Electronics Store

BETTER THAN BOSE!
Pros -

1) This is a wireless player, so no need to connect your mp3 player to it
2) Works well with SONY MP3 Players and charges it too!! SONY SOUNDS BETTER THAN IPOD ANYTIME!!. Although you can connect mp3 player to this player with the cable provided with it.
3) Sound Quality, Sound Quality, Sound Quality Better than bose!!
4) The picture is incorrect, it actually comes with a subwoofer.
5) if you read through the manual, the setup is not complicated at all!

Cons -

Cant think of any, if i do get one, i will update

excellent sound and stylish
Just what I've been looking for. Easy setup with my PC and streaming music to the bedroom!

Good network player
Pros:
1) Does the job that I want: play songs thru IP network.
2) Nice outlook
3) Sound quality is not bad, at least with a mini subwoofer
4) Reasonable price

Cons:
1) The PC M-Crew software is not very user-friendly.
2) Can't display non-English characters
3) not enough functional buttons/keys on the unit itself

Would have been a great network player
The thought of centralizing all your music on a network attached storage and be able to play from anywhere in the house sounds great. Especially being able to play from places like kitchen wirelessly is great.

Setup I use: Linksys NAS200 Storage centrally located with inbuilt media center support.

Comments:
1. If you do purchase one, immediately download the latest firmware and update. It will save you lot of trouble. It seems version 1.0 is more like a functional test version. You would need to connect the player to network and access it through a browser. You really do not need to install mcrew server for this. point the browser to the right IP address of the player and enter "root" and no password to login.Note that the player can be made to display the IP address by using remote(net info)

2. With the latest firmware, you can setup the wireless SSID and key on the player itself. The key information is hard to enter. use forwards and backwards buttons to advance to the next position. use Next and Back buttons to increase or decrease the number/digit. I do not believe this is written anywhere in the manual.

3. Sound quality is great. Price is right. Small, but complete with speakers (unlike logitech and few others, who require that you purchase the whole kit and many of those network receivers require that you hook up speakers, which could be painful in places like kitchen)

Current problems I have:
Central NAS I have has around 500 songs with sub directories for various categories. Also I have the play lists.
1. Player does not show playlists. This player can play playlist from the supplied mcrew software on PC only
2. Player takes forever to hookup to this media server. The media server has around 500 songs and some video files. It takes around 15 mins or so to load. Not sure what is the problem. It is frustrating.
3. Continuing on #1, player does not connect to web radio and such w/o the mcrew server
It would be good if the future network audio players stay away from having the requirement of connecting to a PC. They should instead serve directly from the web and also from any media server(like the one I described here).

May be the next version will be better. I also expect that these players to be more standards based in regards to playlist and such.

Great Audio Player
I have had this player for over 6 months now and I absolutely love it. It's not hard to setup if you just read the directions. I use it outside, in the garage, and all over the house. Everyone that comes over just loves it.

Great Value, Good Digital Piano
The Yamaha YPG-635 is an excellent value. There are a few things I think Yamaha could have done better, and thus the four star rating. In summary: Good sound, great keyboard, great value.

The Good:

This keyboard has excellent and realistic keyboard action. I played on several at a music store to see which of the various brands felt best. To my fingers at least, none of the keyboards in the price range felt any better (and even many that cost more didn't feel as real). It's easily within the normal variation of real piano keyboards. This was the key deciding factor for picking this keyboard.

The Grand Piano voice is good, easily acceptable. There are better sounding piano voices; typically found only in instruments at twice the price.

The general MIDI spread of voices is decent, and many are top quality. The extended voices are very good as well, but are obviously synthetic. Two of the deciding factors for me were the 64 note polyphony and the general MIDI compatibility. I play a lot of MIDI files and my old keyboard was not general MIDI compatible (it had the voices on the wrong patches). Many songs overrun the 28 note polyphony of my old synth; they do not on the YPG. I'm sure I could create sequences that need more that 64 note polyphony, but for the most part, 64 is enough (128 would be great, though).

For a complex keyboard, most of the functions are easy to use. For the complex things, there is a menu selection system and scroll wheel that I've found works fairly well. When I'm actually playing the keyboard and not running MIDI files through it, I prefer to use the "Grand Piano" button and have it simply be a piano. Easy.

The Value is amazing. There are cheaper keyboards with as many voices. There are keyboards with as nice or nicer sounding voices. The combination of price and voices, at least for me, meets in the middle on this instrument.

