can browse by album, etc.


The X5 is UMS, so yes, you just create your own folder structure on the drive and navigation is by working through that folder structure you created.


New Cowons always have a lot of bugs. They get fixed eventually. The Korean players aren't in general as well tested as Sony, Creative or Apple and it takes them some time to fix all the problems. For bug specifics at this time, go to iaudiophile.net. For everything about the X5, go to iaudiophile.net.


My order's not been dispatched yet, and I may yet cancel this as I might get a 'proper' PMP instead.

[PollMak]

I find it amazing that an MP3 device which has sound as it's main function, is over looked by so many users.
A lot of users seem to be more intrested with the bells and whistles than the actual sound that the player produces.
So what if the software is not perfect. If the software can transfer your music to the device, excellent! Now you can use your time to listen to the music.

[j0nners]

> I find it amazing that an MP3 device which has sound as it's main function, is over looked by so many users.
Which mp3 player is being overlooked exactly? Not many people have the X5 since it's not widely available and it's quite expensive.

> A lot of users seem to be more intrested with the bells and whistles than the actual sound that the player produces.
So what? It's their money - if they're interested in bells and whistles what's wrong with them looking for a player with bells and whistles?

> So what if the software is not perfect. If the software can transfer your music to the device, excellent! Now you can use your time to listen to the music.
Yes but if the software is a pain to use then it's not so excellent. Itunes was passable though it frequently created two copies of albums on my ipod. I wouldn't even consider buying a Sony player until they sort out their software. The worse the software the more time you spend dealing with it and not listening to your music.

Everyone has different priorities when comparing the attributes of the various players. The X5 seemed to do the things important to me well. Someone looking for say a big screen ought to look elsewhere.

jon

I agree with Jon.

Of course, first of all a good player must have a decent SQ (after all it's all about music !).

But it is conceived to be portable and easily usable. It has to put you in conditions to listen to your music (possibly thousands of tracks that must be easily accessible/manageable if you're to listen to them) in a simple way wherever you are. Thus, that's why software is important. Without a good software, you'd end back not to use the device that often (do you know why, many years ago, people preferred portable CD players instead of portable DAT players ?).

What's wrong with asking whether all this software is known to be buggy ? Anyone liking to have buggy, unusable stuff ?

What's wrong with asking if there's a way to bookmark an audiobook inside tracks (so that listening IS easy) or my favourite Bruckner's symphony 28-minutes-long movement inside it if I like a passage and want to avoid waiting 2 minutes skipping forward to reach it ?

What's wrong in asking whatever any technocrazy here wants to have in "his" device that he's going to buy with "his" money ?

Well sounding/portable/easy/stable devices. That's what (IMVHO) the vast majority of people in this forum is looking for, asking, reading & posting comments. If you don't agree, why looking at it ?

Cheers
Peppe

[kocl]

hi, i'm looking for a x5 too. The player sounds fines or not?

[j0nners]

it sounds fine.

[kocl]

the headphones supplied with iaudio do a good job or its better buy others. which?