Cayin N6 DAP: Dual PCM1792 / Dual Mono / 24-192 / DSD128 / SACD ISO

thomas cayin said:

  Of course, the details of the lens surface treatment and housing, we have to improve a lot.
 
At the same time, but also because ANDY and other testers, firmware version has been updated and solve all kinds of BUG, is now stable. Thank them very much.
 
The biggest difference from the sound performance, in fact, when we send out beta version, we do not raise hopes too much sound advice testers, because we think that is not the best we can achieve state, but the time, we need a lot of validation testing BUG, also in this case, N6 dedicated test machine from us.
 
The official version, we once again from the design architecture optimized for all hardware parts. And held in Guangzhou, China in November acoustic show by some people were listening, and certainly get their consistency.
 
I can't say N6 is a best DAP, but the sound performance, N6 represents our 21 years of the Hi-Fi understanding, I believe, N6 will be true, like the high-quality people who love music, this is also CAYIN goal has always been.

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excited for it. when is the estimated release date as of now?

Thanks for the detailed answer. I was asking because I was not too crazy about the plastic used in the shell of the DAP.

luvdac said:

Dear Andykong, thanks so much for all this great info. Did you by chance get to compare it to the ibasso dx90? Although the ibasso is limited in its playback of dsd files (it converts them to pcm 24/88 as far as I know) It would be interesting to note the sound differences as they both seem to be using the same dac chips......The cayin is almost twice the price, which begs the question is it almost twice as good....???

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I am hesitated to say much about DX90 as I only tried it at shop, and that was a brand new machine. I only have limited time at a not-so-quiet environment, but I'll try to share my thoughts but anyone who know these players are feel free to jump on board.

The DX90 is in par with X5 on sound performance, the X5 is plain, and the DX90 is slightly more pleasing, but X5 offers a lot more on control, storage, screen quality and battery life, and can drive demanding headphone better then DX90 to my ear, so at that time I stick with X5 and passed on DX90.

I tried Calyx M shortly after I tried DX90, and I have tried to compare these two players to certain extend, couldn't help it as both player use ESS9018k2m as their DAC chip, only DX90 is cheaper and have two chips in it, and Calyx M has only one chip and more expensive. the funny things is, I can hear more detail from the Calyx M than DX90, and the Calyx M sounded a lot more natural to my ears then both DX90 and X5.

You have read my impression of Calyx M vs N6, so you can probably guess by now that my preference of these four players are Cayin N6 > Calyx M >> Fiio X5 > DX90.

Twice the price, is it twice as good? Well, I can't qualified the different between DX90 with confident because I am not familiar with DX90 at all, but I can answer this question without referring to any of these players: the audio game didn't work anywhere close to this, and this probably applied to all sorts of hobbies that involve dedication and lifetime pursuit with a long ladder that keeps you to move up and up. In my experience, once you are away from the real beginners systems, when you spend 100% more and get 20% performance gain, I'll call it a deal. If you get 50% performance gain, that is probably the bargain of a lifetime. The curve of diminishing return is never linear, the higher you climb, the more you pay for marginal improvement only.

andykong said:

I am hesitated to say much about DX90 as I only tried it at shop, and that was a brand new machine. I only have limited time at a not-so-quiet environment, but I'll try to share my thoughts but anyone who know these players are feel free to jump on board.

The DX90 is in par with X5 on sound performance, the X5 is plain, and the DX90 is slightly more pleasing, but X5 offers a lot more on control, storage, screen quality and battery life, and can drive demanding headphone better then DX90 to my ear, so at that time I stick with X5 and passed on DX90.

I tried Calyx M shortly after I tried DX90, and I have tried to compare these two players to certain extend, couldn't help it as both player use ESS9018k2m as their DAC chip, only DX90 is cheaper and have two chips in it, and Calyx M has only one chip and more expensive. the funny things is, I can hear more detail from the Calyx M than DX90, and the Calyx M sounded a lot more natural to my ears then both DX90 and X5.

You have read my impression of Calyx M vs N6, so you can probably guess by now that my preference of these four players are Cayin N6 > Calyx M >> Fiio X5 > DX90.