The USB-to-HOST port and associated drivers work with Windows 7 (64 bit). I was worried as my previous MIDI interface doesn't. I have several MIDI capable devices and was planning to replace my no-longer-compatible MIDI interface box (and still may since I still have the other MIDI devices). See my note in the "the Bad" section about the lack of standard MIDI ports.

The Neither Good nor Bad:

OK, the title for this section is a little humorous (I know, very little). The points I want to make, though, fit in neither the good nor bad, but are comments on advertising hype and expectations.

The advertising claims the Piano voice is the best... their words are: "You're never more than a button push away from the most realistic piano sound in portable keyboards today." I have to quibble with two parts. This keyboard, at 70 pounds or so, isn't all that portable (unless you're a professional musician with Roadies to move your stuff), and the sound is good, but not the best since Yamaha's pro-Line portable stage piano's have even better sound (along with much higher price tags).

The display isn't big. They advertise playing songs from the score display. You probably won't. It's big enough you could and small enough you won't want to.

The wood doesn't seem to be real wood, but more like the particle board with veneer like that of cheap furniture (well, it's a fairly cheap digital piano, so I guess that fits, huh?). However, it is solid (and 70 pounds or so).

The auto-accompaniment isn't as feature rich as I expected moving up from my ancient PSR synth. There are more choices, but fewer controls over them. Perhaps I just haven't learned them yet.

The Bad:

As mentioned a few times in other reviews, the volume isn't impressive. A real piano would easily drown out the YPG audio output. Not an issue if you listen on headphones or are in a small room - just be aware, a large room, like a church or club, will swallow the sound of the keyboard and not even burp. Of course, if you want, you could add amplified speakers or feed it to a PA, but there will be a signal to noise issue since you're using a headphone jack as the keyboard does not have Line-Out jacks. I realize the YPG isn't a pro-line instrument and Line-out is a pro-level feature.

Speaking of the headphone jack, it's on the back side of the keyboard, behind the music rest. A really awkward spot if you ask me. On the front would be much better. This is a minor deficiency.

While we're on the back of the instrument, the USB to Device (for flash drives) is on the back of the keyboard and hard to get to if you have the keyboard near a wall. I bought a 30 inch USB Extension cable so I can plug and unplug my flash drive more easily. Not a show stopper, and not an issue if you don't use a flash drive, but how hard would it have been to put it on the front.

The MIDI implementation is Yamaha's USB to Host connection. You can't use a MIDI controller to use the sounds of the YPG, or use the YPG to control an external tone module unless you have a computer handy - it doesn't have the standard 5 pin DIN MIDI ports. I thought long and hard about this before deciding I could live without standard MIDI ports. If you need the standard MIDI jacks, think about another keyboard.

Conclusion:

The YPG-635 is an excellent value, you do get what you pay for and there are a couple of compromises and quirks at this price level. The combinations of features, though, are well worth the price. The sound is good, the keyboard action very good, and the good points far out-weigh the bad points.

It doesn't come with a cover, but Amazon sells one that fits: Musician's Gear 88 Key Stretchy Keyboard Cover.

Perfect for a nice family piano
I ended up buying this after looking around for a month and recommending it to my Father. I was happy enough with his, and found a really good deal on it, and ended up buying one myself.

This is just a really nice piano. It has a really good feel (probably the best touch feel until you jump up another level in price), the piano sounds are very warm and realistic, the rest of the sounds are all very good (some of the strings/horns aren't quite there, but come on, who really cares, you bought a piano, not a saxaphone). The included pedal does an adequate job, though I'm probably going to pick up with optional 3-pedal unit at some point. The speakers are very loud and produce a good sound. There is a headphone jack, as well as a USB port for MIDI-control.

Overall, this is a great digital piano. It looks really nice, and is well constructed. The sounds are very good for this price-point, as is the feel. Does the sound/feel get better? Absolutely; just be prepared to pay 2-3 times as much. For anyone that just wants a nice piano for the family to have, one that won't go out of tune, feels good, is full size, and has a nice sound, you can't find much better than this! I would definitely recommend it to others!

Good piano
This is a very nice piano for the price. The quality of the sound is not identical to the real piano, but it's better than any other electronic instrument I've used so far. I'm also happy with the quality of materials used, and it's very easy to assemble. The selection of other instruments is diverse and you can get very creative with it. I bought it for personal pleasure rather than for professional use, and it works just fine for this purpose. One thing I didn't realize is that it's still not a full-size piano, one octave is missing compared to the real thing. I thought 88 notes was it, but I was wrong. Other than that, I'm happy with the purchase.

