Cowon Systems, Inc. (simply known as Cowon) is a South Korean

consumer electronics Consumer electronics, also known as home electronics, are electronic devices intended for everyday household use. Consumer electronics include those used for entertainment, Communication, communications, and recreation. Historically, these prod ...

and

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

corporation. The company’s initial focus was software development and

microelectronics Microelectronics is a subfield of electronics. As the name suggests, microelectronics relates to the study and manufacture (or microfabrication) of very small electronic designs and components. Usually, but not always, this means micrometre ...

, specializing in

speech synthesis Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal langua ...

and

speech recognition Speech recognition is an interdisciplinary subfield of computer science and computational linguistics that develops methodologies and technologies that enable the recognition and translation of spoken language into text by computers. It is also ...

technology. In 2000, with the introduction of the iAUDIO CW100, Cowon expanded into the

portable media player A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, Electric battery, batter ...

industry, which is now the core of their business. In 2010, Cowon was ranked number one in the PMP category of Japanese Management Association Consultants’ Global Customer Satisfaction Competency Index, and in 2011, it was ranked number one in the same organization’s Global & Great Brand Competency Index. In the west, Cowon is most well known for its

iAUDIO iAUDIO is the brand name for a range of portable media players produced by Korean consumer electronics and software corporation Cowon Systems, Inc. Products The iAUDIO range consists of players based on both flash memory and hard disk ...

range of portable media players, which has resulted in many people incorrectly referring to the company as “Cowon iAUDIO” or simply “iAUDIO.” Outside the domestic market, Cowon iAUDIO's sales and market share have always been minuscule - however, it gained a certain niche market and retains a loyal following from fans and enthusiasts.

Products

In its marketing, Cowon distinguishes between "

MP3 players A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, Electric battery, batter ...

" and "

portable media players A portable media player (PMP) or digital audio player (DAP) is a portable consumer electronics device capable of storing and playing digital media such as audio, images, and video files. Normally they refer to small, battery-powered devices ...

," where the latter are larger and have a greater focus on video playback. The categories differ slightly between the Korean and the global homepage. All Cowon products are produced domestically in South Korea.

MP3 players

Cowon M2 Cowon Systems, Inc. (simply known as Cowon) is a South Korean consumer electronics and software corporation. The company’s initial focus was software development and microelectronics, specializing in speech synthesis and speech recognition ...

(2014) *

Cowon E3 Cowon Systems, Inc. (simply known as Cowon) is a South Korean consumer electronics and software corporation. The company’s initial focus was software development and microelectronics, specializing in speech synthesis and speech recognition ...

(2014) * iAUDIO 9+ (2013) * Cowon D20 (2013) * Cowon X9 (2012) * iAUDIO 10 (2011) * Cowon C2 (2011) * Cowon X7 (2010) *

Cowon J3 Cowon Systems, Inc. (simply known as Cowon) is a South Korean consumer electronics and software corporation. The company’s initial focus was software development and microelectronics, specializing in speech synthesis and speech recognition ...

(2010) * iAUDIO E2 (2009) * iAUDIO 9 (2009) *

Cowon S9 The Cowon S9 is a touchscreen portable media player released in late 2008 by Cowon Systems, Inc. It features support for audio file formats such as MP3, Ogg Vorbis and FLAC, and video formats such as DivX DIVX (Digital Video Express) is a d ...

(2008)

LIAAIL products

Cowon’s LIAAIL division, founded in 2011, focuses on personal audio and cell phone accessories. Among its products can be found: * Earphones ** Cowon BT2 ** Cowon EM1 **Cowon EF1 ** Cowon XE1 **Cowon CE1 **Cowon SE2 **Cowon EM2 * Cell phone cases ** Bird Case ** Tree Case ** Leather Case ** Jelly Case * Cell phone screen protectors

Other products

* Cowon AD1, car camera released in 2012 * Cowon AC1, car camera released in 2012 * Cowon W2,

Windows 7 Windows 7 is a major release of the Windows NT operating system developed by Microsoft. It was Software release life cycle#Release to manufacturing (RTM), released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and became generally available on October 22, ...

-based

ultra-mobile PC An ultra-mobile PC, or ultra-mobile personal computer (UMPC), is a miniature version of a pen computer, a class of laptop whose specifications were launched by Microsoft and Intel in Spring 2006. Sony had already made a first attempt in this ...

released in 2010, available in 60 and 80 GB models * Cowon W2 SSD, Windows 7-based ultra-mobile PC equipped with a

solid state drive A solid-state drive (SSD) is a type of solid-state storage device that uses Integrated circuit, integrated circuits to store data persistence (computer science), persistently. It is sometimes called semiconductor storage device, solid-stat ...

, released in 2010, available in a 32 GB model * Cowon L3,

GPS navigation device A satellite navigation (satnav) device or GPS device is a device that uses satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS) or similar global navigation satellite systems (GNSS). A satnav device can determine the user's geographic coordinat ...

and in-car entertainment system released in 2009 * Cowon N3, GPS navigation device and in-car entertainment system released in 2007

Discontinued products

* Cowon D20 * Cowon iAUDIO 10 * Cowon C2 * Cowon D3 Plenue * Cowon X7 *

* iAUDIO E2 * iAUDIO 9 * Cowon D2+ *

Cowon D2 The Cowon D2 is a portable media player designed and marketed by Cowon Systems, Inc. The D2, released on December 5, 2006, was Cowon's first portable media player using a touchscreen A touchscreen (or touch screen) is a type of electronic ...