Twice the price, is it twice as good? Well, I can't qualified the different between DX90 with confident because I am not familiar with DX90 at all, but I can answer this question without referring to any of these players: the audio game didn't work anywhere close to this, and this probably applied to all sorts of hobbies that involve dedication and lifetime pursuit with a long ladder that keeps you to move up and up. In my experience, once you are away from the real beginners systems, when you spend 100% more and get 20% performance gain, I'll call it a deal. If you get 50% performance gain, that is probably the bargain of a lifetime. The curve of diminishing return is never linear, the higher you climb, the more you pay for marginal improvement only.

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Interesting that you found fiio x5 to be superior to dx90......Of course you are correct in saying that there are diminishing returns vis a vis price and audio quality! 
Thanks again for your prompt reply. Keep up the good work. I think I am now definitely in the market for the n6! When is it going to be available is the question....I want this as a christmas gift to myself!

luvdac said:

Interesting that you found fiio x5 to be superior to dx90......Of course you are correct in saying that there are diminishing returns vis a vis price and audio quality! 
Thanks again for your prompt reply. Keep up the good work. I think I am now definitely in the market for the n6! When is it going to be available is the question....I want this as a christmas gift to myself!

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Well, that really depends on your requirements, when I said X5 is plain and DX90 is pleasant, quite obvious I think DX90 sounds better, ao if sound is all you look for, that would be your choice. I prefer X5 because of storage (two TF instead of one), smooth and caaual control (the DX50/90 screen icon are far too small), better screen with more colour and 60% more pixel (Chinese character become more readable), and longer battery life.

Cayin will offically announce the price and date tomorrow, will post the information here as soon as the details become public, so stay tuned.

Cayin has announced the Price and Date of Availability of N6:

Price: 3799 RMB (~US$615)
Date of Availability: 18 December, 2014

To be honest, the price is a lot lower then our expectation. Thomas from Cayin had asked the Beta Tester to recommend a price tag to N6 after we submitted our Beta Test Report, and NONE, literally none has suggested a price as low as that. I sure am excited when I knew the N6 is priced at an affordable level as such, because after I used it for a fortnights, the N6 does feel expensive in terms of audio performance and product finishing. This is indeed a competitive DAP in my book, lets hope this will bring a good start to the Cayin portable products.

Cayin has released a new N6 video to announce the DAP to China market formally, unfortunately the video is only available in Chinese at this moment (Cayin is working on an international version with English subtitle), but I am sure you'll appreciate the kind of effort that Cayin put into this new product.




I have the Chinese manual and technical briefing of N6 with me but they are in Chinese, I have picked points to highlight the major different between N6 Beta Version and Production Version, feel free to raise your question if there is anything you are interested to know in particular:

1. Production Version N6 is based on the Beta version, but the 4 layers ENIG PCB has been layout from scratch again, the groundings and signal path are now isolated in different layer/region. The Power supply scheme has been revised as well, the Power Management chip AXP202 will control THREE sets of discrete power supply, namely (1) Digital Processing, (2) DAC and Analogue Circuit, and (3) Headphone Amplification. This new power supply scheme will minimize the interference between different components and circuit, and the stable and clean power energy will bring the N6 to a new performance level.
   
2. Headphone Amplification also undergoes significant improvement. Cayin has incorporated a new device called Bias Current Servo Control into the voltage amplification of production version N6, this is their special design to make sure the Op Amp will operated under steady static current and operational current, and as a result of that, the amplified current will always maintain an optimized level. The Buffer Op Amp used two pieces of BUF634 at wide bandwidth mode, one for each channel, this will provide up to 250mA current capacity to each channel, and as a result of that, the power rating of N6 has been increased to 220mW+220mW (@32ohm). The Output Impedance is as low as 0.26ohm, which mean even when paired with low impedance IEMs like K3003 (nominal 8 ohm), N6 will still have amble control to spare at all frequency range.
   
3. The Line Out of N6 has also been optimized. On top of adding the Bias Current Servo Control, the output voltage has been beefed up to 1.6Vrms. This modification is based on consolidated opinions of several Beta Testers. With the new output setting, the production version N6 can now pair with more analogue amplifiers satisfactory, be it desktop or portable.
   