Best thousand bucks I've ever spent.
Feels and sounds like a really good piano, especially with a quality set of headphones. Perfect for practicing on at all times of the day without driving your room mates / neighbors / family up the wall. A much cheaper and more portable alternative to having a legit piano. My biggest complaint is that after playing on my Yamaha for a year, I am now spoiled, and a lot of the real pianos that I get to play on from time to time feel / sound like absolute garbage.

Great Piano for the price
My brother did a lot of research on these pianos and decided on this one. I took his word for it, and have not been dissapointed. Simple to use, and I love the quick button to return all setting to the basic Grand Piano setting. I am not a big musician, so I don't have much experience with all that it has to offer, but it appears to be very comprehensive. The keys are weighted the same as my regular piano. I wanted to get rid of the big bulky piano... And it has not been missed at all. And you can't beat the price for this quality.

The only CON would be that I can't find a cover for it. My wife is going to make one for it.

LUVVVVV IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I bought this at Costco and it does everything it says it does and does it very well! Cookies,cakes,toast and pizza come out great.

Best Toaster/Broiler, Convection-Standard Oven
The Cuisinart is the best counter top cooking device I have. I never need to use the conventional oven unless cooking for more than my wife and myself. Save electricity, cooks faster, easy clean-up and doesn't heat up the kitchen. This is my second unit. One in our main home and one in our vacation home.

nice toaster oven
This is a very nice toaster oven. I had one before in white for many years and liked the way it worked so we bought another in stainless. This toaster is a little bigger but the food cooks even better. Makes toast just fine but we use it mostly for cooking.

Love this toaster oven!
Perfect for single, apartment living. Why heat up the entire apartment using the regular oven when the Cuisinart Toaster Oven Broiler can do the job much more efficiently. Great for toasting bagels, too!

Love it!
This is a great little oven...much more than a toaster. We've used it for cookies, pizza, toast, etc. It heats up really quickly and does a great job. Yes, it gets hot so be careful opening it and teach your older children who may be using it to be careful. Yes, it's a little noisy while it's cooking, but this doesn't bother us at all. We rented a beach house that had this nifty oven in it and loved it....that is why we chose to purchase one for ourselves and haven't been disappointed at all.

Works Great
I've had this unit for 2 years now at my cabin and it works great. I use it to invert my 12V battery bank voltage to 111.7V. I removed one star as the description states that it will provide 120V but it doesn't hit that number. I mostly notice it when running a small room fan in the Summer. At home with 117V outlets the fan pumps out the air flow, but the same fan at 111V is almost half the speed.

Definitely a great buy and I think for most applications the loss of a few volts will never be noticed.

My First Inverter
I'm working as truck driver and I'm using this inverter 4 already 3 month ALL THE TIME 24/7! Especially 4 refrigerator, microwave, vacuum cleaner. Works great! Very recommended!

Does not output claimed wattage
1500 speced unit could not handle 1200W resistive test load, nor 450W computer system (continuous, not startup). Replaced with 1000W Sunforce Sine Wave Inverter. No issues now.

Worst Product Ever
I decided to try this product out because it was the only one reviewed extensively and was fairly inexpensive. Well I now know why. Before I begin I would like to state that Amazon is amazing. Throughout this entire ordeal they overnighted the products to me. "COBRA AND THE CHEAP CHINESE CRAP BEING SENT OVER" are the ones to blame for this problem. I have had to return three of these and have since switched products. The first one I received the USB port didn't work so I sent it back. Received the second one two days later (Amazon being great) the voltage output was 95 way below the +- 10% of 120 allowed, and as stated elsewhere the wattage indicator didn't work. Sent the second one back and received it two days later (Amazon again) and tested the voltage this one output 85 volts which is completely unacceptable, and to top it off the wattage indicator still didn't work. I don't know about other reviewers but if something doesn't work (wattage indicator) I'm not happy. I pay good money for this piece of crap and I expect it to work. Amazon is now giving me a refund and I am purchasing a PowerDrive 1500, because it has been recommended to me by Truckers and is sold at most truck stops. Cobra has no quality control and nobody expects anything good from China. Stay away from this product it will give you nothing but headaches and it still won't work. Keep buying from Amazon though.

