[seanwee]

With FW 3.1 - After encountering consistent freezes in music playback (with corrupted or missing album art on restart) I have regretfully decided to take a break from the N5ii. Using it every day for a month, an hour or more each day, and having to perform numerous factory resets, cache wipes, "double wipes" , reloaded FW, library rescans, battery calibration, etc to get the player operational again. Very frustrating! So I have decided to return it for refund. I literally gave the DAP a chance right up to the last minute of the return window. It is a shame, because I generally enjoyed listening to the player & appreciated it's features. It just did not seem dependable - at least my particular unit. The N3 will be put back into service as I research a replacement for the N5ii - a player in the $400 range. As I don't care about having Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in a DAP, the Opus #1 or 1s look interesting. I'd be interested in opinions/comparisons if anyone would like to PM me with recommendations. Thanks.

That bad huh, mine only freezes sometimes for about 5 seconds before it resumes on its own.

The Opus 1 is very close to the N5ii sound wise. Id say go for it

 

[Andykong]

As Andy instructed, I have been copying the files that froze into a folder (3 files so far, couldnt remember the first 3).

Maybe you could do the same so that Andy and his crew can have a bigger sample size.

So far I have noticed that the files that freeze have album arts so that could be the problem here.

Can you provide more detail on the album art? If the album art is exceedingly big, then it might cause a short-term freeze (high CPU utilization) when the system try to write the album art to the system memory. Normally JPEG file at 1000x1000 or below shouldn't post any problem (I assume you are not going to make the jpeg file at 100% quality and result in a larger then normal file size).

 

[HD800NL]

The Opus 1 is very close to the N5ii sound wise. Id say go for it

I have a Cayin N5ii and an OPUS#1 (not the 1S) and they are not close. OPUS is very neutral and thin sounding. The N5ii is open but adds some harmonics and sounds much better. Mids are thicker on the N5ii. My gear is an OPPO PM-3 connected via a Lavricables silver balanced cable.

 

[Dobrescu George]

I have a Cayin N5ii and an OPUS#1 (not the 1S) and they are not close. OPUS is very neutral and thin sounding. The N5ii is open but adds some harmonics and sounds much better. Mids are thicker on the N5ii. My gear is an OPPO PM-3 connected via a Lavricables silver balanced cable.

#1s is even warmer and thicker to my ears.

I don't even know why, but I keep liking this kind of signature lately~

 

[CongoFather]

I use this cable with N5ii and IFI Micro IDSD Black without any problem. I have also Chord Mojo and usb type c to coax cable. It is much better with IFI with wider soundstage, better tonality, more details in trebble and bass than Mojo. It is certainly true that IFI Micro IDSD Black is a Mojo killer..

The cable is good but usb out of N5ii has still problems.

anybody tried N5ii with either Nano/Micro iDSD using this Anker usb-c to usb adapter? I got a few questions about it after the review since I only paired up Micro using Cayin's coax cable, while used usb-c to micro-usb in another pair up. I probably going to order this adapter anyway, but curious if anybody tried it or anything similar?

 

[Andykong]

I just kick started the N5ii Tour, please sign up if you want to try out the N5ii through actual daily use. I have extended the tour review section to 10 days per reviewer, this should be enough for detail impression before you decide whether this is the DAP for you.

https://www.head-fi.org/threads/rev...bit-384khz-dsd256-wifi-play-streaming.872134/

 

[Hoax86]

I have a Cayin N5ii and an OPUS#1 (not the 1S) and they are not close. OPUS is very neutral and thin sounding. The N5ii is open but adds some harmonics and sounds much better. Mids are thicker on the N5ii. My gear is an OPPO PM-3 connected via a Lavricables silver balanced cable.

Hey man,

I have a pm3 and looking at a new Dap. Either fiio x5 gen 3 or the cayin, how do you find the pairing? Do you run an amp?

 

[HD800NL]

Hey man,

I have a pm3 and looking at a new Dap. Either fiio x5 gen 3 or the cayin, how do you find the pairing? Do you run an amp?

