Cowon D2 4 GB Portable Media Player (Black)

In terms of audio, Cowon in general and particularly the Cowon D2 is one of the three best audio players in 2007, with the Sony and the iRiver.
Far ahead compared to the iPods.
And with a 52 hours autonomy...I use it ~2 hours a day and charge it once a month !
I like to have radio FM as well.

I have used I river H10 and Zen V plus and the sound is far superior for the cowon d2. This is especially so when the custom equalizer option is used. The custom equalizer seams to distort the sound for I river H10 and Zen V plus. The cowon is also superior because it can connect to the computer with mtp or generic external protocol.

Korean manufactured--to high standards. It's production reminds me of the Japanese, before they began to outsource everything. This is one of the best quality players on the market. Being a perfectist, in general, I cannot find anything wrong with this player except the following:

a. The text reader should be better, making the text file's fit the screen so that one can truely read them. And a set of ebook plug-ins should be available for reading the numerous ebook formats. Truly, though, this is not designed to be a book reader.

b. The headphones could be a little better so that the wires don't get tangled so easily.

Other than these two things, the player is PERFECT! It's built like a tank. The screen is great. Even videos look good. The menus are very intuitive and the touch screen is a dream. It also plays .ogg and .flac files, which means that you can get a loss-less format of superior quality. The playtime for the battery is fantastic--I charge mine about once a week, which is ridiculously unimposing.

I listen to interviews, lectures or audio books, primarily. I have yet to listen to music. But I have a feeling that music lovers will want to upgrade the headphones, even though the stock ver. are good, I suspect the player can out do the stock set.

If you're looking for a paper-thin, tiny player, look elsewhere. The player is about the size of a credit card and slightly thicker than a chapstick. But is choice!

A respectful bow to Korean, quality manufacture. Wake-up again, Japan. The "garlic eaters" are besting you. :-)

Other reviews/reviewers point out all the features, which are all great. The best thing about this player is the sound. The sound is full and rich, even when turned up really loud (it can get LOUD). You can turn bass up without distortion (I hate the Ipod for its awful sound quality - their headphone drivers are extremely underpowered), and you can drive lower impedance headphones than the crappy ear buds that come with portable players (The Cowon does not come with great ear buds, and you have to get something better to appreciate the player's sound quality) The only thing that I don't like about it is that the album art picture in the music folders must be called cover.jpg and my music folders all have a folder.jpg (this could be fixed in a future firmware update). But that fact hardly bothers me at all and I am so glad I bought this player.

I was looking strictly for a player that had excellent sound and would play various formats, ea flac & ogg. The D2 performs up to my expectations.
There are plenty of reviews extolling the virtues of the D2, so here are a few tips.
Before loading any songs, save yourself several hours of frustration and format the D2 and the SD card. All the problems I was having disappeared on reformat.
Get a decent set of headphones or earbuds, makes a huge difference.
Search the cowon forums if you have problems. Lot of good answers there. Be sure to check the forums BEFORE upgrading the firmware. Seems to be quite a few bugs in the new firmware.
I don't use the video or radio so I can't comment on them.