Could be Better
A friend of mine purchased this inverter (I'm sorry to say because of my recommendation) and I helped him install it in his travel trailer. The inverter is located 3 feet (wire length) from 3,new,100 amp-hr batteries wired in parallel. I used #4 gauge wire (the wire kit recommended which costs extra) for all connections between batteries and to the inverter. The first thing noticed when turned on was that the inverter showed about 200 watts of power being supplied when there was nothing connected to it. I then hooked up a 700 Watt coffee maker (resistive load) and the inverter indicated over 1500 Watts of power being supplied to it. It went into overload mode and shut down. The battery voltage under load at the time it shut down was 11.9 volts. Thinking that the coffee maker was maybe drawing more than the advertised amount of power, I hooked it to my 1000 Watt Honda generator (really 900 watts continuous). The generator had no problem running it. So I have to conclude that this inverter (1500W/3000W surge) is greatly over rated for its advertised power capabilities. About the only thing that is really handy is the remote on/off switch (extra). If you need anywhere near the full rated power, I'd advise buying another brand, even if if you have to pay more.

Cowon is top dog for Audio as usual...everything else meh....
I've been a Cowon fan since the X5...I've played many different types of audio and audio/video players. Cowon has always had the best audio quality of any portable audio I've ever heard out of the box. The S9 is no different, audio quality...superb. If your an audiophile, anything Cowon since the X5 is your audio music player. The S9 is no different. The sound level can be put up to 40 max. It sounds louder then most other mp3 players I've heard. But you can make it even louder using the EQ settings. Loud enough to make your ears ring. The sound quality is so good that it takes alot before the music starts to distort. Thats what helps the EQ standout from other EQs on mp3 players. So while 40 is the max, if you tweak your S9 player just right, you can achieve about what could be the equivalent of a 50 max loudness setting without suffering audio distortion. I'm a big OGG fan and I always loved that Cowon embraced OGG files, S9 is no different, built in support. It's nice to see it supports ape as well. A great lossless file format. When it comes to audio format compatibility, Cowon always was better then the rest and still is.

So the S9 is a fully functional audio player that is as close to perfect as it gets, but it does alot more. Thats where I ran into some great features and also some problems...

Video player format issues, they include a fully functioning JetAudio Media Center with a fast converter for audio and video files. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work. I tried converting a high quality .mkv file using the S9 conversion profile. It seemed to convert fine, played on my pc fine. I moved it over to the S9, wouldn't play. Threw me an error message. A .wmv file and .avi file I converted using the S9 profile played fine and the video quality when a file plays does look spectacular. Better then a PSP screen and most other portable video players I've seen. But conversion problems have been an issue with cowon products for as long as I can remember. Its very hit and miss. When I bought my Cowon X5 years ago, I gave up on the video portion. Who cares, X5's video screen stunk anyway. But with this new generation type of portable player, I would like to use the video much more then I did in the past. Show off the brilliant video quality and screen. There is nothing that kills fun more then waiting an hour for a file to convert and then it doesn't work. Waste your time and lets you down.

The touch screen here is good, I think its better then I expected but with that said, when I go to hit something it only works about 6 out of 10 times. I imagine your finger size can play a factor, I got big stubby hands. You can see reviews on youtube of the product, you'll see them constantly having to retap the touchscreen to get the player to respond properly. Its imperfect and many touchscreens are imperfect. They include a button layout on the top and bottom of the player, that in most cases can be used in lieu of the touchscreen. Thats another odd issue, most portable audio players I've used have the controls either on the face or to the side. Putting them at the top makes the player a little odd. I have a tendency to want to grip an mp3 player from the top and bottom. That can cause major issues when command buttons are on the top and bottom. What kind of makes it worse is that the OS is setup that basically you'll want to have the player vertical for audio and horizontal for video. You can play it either way but it looks better for video horizontal and the audio player design is much nicer for the vertical setup.

As much as I love Cowon's audio quality, their product quality in the long term is always worrying. Battery issues and durability issues are always a problem. Its heaven on earth for the first year and a half. After that, well. Most cowon items seem to falter after a year and half. But for now, I find the S9 to be well made with great battery usage. I do have one little nitpick about the design, the sides which I must hold the player by are slippery. I've dropped it twice, I'm not a butter fingers type of person, so I couldn't help but notice that. This is a unit, I would dread dropping face down on its screen outside on a concrete or asphalt ground. There is another potential problem I worry about for long-term usage, the player can sense when your looking at it vertical upright, horizontal left AND horizontal right. Which is a Great feature. But already I notice the sensing is a little off. I turn it to only a bit the left....immediately it goes horizontal. Yet I need to turn it half way to the right to make it go horizontal. So the sensing is inaccurate and I have a hunch, that with time, it could very well fail. Either staying in one position permanently or becoming overly sensitive and changing positions with the least little movement which would be extremely annoying. There is by no means a guarentee but I do worry about it and based on how Cowon products durability tend to degrade over time. Its a very real possibility.

