[smy1]

What is the resolution of your album art files? i5 has suggested resolution upto 1000x1000 in our specification. Higher resolution might works, but will become unstable occasionally.

I had a issue with my FiiO dap, after passing 1000 songs my FiiO would take forever to load my SD card maybe 10 sec wait. But the cayin does the same thing. When I tap the memory on the home screen where it leads to the songs, I have to double tap it maybe 4 times before it loads.

I have a Samsung evo ad card

 

[canali]

ipod touch 6 + Chord mojo, that's not a popular transport by today's standard, but I think it'll work very well sounds very good for the price. I guess if you are not interested in Hi-Res or DSD experience, the Cayin i5 probably won't offer better sound quality then your current stack, but it will sound very different, to a level that you probably need some time to adjust to it. Check out Glassmonky's review (#Audio Quality) or our previous discussion on this topic, this will give you some insight to the sound signature of i5 DAP.

But if you are looking for an alternative from lightweight and versatile perspective, then i5 should perform very well under these headings.

 
Thanks for the feedback but I am not interested in DSD because there's not a lot of material out there really... and for high res yes I am interested ..I play my 24/192 files on the ipod touch 6 thru the Onkyo HF player app (HD version @ $10...I think it can do DSD too...has tons of  EQ settings, too etc)
 
...Plus my ipod touch 6 seamlessly plays my tidal hifi..both streaming and in offline modes.
when the mojo or better sound can come in a DAP under 1k and do tidal hi fi etc, then i'll be interested.

 

[Andykong]

Whoop Whoop, first post on Head-Fi after lurking for weeks. Cheers to all!

Since yesterday I am also a member of the Cayin i5 owner community - my first DAP ever. The purchase became necessary when I noticed that my Nexus 6p only has a mediocre output signal and my new se846 couldn't play up to their potential. After searching the DAP market without having any clue what to look out for, I was bound to hit the i5 sooner or later.

I didn't want to spend too much money because I really didn't know what to expect from a lossless DAP. Also, I wanted to be able to use Spotify (yes, I know) or maybe Tidal in the future. These two requirements limited the number of devices drastically - basically I was left with the Fiio X7 and the i5.

Reading about how something "sounds" can be quite misleading - I experienced that once, when I thought I found the perfect pair of speakers by reading forum posts. Boy, was I wrong!

Anyway, there are not many places to test and compare DAPs so I decided to get the i5 - seemed to be the better "package" even with the known firmware flaws. The only thing I was really concerned about, was the "noise" and "hissing" that I've read in many posts. And I couldn't find anything about how the hyper-sensitive Shure se846 would team up with the i5 (except one phrase: "might not be the perfect combination").

As a precaution I had already ordererd the iFi iEMatch - I was sure I would need it (also, because now it's complementary with almost all new se846). As it is, I have now already packed it and it's waiting to go back to Amazon Maybe my ears are not the audiophile benchmark, but I must say that the noise is absolutely minimal. Not audible at all when the music actually plays and barly present during silent parts. This impression may come from the fact that I am very new to the headgear scene and I don't have much to compare the sound with. But for my current "audiophile beginner level" noise is absolutely no issue.

Since I haven't played around too much with my new toy, there's nothing I can add or want to the already known shortcomings of the i5. One thing, tough, I am missing or maybe I haven't found it yet - is there a way to fast-switch windows when in player mode? I know, you can use the Android icon when you're in Android mode to switch to the player, but in the other direction I always have to go over the menu. Just a slight UX annoyance....

Thanks for listening,
Stefan

Glad to have another i5 owner sharing his impression and experience with us.

First of all, if the noise issue from i5 + SE846 is not an issue to you, that's very good, don't bother with it, and don't eve try to LOOK for the background noise again. The biggest problem of background noise is, once you spotted it, you'll unconsciously look for it again, and again, and again, and finally affected your mood to enjoy music.

Trust me, not look for it again.

 

[Andykong]

I think I have misunderstood the function of the new firmware. Is it that i5 cannot be digital source for the music to be played through an external DAC via USB connection?

Oop, you are correct, my mistake indeed. Because the 851N is a network player, normally we use it as a source instead of using it as a DAC.

You mentioned you had used the i5 to work with other device, including your mobile phone, so that is referring to using the i5 as transport and your mobile phone as external DAC? I am a bit peculiar with this as well, because once again we use the mobile phone as source rather DAC.

If you have successfully used the i5 as source feeding to external DAC, that means (1) the new firmware is working (2) your i5 can USB cables are functioning correctly and (3) you have set the USB mode correctly, (4) the USB audio bitstream is output correctly.

Some questions to debug the setup:
(1) Did you use the same USB cable?
(2) any USB adapter is used in the connection with 851N?
(3) Did 851N lock with the i5 correctly? If the 851 has detected the i5, the first thing it will do is to detect the clock signal of the i5 and lock the sync, and display the word depth and bit rate (e.g., 16bit/44.1kHz) on the display. some DAC will turn on a LED indicator when it locked with a digital signal source.
(4) Have you tried to use the USB Audio input of 851N with other USB source such as your computer?

 

[NGGG]

Oop, you are correct, my mistake indeed. Because the 851N is a network player, normally we use it as a source instead of using it as a DAC.

