Turn your old Cowon X5 into a Compact Flash toting powerhouse of audio nirvana and flash goodness

For many, MP3 player is synonymous with iPod.  However, in terms of audio quality, the iPod is far from the top of the heap.  Back when hard drive mp3 players were big, units such as the Rio Karma, iRiver iHP-120 (my favorite…mine still works), and Cowon’s X5 were the real kings of audio when actual audio quality was considered – something that seems to have fallen by the wayside today.  If you want to bring some new school love to an old friend, in this case an old Cowon X5, reinvent your dying love with some new compact flash goodness.  Of course this is a DIY project and as always you run the risk of rendering your precious sound gem into a nice heavy ‘ol paper weight.  But it’s all good.  Just think, with dual CF to IDE connectors, you can pair together two 32GB CF cards and have a 64gig CF X5 monster with storage and awesome sound to boot.  Willing to take the risk? Come inside for a quick blurb on the Frankenstein project as well as some pictures of the madness in action.

32GB S9 by Cowon looks slick, now lets you carry more tunes

It seems as if here in America we get the truly unique, innovative, and downright gorgeous looking tech last (or at least not first) all of the time.  Based on the intro sentense if you were figuring I was going to follow it with a more upbeat and inspiring sentence, I’m sorry to inform you this is not the case.  In the picture above we see a very slick looking PMP by Cowon, the S9, which the company has finally released in a 32GB version.  Said features a 3.3-inch AMOLED screen with firmware that supports multiple page widget screens ensuring the media hounds will get their fill.  With the new ceiling of 32 gigs, instead of having to pick and choose the tracks you want to carry just bring ‘em all with ya!  Yet again we stateside folks are leftl waiting in anticipation impatiently for the chance to get our hands and ears on this thing as those lucky Koreans get this new more capacious hotness first.  If you are in fact interested and know a little Korean, scrounge up $287 and hit up the product page link below.

Source: Engadget, PMP Today, DAP Review, [Product Page]