4. The storage/memory system has also been revised. N6 is now fully compatible with SDXC specification and exFAT file format, and theoretically N6 can cope with 2TB microSD card. Cayin has tested the N6 with 128GB card without any problem, it is expected that when new micro SDXC card with larger capacity rolled out in the future, Cayin can endorse the new cards by a firmware update, so N6 will be future proof on external storage for quite a while. The internal storage of N6 is 8GB tSD memory, this is supposed to be more stable then FLASH memory that frequently used in DAP. In addition, N6 use DDR2 RAM instead of the commonly used SDRAM, with the increased in RAM performance, N6 will respond faster on all control and signal processing, especially on Hi-Res digital audio processing that requires extreme burst data rate. With 1 GB RAM capacity, the N6 has all the memory you needed to support Hi-Res audio playback.
   
5. The firmware has undergone numerous revisions and on top op of the bud fixing exercise, the digital processing function has been optimized in due course. The SA2000 (PLD) will now output a much cleaner and stable bitstream waveform to the PCM1792A. SA2000 will also pass the original DSD digital audio signal to the PCM1792A chipset through a dedicated signal path, result in 100% hardware DSD decoded inside the DAC chip.
   

The technical specification of Production V6 is listed below. According to Cayin, they collected these figures by testing the actual PCB with AP Audio Analysers, the figures are not as aggressive as specification obtained through engineering stimulation, but they are more reliable and relevant to actual performance.

[table=98%]
[tr] [td=180] Phone Out [/td][/tr]
[tr] [td=180] Item [/td] [td=314] Value [/td][/tr]
[tr] [td=180]Power Rating[/td] [td=314]220mW+220mW (@32Ω) [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]Freq. Response[/td] [td=314]20Hz~20kHz ± 0.2dB[/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180] [/td] [td=314]5Hz~50kHz ± 1dB [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]THD + N[/td] [td=314]0.005% (20Hz~20kHz, A-weighted) [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]Dynamic Range[/td] [td=314]110dB (20Hz~20kHz, A-weighted) [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]S/N[/td] [td=314]109dB (20Hz~20kHz, A-weighted) [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]Output Impedance[/td] [td=314]< 0.26Ω[/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180] Line Out [/td][/tr]
[tr] [td=180] Item [/td] [td=314] Value [/td][/tr]
[tr] [td=180]Output Level[/td] [td=314]1.6V (10kΩ) [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]Freq. Response[/td] [td=314]20~20kHz ± 0.2dB[/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180][/td] [td=314]5Hz~50kHz ± 1dB [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]THD + N[/td] [td=314]0.004% (20Hz~20kHz, A-weighted) [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]Dynamic Range[/td] [td=314]110dB (20Hz~20kHz, A-weighted) [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]S/N[/td] [td=314]109dB (20Hz~20kHz, A-weighted) [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180] Coaxial Out [/td][/tr]
[tr] [td=180] Item [/td] [td=314] Value [/td][/tr]
[tr][td=180]Output Level[/td] [td=314] 0.5V (@ 75 Ohm loading)[/td][/tr]
[tr][td=180][/td] [td=314] 1.0V (Unloaded) [/td] [/tr]
[tr] [td=180]Output Impedance[/td] [td=314]75Ω[/td] [/tr]
[/table]

Cayin has also released a revised, more detail functional framework for N6:




I am going to get the N6 as soon as it is available, and hopefully I'll have my new toy before Christmas. Will keep you all posted when I receive the production version N6.

Andykong, that looks great. And once again I have to fight with myself not to buy this new equipment.
 
BTW, I don't know whether you are aware but there is Russian firmware for dx100/hdp-r10 which makes it stable and user friendly in terms of UI. Worth to try it before you buy N6

Hello everyone Dear Andykong, or Thomas Ibyy, or anyone infromed, could you please answer a few questions about Cayin N6 DAP. As N6 looks very interesting to me, I'd like to clarify some moments pertaining to its UI, firmware and hardware. So:
1) Does Cayin N6 support auto switching to the next folder after completing the playback of a current folder (i.e. I have several folders with music files on my micro SD card, can N6 progressively play all the music on micro SD card without me manually switching to the next folder after the playback of the current folder completes?). If it does not for now, are there any plans for implementing the feature in the future firmware releases?
2) What is the general scheme of USB DAC implementation: does the user have to install a driver for Cayin N6 to make it work in DAC mode (under Windows) or does the DAP work as DAC just by switching to DAC mode in the DAP menu and connecting it to PC via USB?
3) Does Cayin N6 have any software problems playing any music files in DAC mode (e.g. crashes when trying to play particular files, large lag in response to user actions, like ibasso DX 90)?
4) Does Cayin N6 support DoP (DSD over PCM) playback in DAC mode? If not, are there any plans for implementing the feature in the future firmware releases? 
5) What is the actual time of playback (for example, of FLAC 16 bit, 44.1 kHz files) on one battery charge?
6) What are the functions of the jog dial: can it be rotated in two directions? Is it clickable? (and what these actions do: switch between tracks, fast forward\rewind, play/pause) Is it function assignable?
I would be much obliged, if anyone clarifies these points, as well as many people following this thread, I suppose

shakur1996 said:

Andykong, that looks great. And once again I have to fight with myself not to buy this new equipment.

