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Cowon Systems

Logo: COWON.jpg : חברת COWON derivative work: McSush, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons3

South Korean consumer electronics manufacturer

Cowon Systems, Inc. (Korean: 코원시스템; 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 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.2 Wikipedia text CC BY-SA 4.0

Last updated Oct 21, 2026.

Overview

1995Founded1
  • Industryconsumer electronics industry, mobile phone accessory1
  • HeadquartersSeoul1
  • Websitewww.cowonglobal.com
  • Legal formpublic company1

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Cowon Systems, Inc. (Korean: 코원시스템; 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 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.2

Products and brands

  • software

Listed on Wikidata.1

Products

In its marketing, Cowon distinguishes 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.

All Cowon products are produced domestically in South Korea.

MP3 players

Cowon M2 (2014)

Cowon E3 (2014)

Read the full text

iAUDIO 9+ (2013)

Cowon D20 (2013)

Cowon X9 (2012)

iAUDIO 10 (2011)

Cowon C2 (2011)

Cowon X7 (2010)

Cowon J3 (2010)

iAUDIO E2 (2009)

iAUDIO 9 (2009)

Cowon S9 (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-based ultra-mobile PC 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, released in 2010, available in a 32 GB model

Cowon L3, GPS navigation device 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

Cowon J3

iAUDIO E2

iAUDIO 9

Cowon D2+

Cowon S9

Cowon D2

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.

JetEffect competes with products such as Sony's DSEE, Samsung's DNSe, and the SRS technologies found in products by iriver and Samsung and 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:

Five-band equalizer

BBE+

BBE+

BBE Mach3Bass

BBE 3D Surround

BBE MP Enhance

Special Effects

Reverb

Stereo Enhance

History

JetEffect 2.0

JetEffect 3.0

JetEffect 5

Software

Computer software

JetAudio, media player application for Microsoft Windows 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 codecs (such as those included in the K-Lite Codec Pack) for some of its data decoding.

Android apps

JetAudio for Android

JetVD

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.

From Wikipedia’s article on Cowon, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4

Timeline

  1. 1995Founded Founded1

Sources

The numbers on this page point here. Each one links to the record it came from.

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