It's a match from heaven. I can tell you why. I have the PM-3 for two years and I never liked it: soundstage too close, rolled off treble, not very musical, too cold sounding. I tried several DAP's like iBasso, OPUS, FiiO, etc. I tried a Chord Mojo, but none of them were a good match. Then I tried the Apogee Groove with the PM-3. Wow, what a big difference. So my conclusion is the PM-3 needs a warmer source with sparkling treble. I tried a Cayin i5 before, sound was good but operating was really bad. When the new N5ii arrives I bought one. The sound is really amazing. It has a bit warmer sound, but very open en sparkling high. I replaced the OPPO stock cable with a Lavricables balanced silver cable. Cable needs serious burn in time (>50 hours) but sound is so clean. It's pure silver so no harsh sounding like silver plated copper! I did some little corrections with the equalizer and I really love my setup. I play al kinds of music, jazz, classic, pop, electronic, everything sounds amazing. You need to try this setup. The N5ii has a few bugs but no big problem for me. I like the WiFi and the streaming function (Google App store for apps like Tidal, Spotify or radio apps).

 

[HombreCangrejo]

After 1 month with my unit, I haven't experienced major problems until now. I updated to 3.1 last weekend and, after aprox. 4 hours playing, I have no freezes, only one "frozen screen" when pushing on/off after playing through folder finished, but that was immediately solved turning off and on again the screen, so no complains. The battery issue after charging seems to be solved.

All in all, I'm really happy with my N5ii. For the price paid (314€ at AMP3), I think it's really difficult finding a more complete package.

 

[seanwee]

Hey man,

I have a pm3 and looking at a new Dap. Either fiio x5 gen 3 or the cayin, how do you find the pairing? Do you run an amp?

Definitely the Cayin N5ii unless you really dig dark sounding DAPs.

The Cayin N5ii is quite an upgrade from the x5iii in terms of sound.

 

[seanwee]

Can you provide more detail on the album art? If the album art is exceedingly big, then it might cause a short-term freeze (high CPU utilization) when the system try to write the album art to the system memory. Normally JPEG file at 1000x1000 or below shouldn't post any problem (I assume you are not going to make the jpeg file at 100% quality and result in a larger then normal file size).

The album art is embedded so Im not sure about the size.However, if it spikes when loading the album art to ram, then why does it freeze halfway through the song instead of freezing at the beginning?

 

[seanwee]

Can you provide more detail on the album art? If the album art is exceedingly big, then it might cause a short-term freeze (high CPU utilization) when the system try to write the album art to the system memory. Normally JPEG file at 1000x1000 or below shouldn't post any problem (I assume you are not going to make the jpeg file at 100% quality and result in a larger then normal file size).

I just tried playing a song with a 2000x2000 album art. It played without a hitch. It was also in the same FLAC format as the rest.

 

[Dobrescu George]

After 1 month with my unit, I haven't experienced major problems until now. I updated to 3.1 last weekend and, after aprox. 4 hours playing, I have no freezes, only one "frozen screen" when pushing on/off after playing through folder finished, but that was immediately solved turning off and on again the screen, so no complains. The battery issue after charging seems to be solved.

All in all, I'm really happy with my N5ii. For the price paid (314€ at AMP3), I think it's really difficult finding a more complete package.

I absolutely agree, for that price I don't know what the other solid options are.

This places N5ii's price below X5-3, R6, and I think even below Opus #1s, making N5ii not only quite the premium DAP, but also extremely budget friendly. You know how much I love when a company makes their product accessible.

 

[seanwee]

I absolutely agree, for that price I don't know what the other solid options are.

This places N5ii's price below X5-3, R6, and I think even below Opus #1s, making N5ii not only quite the premium DAP, but also extremely budget friendly. You know how much I love when a company makes their product accessible.

They had me at the sound quality.

I initially only had a +-300 dollar budget but i decided to get the N5ii after demoing it.

 

[Emitflesti]

With FW 3.1 - After encountering consistent freezes in music playback (with corrupted or missing album art on restart) I have regretfully decided to take a break from the N5ii. Using it every day for a month, an hour or more each day, and having to perform numerous factory resets, cache wipes, "double wipes" , reloaded FW, library rescans, battery calibration, etc to get the player operational again. Very frustrating! So I have decided to return it for refund. I literally gave the DAP a chance right up to the last minute of the return window. It is a shame, because I generally enjoyed listening to the player & appreciated it's features. It just did not seem dependable - at least my particular unit. The N3 will be put back into service as I research a replacement for the N5ii - a player in the $400 range. As I don't care about having Wi-Fi or Bluetooth in a DAP, the Opus #1 or 1s look interesting. I'd be interested in opinions/comparisons if anyone would like to PM me with recommendations. Thanks.

Opus #1 is flatter, it lacks the dynamics of the n5ii and I found it less engaging. Can’t say much about 1S.