BTW, I don't know whether you are aware but there is Russian firmware for dx100/hdp-r10 which makes it stable and user friendly in terms of UI. Worth to try it before you buy N6

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Well, current DX100 official firmware is actually not too bad, there are still small pop sounds that I want to get rid of, but I consider the stability as acceptable, the things that I don't like about DX100 is 100% touch screen control, I prefer hardware button, and I wants to blind control some basic functions without talking the DAP out of my small bag and hold it right in front of me for regular controls (volume, skip trips, pause and resume etc) when I used it on the street, so it is unlikely this can fit my bill with a new firmware. I hope iBasso has learned a lesson and put it more hardware button in their forthcoming DX100 replacement, even when they are building an Android player, they cannot just adopt an off-the-shelf solution in terms of user control and interface.

There are other short coming that a good firmware might help, and that is battery life. If the Russian firmware can extend the battery life, say give me 20% more hours per charge, I definitely will go for it.

Andykong,you have whetted my appetite! Any news on when it will be released internationally, or where I could get it from online in China??

bellyworshipper said:

Hello everyone Dear Andykong, or Thomas Ibyy, or anyone infromed, could you please answer a few questions about Cayin N6 DAP. As N6 looks very interesting to me, I'd like to clarify some moments pertaining to its UI, firmware and hardware. So:
1) Does Cayin N6 support auto switching to the next folder after completing the playback of a current folder (i.e. I have several folders with music files on my micro SD card, can N6 progressively play all the music on micro SD card without me manually switching to the next folder after the playback of the current folder completes?). If it does not for now, are there any plans for implementing the feature in the future firmware releases?
2) What is the general scheme of USB DAC implementation: does the user have to install a driver for Cayin N6 to make it work in DAC mode (under Windows) or does the DAP work as DAC just by switching to DAC mode in the DAP menu and connecting it to PC via USB?
3) Does Cayin N6 have any software problems playing any music files in DAC mode (e.g. crashes when trying to play particular files, large lag in response to user actions, like ibasso DX 90)?
4) Does Cayin N6 support DoP (DSD over PCM) playback in DAC mode? If not, are there any plans for implementing the feature in the future firmware releases? 
5) What is the actual time of playback (for example, of FLAC 16 bit, 44.1 kHz files) on one battery charge?
6) What are the functions of the jog dial: can it be rotated in two directions? Is it clickable? (and what these actions do: switch between tracks, fast forward\rewind, play/pause) Is it function assignable?
I would be much obliged, if anyone clarifies these points, as well as many people following this thread, I suppose

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I'll give this a try, will forwards the questions to Cayin if there are issues that out of my hands currently.

(1) N6 does not support auto folder switching at the moment, not even in the new firmware that come with the production version N6 (as far as I know of). I have recommended Cayin to add similar function, my suggestion isn't exactly what you have stated but should fit the bill too: When you browse through the "Music Library", hold the jog dial for 2 second at a folder location to bring out a Quick menu, and allow user to select "Play" at folder level. This will start playing all songs and sub-folders under this selected folder, and play mode can be "play once", "repeat all" and "Shuffle", depends on the play mode that you selected in your DAP setup. Cayin has similar Quick Menu features in N6 but that was a title level, not folder level, they might need to sort out quick a bit of file structure and play list coding before this can be done. Cayin has acknowledged this suggestion and put into their to-do list, but the list is pretty long and I have no idea the priority of this item in the list, so it is in the queue, but I have no idea about the schedule.