Theres plenty of other little features worth trying. Built in flash player which is sorta flat without an internet to download stuff for it. Yes you can copy flash material over to the unit. But it can be a bit annoying. Flash is supposed to be something instant, not just another video-like format. It has games...but the touchscreen is not accurate enough and the system is simply not built for playing any sort of power hungry games. So your limited for that as well. The built-in recording is standard fare but it works quite well. Would probably suffice for any sort of seminar recording or the like. The line-in option is always a plus. Radio and Radio recording, it works fine but its all stuff you can find on a budget mp3 player. Really not that special. But its an option and works fine. Thats all that matters. Not having Wi-Fi I believe really hurts this player. It has so many options that would have benefitted from it.

Overall it's a spectacular audio player and good video player. Thats all people really care about. The rest of the features are either standard fare or stuff that just doesn't matter much. I don't feel the price is worth it for basically yet another cowon item where all I care about is the terrific audio player and nothing else. Yes when the video player works, its beautiful. But getting video files to work like all cowon products is hit and miss. I've seen worse players for video codec compatibility but I've also seen better. Their JetAudio audio/video media center is excellent within a PC format. But yet, not everything you create with it will be guarenteed to work on the S9 even when your making it with an S9 profile. Thats odd. Thats hard to explain and somewhat unforgivable for a high priced portable player.

Best Sound Quality Portable Music/Media Player
Cowon media players are the BEST when it comes to the sound quality. This is a must-have for those of you who really enjoy listening to the music. My i-pod touch is sitting in my drawer since I can't go back to those poor sound quality mp3-type of music after using my Cowon S9! The only drawback is that it's almost impossible to read the screen in bright direct sunlight. Even so, Cowon S9 is still the best thing I have ever owned. Highly recommended!

OUTSTANDING
This is an amazing device that totally destroys my opinion of what a PMP can be. You have access to so many features (typist, radio, photo viewer, truly audiophile sound quality, etc...) that makes this a truly unique and fantastic device.

This is a seemingly audio-centric device but, that is shattered by its numerous features and with a great user community that is always tweaking and enhancing your user experience FREE OF CHARGE!, this Cowon player is my favorite purchase of 2010 and perhaps the last 5 years, by far!

Buy one and make sure you purchase some SERIOUS headphones or bluetooth speakers because this thing can push out some great sound quality.

Solid PMP
I bought the Cowon S9 because I wanted a high quality MP3 player and did not like the experience of being tethered to iTunes when I had my previous iPod. Overall, the S9 was what I was hoping to get.

PROS

- The battery life on this thing is fantastic. I have it running 10 hours a day when I am sitting at my desk at work, and it will go for several days before needing to be charged. Usually just plugging it in for a hour once a week to load on more music is enough charge time.
- The OLED display is vibrant and clear; no dead pixels.
- Playback quality on both music and video is nothing short of great.
- File compatibility is top notch; this thing has played every file type I have thrown at it with no problems. Playing native xvid video files is extremely convenient, no need to convert videos to a lower quality just so you can add it to your PMP.
- The plastic screen is made out of Gorilla Glass which is pretty much impossible to scratch, so it is very durable and you don't need to worry about stuff grinding against it when you have it in your pocket.
- It allows you to bookmark a spot of a MP3 file - this is a great feature for me because I listen to MP3's of radio shows that can be several hours long. This has been a feature that all of my previous players have lacked so I was pleasantly surprised to find this.
- File management with this player is simple, you just treat it like any other external storage you would plug into your computer and copy your files onto the device.

CONS

- The interface is awkward and takes getting used to. Now that I have been using it for about a month it is fine, but it took awhile for it to make sense. You can download user made interfaces and install them on the device if you are interested.
- While rare, I have experienced some odd bugs. Occasionally it will register several mp3 files more than once and I have to restart the player to get back to normal. Nothing huge but they are an annoyance when they come up.
- Hardware was a little smaller than I was expecting. The screen is maybe 30% smaller than a iPod touch.
- The ear bud headphones that come with the player seem pretty cheap, I replaced them immediately.
- FM radio player is extremely bare bones
- No music visualization effects (some of the promotional videos I found on the internet made it looks like it could do this, but I found out it was just displaying movie files that looked similar)

Overall I am happy with the purchase. I use this MP3 player with Ubuntu Linux and it works fine (occasionally it is read only when I mount it, but reconnecting usually fixes it). While I think this player will last me a long time, it has made me a fan of Cowon and I would consider purchasing more of their products.

Very good player
Love the EQ on the S9. Wish it had a card slot, but great player.