Cowon is hands down the best company when it comes to supporting a player after its release. The S9 was already a leading player in its category, but that hasn't stopped Cowon from adding things like widgets, more codecs, new ways to navigate, and now gapless playback. They just released a beta firmware (2.31) that provides gapless playback for lossless formats, and supposedly Ogg Vorbis, although as of yet vorbis still seems to have gaps between the tracks. Another addition that's sure to be a crowd-pleaser is support for M3U playlists. Check out the full list of updates below: Firmware 2.31b: Added the typist feature that is a notepad with a keyboard. Improved receiving quality, compatibility, and performance of Bluetooth. Support gapless playback in lossless music files (WAV, FLAC, APE, and LOSSLESS WMA) and OGG files. Support M3U. Support AVI files that are damaged. Fixed the error that frame color wasn’t changed in document mode. Fixed some minus operation error in calculator. Support Thai.

According to a member at iAudiophile, the update also provides support for MP4 containers. Cowon you rock!

Download:

2.31b (international version)
1.31b (Korean version)
3.31b (DMB models)

Cowon S9 at Amazon