* Cowon iAUDIO 7

Portable media players

* Cowon G7 * Cowon T5 * Cowon Q7 Plenue * Cowon A5 Plenue * Cowon R7 * Cowon V5S * Cowon 3D * Cowon V5W * Cowon V5 * Cowon O2 * Cowon iAUDIO X5 * Cowon A3 * Cowon A2

JetEffect

Each Cowon player is equipped with a set of software sound enhancement technologies collectively referred to as JetEffect. The latest version of JetEffect, JetEffect 5, was introduced with the release of the

Cowon Z2 Plenue The Cowon Z2 Plenue is an Android-based portable media player manufactured by Cowon Systems, Inc. Its release was announced on . In the year of its release, the Z2 was awarded the iF product design award. The Z2 is widely considered to be the ...

. JetEffect competes with products such as

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

DSEE DSEE (Digital Sound Enhancement Engine) is a sound quality improvement technology for lossy compressed music files developed by Sony. Variants DSEE Introduced in 2006, DSEE is included in Sony's digital Walkman products and freeware SonicStage ...

Samsung Samsung Group (; stylised as SΛMSUNG) is a South Korean Multinational corporation, multinational manufacturing Conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered in the Samsung Town office complex in Seoul. The group consists of numerous a ...

's DNSe, and the

SRS SRS or SrS may stand for: Organizations and companies Companies *Sperry Rail Service, a rail inspection contractor *Stanford Research Systems, a test and measurement instruments manufacturer * SRS Cinemas, in India * SRS Labs, an American aud ...

technologies found in products by iriver and

and in products by

HTC HTC Corporation ( zh, t=宏達國際電子股份有限公司, p=Hóngdá Guójì Diànzǐ Gǔfèn Yǒuxiàn Gōngsī, first=t), or High Tech Computer Corporation (abbreviated and trading as HTC), is a Taiwanese consumer electronics corporatio ...

and HP, where they are branded as "Beats Audio".

Features

In its latest iteration, JetEffect contains the following sound effects and enhancements: * Five-band equalizer * BBE+ ** BBE+ ** BBE Mach3Bass ** BBE 3D Surround ** BBE MP Enhance * Special Effects **

Reverb In acoustics, reverberation (commonly shortened to reverb) is a persistence of sound after it is produced. It is often created when a sound is reflected on surfaces, causing multiple reflections that build up and then decay as the sound is a ...

** Stereo Enhance

In JetAudio

History

* JetEffect 2.0 * JetEffect 3.0 * JetEffect 5

Software

Computer software

* JetAudio, media player application for

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...

first released in 1997 * JetVideo, video player application for Microsoft Windows with features which partially overlap with those of JetAudio. Like JetAudio, it relies on external

codec A codec is a computer hardware or software component that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder o ...

s (such as those included in the

K-Lite Codec Pack The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of audio and video codecs for Microsoft Windows DirectShow that enables an operating system and its software to play various audio and video formats generally not supported by the operating system itself. Th ...

) for some of its data decoding.

Android apps

* JetAudio for Android * JetVD ''JetVD'' is an Android

application Application may refer to: Mathematics and computing * Application software, computer software designed to help the user to perform specific tasks ** Application layer, an abstraction layer that specifies protocols and interface methods used in a ...

for downloading videos from

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

in a wide selection of formats. It was first introduced to users of the Cowon D3 Plenue with the upgrade to

firmware In computing Computing is any goal-oriented activity requiring, benefiting from, or creating computer, computing machinery. It includes the study and experimentation of algorithmic processes, and the development of both computer hardware, h ...

version x.55. An online version of JetVD, calle
JetToy
exists in beta stage.

Other software

Other software developed by Cowon includes the ''iAUDIO LDB Manager'', a small application for tagging music files with

timecode A timecode (alternatively, time code) is a sequence of numeric codes generated at regular intervals by a timing synchronization system. Timecode is used in video production, show control and other applications which require temporal coordinatio ...

d lyrics displayable on Cowon media players as well as in

JetAudio JetAudio is a shareware media player (application software), media player computer software, application for Microsoft Windows (operating system), Windows and Android (operating system), Android released in 1997 which offers playback options for ...

. Cowon also offers a number of freeware utilities, including ''JetCast'', ''JetMailMonitor'' and '' JetToolBar''. All of the above are available for free download from the JetAudio website. Cowon’s

s W2 and W2 SSD come with JetToolbar pre-installed.Cowon W2 product page

References

External links

COWONGLOBAL.com

JetAudio (American homepage)

LIAAIL idea & art

JetToy
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cowon Electronics companies established in 1995 Manufacturing companies established in 1995 South Korean companies established in 1995 Companies based in Seoul Consumer electronics brands Audio equipment manufacturers of South Korea Navigation system companies Portable audio player manufacturers Video surveillance companies South Korean brands