Cowon iAUDIO 9 16 GB Mp3 Player (Black)

Quick list of why I choose the Cowon iAudio 9 I wanted...
1. Excellent Sound Quality
2. External speaker
3. Good battery life
4. Easy to use.
5. Don't need Wifi cause it eats battery and I would never use it.
I have spent over two weeks of searching reviews and youtube vids with the goal of meeting the above stated requirements. My head would spin as I would weigh the features and choices out there. One things I was not gonna accept was poor sound quality. I started with the Zume HD which was my obsession for a few days. Zune HD! Has the HD Radio which attracted me. So for the next few days I focused on the Zune only to find actual users posts on how poor the audio and ease of use was designed. I mean just to adjust the volume you have to use the touch screen three steep process. Plus you are locked into Zune proprietary software plus no spaker. I then stumbled on the Samsung p3 it had most of my requirement but the same poor users reviews,...Read more

I am a computer scientist, I get paid to do programming. That being said, I really dislike iPods. So when my creative M broke I said it was time to do some searching for something even better. This time I was looking for sound quality; I found it with the iAudio 9.
After going over a plethora of reviews I decided on Cowon as the manufacturer that I wanted. All of the their models had been praised as amazing sound quality, great batter life, and the best equalizers on the market. One of the biggest selling points was that it played FLAC (Free Lossless Audio Codec) and all that was needed to put music on there was drag 'n drop.
The only drawback that reviews had noted was the usability or UI of the player. It was not amazing and it had a learning curve, but after a while everyone said you would get used to it. That was the exact situation that happened when I got it.
At first it was more or less "meh" at the time I would have rated it a 2 star in that category,...Read more

Love, love, love this player! I have an iaudio6 4GB and iaudio7 8GB, which I thought were very good, but the iaudio9 16GB is the best one yet. The new thin design is really sweet. I use it daily for podcasts and audiobooks mainly and it is excellent for this. I installed podcatcher software MyPodder on it and it automatically d/ls my podcasts that I subscribe to when I sync to my computer. Unlike the 6 and 7 the iaudio9 has the added bonus of being Audible compatible. I have not found a better player for podcasts and audiobooks and believe me I have looked at a lot of players. As far as music goes, another plus is that it plays OGG and FLAC, that many players do not play. Sound is excellent. I am so happy that I bought this player. I would be lost without it.