You mentioned you had used the i5 to work with other device, including your mobile phone, so that is referring to using the i5 as transport and your mobile phone as external DAC? I am a bit peculiar with this as well, because once again we use the mobile phone as source rather DAC.

If you have successfully used the i5 as source feeding to external DAC, that means (1) the new firmware is working (2) your i5 can USB cables are functioning correctly and (3) you have set the USB mode correctly, (4) the USB audio bitstream is output correctly.

Some questions to debug the setup:
(1) Did you use the same USB cable?
(2) any USB adapter is used in the connection with 851N?
(3) Did 851N lock with the i5 correctly? If the 851 has detected the i5, the first thing it will do is to detect the clock signal of the i5 and lock the sync, and display the word depth and bit rate (e.g., 16bit/44.1kHz) on the display. some DAC will turn on a LED indicator when it locked with a digital signal source.
(4) Have you tried to use the USB Audio input of 851N with other USB source such as your computer?

Yes, I would like to use i5 as source feeding to an external DAC. My answers to your questions are as below:
(1) and (2) I used the same USB cable. No adapter added when connected to other devices, but Type C adapter added for connection with i5.
(3) 851N cannot lock with i5. Same for my old DAC, ie Musiland MD10.
(4) both 851N and Musiland MD10 work fine with my mobile and laptop.

I will try to install the firmware again, but needs wait i5 to recharge up to at least 50%.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Yes, I would like to use i5 as source feeding to an external DAC. My answers to your questions are as below:
(1) and (2) I used the same USB cable. No adapter added when connected to other devices, but Type C adapter added for connection with i5.
(3) 851N cannot lock with i5. Same for my old DAC, ie Musiland MD10.
(4) both 851N and Musiland MD10 work fine with my mobile and laptop.

I will try to install the firmware again, but needs wait i5 to recharge up to at least 50%.

Before you do that, can you try to connect the i5 to the DAC while i5 is powered on and the "USB" USB mode is chosen? I was told this is the mode to select for USB DAC *output* (rather than "DAC" mode, which is for inputting to use the i5 as DAC, as it's always been).

 

[NGGG]

Before you do that, can you try to connect the i5 to the DAC while i5 is powered on and the "USB" USB mode is chosen? I was told this is the mode to select for USB DAC *output* (rather than "DAC" mode, which is for inputting to use the i5 as DAC, as it's always been).

Tried again but still unable to lock.

 

[Andykong]

Yes, I would like to use i5 as source feeding to an external DAC. My answers to your questions are as below:
(1) and (2) I used the same USB cable. No adapter added when connected to other devices, but Type C adapter added for connection with i5.
(3) 851N cannot lock with i5. Same for my old DAC, ie Musiland MD10.
(4) both 851N and Musiland MD10 work fine with my mobile and laptop.

I will try to install the firmware again, but needs wait i5 to recharge up to at least 50%.

Looks like I has misunderstood your original post completely. So you haven't used USB Audio out function of i5 successful? When I read "it works properly with USB connections with other devices (including my mobile)", I thought you are referring to i5 is working properly.

In this case, we have to start all over again.

Joe and kel77 have provided one good advice: you need to select USB mode if you want to use i5 as digital source for external DAC device.

 

[smy1]

Looks like I has misunderstood your original post completely. So you haven't used USB Audio out function of i5 successful? When I read "it works properly with USB connections with other devices (including my mobile)", I thought you are referring to i5 is working properly.

In this case, we have to start all over again.

Joe and kel77 have provided one good advice: you need to select USB mode if you want to use i5 as digital source for external DAC device.

So if I just want to use the i5 as my main player should I do USB or DAC like listing to musics on the go?

 

[kel77]

So if I just want to use the i5 as my main player should I do USB or DAC like listing to musics on the go?

Doesn't matter either modes are OK.

 

[NGGG]

 
Still not work 

  
 
Anyway, I will try to install the new firmware again tomorrow.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Still not work :confused_face_2:   

Anyway, I will try to install the new firmware again tomorrow.

What's the cabling between the two? i5->USB-C OTG adapter->regular USB cable->DAC?

 

[frost15]

What is the resolution of your album art files? i5 has suggested resolution upto 1000x1000 in our specification. Higher resolution might works, but will become unstable occasionally.

I have some covers bigger than 1000x1000... That might be the real issue. Anyway I've not experienced the same problem again

 

[frost15]

So if I just want to use the i5 as my main player should I do USB or DAC like listing to musics on the go?

Well, that depends. Are you going to use it connected to a external dac? Then use USB mode. If on the contrary you want to use it as the dac itself, choose dac mode.

 

[frost15]

You are quite right that this most of the system crash in android are related to memory management issue. My i5 does crash occasionally, by occasionally I mean roughly one to two times per week.

Base on my personal experience, installing more third party application does increase the frequency of system crash. I don't know for sure but one of the Android customization of i5 related to the memory structure: the internal memory of i5 are split into 4GB system + 32GB Data. this might introduce incompatibility to certain app or hidden background tasks, especially the latter which are normally hidden in the system memory. This is a design that improve the performance of the stock HiBy Music Player and Cayin has put priority on native playback over compatibility of third party applications.

100% right Andy.