Design, Haptics, Build Quality, Features:
I really like the design and find it elegant but modern. I especially the two digital, rotary potentiometers that are also illuminated once rotated.
Build quality is excellent.
The included leather case is of high quality.
One micro SD slot as well as 128 GB of internal memory is what the Cowon Plenue 2 offers in terms of storage. More (or two micro SD slots) would have been better at the price, but ultimately I think it's sufficient.
The virtual touch button below the screen can be programmed.
Operation with one hand is easy.
The AMOLED touchscreen measures 3.7 inches with a resolution of 480 x 800 pixels. It's good enough for crisp images and more than sufficient for an audio player, nonetheless the individual pixels can still be seen compared to a retina screen where they are almost invisible.
The viewing angle is excellent and colours seem to be reproduced quite correctly with a properly set white point. The only thing that I would criticise is that the colour saturation is a bit too high for my preference and for what would be neutral.
The Plenue 2 can be used as a USB DAC but doesn't have built-in WiFi or music streaming capabilities, which I find a bit sad given the price.
Volume Control:
The right potentiometer, quite classically, digitally adjusts the Plenue 2’s volume in 140 steps with a scaling of precise 0.5 dB over the entire adjustment range. The quietest setting is however, for my listening habits, already too high in combination with sensitive in-ears, wherefore I definitely prefer my beloved iBasso DX90's 256 steps (0.5 dB scaling as well) that allow for inaudibly quiet listening levels no matter how sensitive the in-ear is.
The second, left potentiometer can be programmed to do different things, one of which is additional volume control that then happens with a scaling of 1 dB.
Operation, User Interface:
Those who are familiar with Cowon’s more recent audio players won't find anything unexpected in the Plenue 2’s customised Linux operating system’s interface that's definitely among the best and most intuitive UIs on the market, and a search feature with a virtual on-screen keyboard is just as present as a good file/folder browser.
Performance:
Booting the player takes about 11 seconds.
Inserting a large micro SD card, the Plenue 2 will of course perform a database update, which however only takes very little time.
The Plenue 2 is using a 1.2 GHz dual-core CPU that is more than sufficient for playing audio and navigating through the menus without any delays or lags. Touch inputs are recognised almost instantly and using the search feature leads to results right after the virtual “enter” button has been pressed, so there are no delays overall and operation and navigation is fluent.
Battery Life:
To test the battery life, I connected the cheap Superlux HD668B headphone to the Plenue 2’s single-ended (3.5 mm) headphone output and played a mix of 50% CD format files (FLAC, 16 bit, 44.1 kHz) and 50% Hi-Res files (FLAC, 24 bit, 192 kHz) from the micro SD card. Occasionally, I unlocked the screen and navigated through the menus.
Under this scenario, having the volume set to 70 out of 140 (low gain mode), the player’s battery lasted for around 9 hours and 25 minutes.
Sound:
Needless to say, the JetEffect settings were disabled in the following few paragraphs.
Frequency Response, Output Impedance:
Let’s see how the Plenue 2 performs in terms of unloaded frequency response (Digital Filter #1, single-ended output):
No surprise - the result is just as flat as it should be.
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Low impedance headphones and especially in-ears that don't have a flat impedance response (therefore the vast majority of multi-BA in-ears) require the source device to have an output impedance as close to 0 Ohms as possible in order to avoid sounding differently (the higher the output impedance, the more the tonality will be altered if the IEM's impedance response isn't flat).
This is what the Cowon Plenue 2 puts out when connecting a critical, low impedance multi-driver in-ear (my Ultimate Ears Triple.Fi 10) to its single-ended output:
Based on the deviation, the output impedance can be calculated, and it is on the small side with around 0.6 Ohms, which backs up Cowon’s specs that also state 0.6 Ohms, and which is a nicely low, very good value, although benchmark 0.1 Ohms (as my iBasso DX90 and RME ADI-2 DAC have) would have been even greater for the most impedance-critical multi-BA in-ears.
Hiss Performance:
The 3.5 mm headphone output is hiss-free even with extremely sensitive in-ears in my inventory (very to extremely sensitive in-ears that I own are: Shure SE846, Campfire Audio Andromeda, Ostry KC06A, Pai Audio MR3). The Plenue 2 is definitely a benchmark product in this regard and even slightly outperforms my beloved iBasso DX90 in this regard, a DAP that will only output little audible hiss into the extremest of sensitive in-ears whereas the Cowon remains hiss-free, just like my stationary RME ADI-2 DAC's IEM output or the FiiO M7's output (the FiiO's output impedance isn't as perfect as my iBasso's or RME's though).
As I don't care for balanced 2.5 mm TRRS connections, the only 2.5 mm TRRS terminated IEM I used here is the Fidue A91 VIRGO. No hiss was audible, but the Fidue isn't an extremely sensitive in-ear either. I still think that the 2.5 mm output is hiss-free or at least extremely close to that, since Cowon is generally known to make DAPs that perform really well when it comes to hiss performance.
Subjective Perception of Transparency, Precision & Soundstage:
No unnecessary long subjective blah-blah here.
As for portable devices, the Plenue 2 appears just as subjectively "transparent" using well-resolving in-ears as my Chord Electronics Mojo or iBasso's DX200 (AMP1 module). Benchmark here, too. The subjectively perceived presentation is slightly on the "smoother" side, although to a lesser degree when compared to my Chord Mojo. The impression of "spatiality" is excellent.
Whatever; since the output impedance, hiss performance and other specs are either very good or benchmark-worthy, a clean sound output is only the logical consequence.
Gapless Playback:
... works perfectly with FLAC files.
Balanced Output:
Output power and other specs are mostly identical between the 3.5 and balanced 2.5 mm output. Switching back and forth, I also don't really notice any difference in sound between the two - both are excellent and I don't care about the balanced connection hype in the hobby hi-fi sector anyway.
JetEffect 7 DSP and Equalizer:
A Cowon DAP wouldn’t be complete without the built-in, easy to use and powerful sound manipulation software JetEffect, would it?
Of course, JetEffect is disabled by default but can be easily enabled in the overlaid quick settings and further adjusted in the main settings.
Besides many pre-sets made by Cowon and up to 16 user-configurable pre-sets (that can however not be renamed), one of its features is a semi-parametric 10-band equalizer that lets you select from three frequencies and three bandwidths per band. Then there is BBE, an adjustable loudness with built-in resampler. Lastly, from what alters the frequency response, there is Mach3Bass, a very clean, variable bass boost for the lower midbass, a variable bass boost (unfortunately it doesn’t affect the real sub-bass below 40 Hz).
Powerful are also the various DSP settings such as “3D Surround”, a virtual soundstage enhancer, or various adjustable chorus and reverb characteristics that allow the user to tailor the sound to their preferences in real time and without any added audible distortions.
Quite nice is also that most of Cowon’s fixed pre-sets are very well usable and don’t appear out of place.
All of the settings can be combined.
Conclusion:
Excellent build quality and design; one of the best user interfaces on the market; precise volume control (although the quietest possible setting would have to be lower, especially for my listening habits with sensitive in-ears); benchmark hiss performance, low output impedance, very good to benchmark technical specs, resulting in an impeccably clean and transparent sound; high price.