Cowon

Cowon Systems, Inc. (simply known as Cowon) is a South Korean consumer electronics and software corporation. Established in 1995, the company’s initial focus was software development and microelectronics, specializing in speech synthesis and speech recognition technology. In 2000, with the introduction of the iAUDIO CW100, Cowon expanded into the portable media player 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 range of portable media players, which has resulted in many people incorrectly referring to the company as “Cowon iAUDIO” or simply “iAUDIO”.
Products.
In its marketing, Cowon makes distinctions between “MP3 players” and “portable media players”, where the latter are larger and have a greater focus on video playback. The categories differ slightly between the Korean and the global homepage—for example, on the Korean homepage, the Cowon X7 and X9 are listed under “PMP”, while on the global homepage, they are both listed under “MP3”.
All Cowon products are produced domestically in South Korea.
LIAAIL products.
Cowon’s LIAAIL division, founded in 2011, focuses on personal audio and cell phone accessories. Among its products can be found:
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.
JetEffect competes with products such as Sony's DSEE, Samsung's DNSe and the SRS technologies found in products by iriver and Samsung, as well as in products by HTC and HP, where they are branded as "Beats Audio".
Features.
In its latest iteration, JetEffect contains the following sound effects and enhancements:
Software.
Android apps.
"JetVD" is an Android application for downloading videos from YouTube in a wide selection of formats. It was first introduced to users of the Cowon D3 Plenue with the upgrade to firmware version x.55. An online version of JetVD, called 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 timecoded lyrics displayable on Cowon media players as well as in JetAudio.
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 ultra-mobile PCs W2 and W2 SSD come with JetToolbar pre-installed.