(2) Cayin didn't disclose detail on the chipset they adopted for USB DAC implementation. I didn't notice other DAP has done that, but maybe I didn't look close enough. To the best of my knowledge, all Asynchronous USB drivers are pre-loaded in iOS system, so if you are using a Mac, you don't need to install any driver to use the N6 USB DAC, or any other Asynchronous USB DAC for that matters. Unfortunately Window OS does not included this driver in the system by default, so you need to install a driver to use ANY Asyn. USB DAC. You can download the driver from Cayin website which they are building right now. For Linux based system, the Asynchronous USB driver is included in the default system, but since there are uncountable Linux implementation out there, some customized Linux system might have left out this driver for whatever reason, so it is system-dependent.

(3) Did not come across any obvious bud on N6 USB DAC mode, and I didn't recall other Beta Tester has raised any alert on this area, but to be sure, I'll put in an query to Cayin, they have all the internal testing and beta test report on hand, so they can consolidate the test report and provide an answer with more supporting test data.

(4) I have not tested the DoP function of N6, can't comment on that, will ask Cayin to feedback on this.

(5) I have tested the battery life of N6 Beta quite extensively, my testing strategy is to charge the DAP to 99%, play a certain type of audio format continuously until the machine black out, and with minimum manipulation in between. I won't list all the test detail but I can quote TWO test condition for your reference.:

1. Sony EX1000, Low Gain, Vol. = 50, WAV 16/44.1, repeat 10 songs in a folder, battery life = 445 mins.
2. Sony EX1000, High Gain, Vol. = 80, DSD64/DD128, repeat 3 songs of different DSD format in a folder, battery life = 409 mins.

For condition (1), the music is played at modest loudness, this is the typical sound level that I heard regularly. For condition (2), the IEM plays at a really loud level, although it won't damage the IEM, but I can hardly finish hearing one song at this loud level. I can literally hear the IEM at 3 feets away, I suppose this is the toughest condition you can get into in terms of DAP batter usage. I don't expect the production version will offer significant improvement when it comes out, but there is a chance that future firmware refinement will extend the batter life slightly, from what I experienced with iBasso and Fiio, this is not a top priority firmware refinement, so will take a while before they get to that.

(6) The job dial is fantastic, it can rotate in both directions and clickable. You can control around 90% of the DAP function through this job dial alone. It is not user definable.

luvdac said:

Andykong,you have whetted my appetite! Any news on when it will be released internationally, or where I could get it from online in China??

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Sorry, I really do not have a clue, as mentioned in the opening post of this thread, this is the first Cayin product I have ever lay my hand on, I am just a lucky person being selected as a Beta Tester, I know nothing about their sales arrangement, I suppose you can PM Thomas for detail if you are interested to get hold of the N6 as soon as possible.

Thank Bellyworshipper raised questions while thank ANDY answer, because of the time, I now reply, sorry.

I focus Dir 1,3,4 reply, because the rest of the questions answered ANDY perfect, thanks again.
 
The first question: Yes, ANDY also raised during the test, but we think we have not reached a number of samples to prove that this is the way, not everyone will be divided into many categories of song, then one lined up side by side perhaps after the launch N6, there are a lot of people need this functionality, then we will in a later firmware upgrade.
 
I need to note is that this change is a very big project, because he comes to the basic logic of the software, so if we are sure that you want to join this feature, then please give time.
 
The third question: I can only say that we are more than enough in the current sample test case, everything is normal and not, as is so DX90 problems, these differences may lie in the operation speed of the MCU itself.
 
The fourth question: N6 The DAC supports DoP, so I think you should get the answer you want, HAHA.
 
 
Thanks to all the people concerned N6 again.

Thank you, Andy, Thomas, for the answers! And even more for forwarding the reported issues and concerns raised to CAYIN engineers . I guess, it's for the benefit of us all.
For me N6 DAP is the most comprehensive, all-around solution on the market sold at reasonable price (the widest range of audio formats supported thanks to DSD native support, all the basic outs, DoP in USB DAC mode, as far as I know, only TEAC HA-P90SD can boast such a feature). It's a pity it does not support auto switching between folder contents yet. Such a seemingly simple and basic feature is nevertheless abandoned/left unimplemented by many HI-FI DAP vendors even today. I'm sure CAYIN N6 will brake this "tradition", considering the proficiency and dedication of the company engineers. Pity I did not have an opportunity to audition CAYIN N6 and will unlikely have it soon. But I'll sure be drooling over it 

Dear Thomas Ibyy, Can you give us an idea on its international release? (Hong Kong, Amazon USA?)