[JasonNYC]

Tidal uses Amazon AWS, which has been down the entire day. Service is slowly being restored.

 

[Nails]

No problem here except for the constant skipping on my KC.
No problem with steaming tidal on my new naim uniti he, just that qobus still sounds better than Tidal

 

[Newsee]

No problem here except for the constant skipping on my KC.
No problem with steaming tidal on my new naim uniti he, just that qobus still sounds better than Tidal

Congratulation to your Naim.
Some may find it a heretic question, but do you hear big quality difference between the Naim and the Cube?
It took me quite some time to convince myself to go for the desktop route, but most of my listening time still happens on (trans)portable gear.

 

[Nails]

Hi Newsee
Thanks it was a bit of a gamble, I had no opportunity to listen before buying it, however I’m really glad I did and its gone up 20% in price since I bought it a few weeks ago.
The Naim unit is awesome for reasons other than sq, I’m really enjoying it. From first listening I actually thought the Cube sounded better, but after about 10 hours of burn in the Naim just opened up and the sq improved greatly. Low volume listening is so detailed. When comparing with the cube I used the same HPs the Clear MGs and the Cube is not far behind in my opinion. It surprises me how close they are to my ears at least. I’m happy to listen with either unit, but I do prefer the Naim perhaps its because the soundstage and the level of detail seems a bit better at low volume in particular.
The user interface I’m using is the Naim app on my iPhone, there’s really no need for the remote if using the app, it works really well.
Even though my internet speed is really slow at around 20Mbps, I’m having no issues streaming with wifi, I haven’t tried using an ethernet cable yet, probably no need to.
This is one are that’s terrible with the Cube, wifi and bluetooth are extremely poor and almost useless unless I put the Cube within about 1 metre of the router, its not an option to use it for streaming and I don’t use bluetooth on the Cube because it really is useless.

 

[magiccabbage]

AK70 (1st Gen) is my favorite DAP after the in-a-class-by-itself Kann Cube, but I've always used it as a music transport matched with either the Cypher Labs Theorem 720 or Centrance Hifi M8. I agree with your assessment of the Cube, it's amazing.

What do you mean by using it as a transport

 

[magiccabbage]

It depends on the very nice hi-fi system.

If its DAC section is better than the one in the Cube, use an optical Toslink cable. Connect one end to the Cube's 3.5 port, the other end to the Toslink input of the hi-fi. You may have to buy an appropriate cable, or a toslink/3.5mm adapter to a normal toslink cable. This case a digital PCM signal is transmitted from Cube to hi-fi, which is not sensitive to electrical noise. The D/A conversion happens on the hi-fi.

If you want to benefit from the super DAC of the Cube, use the 3.5mm output with a 3.5mm to RCA electrical cable.

As far as I understood the different explanations I've read so far, balanced output shall not be connected to single ended input, it may even damage the amplifiers.

I suspect the wired connection will give better results than aptxhd - in that case the small bluewave makes the D/A conversion, plus some compression applies from aptxhd. Please keep us updated, including what hi-fi you have.

Hey this is an interesting post. I have the opportunity to buy the cube and the one thing that's holding me back is that I'm not sure if I can use it in my hifi system. Are you saying that if i connect via toslink to my standalone dac i can bypass the cubes dac ? This is what I would like to do but i don't know if it will work

 

[Newsee]

Hey this is an interesting post. I have the opportunity to buy the cube and the one thing that's holding me back is that I'm not sure if I can use it in my hifi system. Are you saying that if i connect via toslink to my standalone dac i can bypass the cubes dac ? This is what I would like to do but i don't know if it will work

It will work. That is how I use it with Burson Conductor 3XR.

 

[WyattEarp]

More powerful and dynamic. Quieter, darker background. Longer battery life.

How much longer is the battery life and how long does it now take to fully charge?

 

[audio-]

Hi @JasonNYC

I seem to be reliably seeing a problem where attempting to play music (any song at all) causes the Kann Cube to instantly crash (resulting in a complete power off). This is with the 1.33CM firmware.

At this point it’s basically a brick that doesn’t do anything.

Any suggestions? The unit is no longer under warranty.

audio-

 

[audio-]

Hi @JasonNYC

I seem to be reliably seeing a problem where attempting to play music (any song at all) causes the Kann Cube to instantly crash (resulting in a complete power off). This is with the 1.33CM firmware.

At this point it’s basically a brick that doesn’t do anything.

Any suggestions? The unit is no longer under warranty.

audio-

Nevermind. Somehow the ship righted itself.

(Clueless)

 

[audio-]

Nevermind. Somehow the ship righted itself.

(Clueless)

Lol, @JasonNYC, my Cube seems quite unusable.

Playing anything (mp3, flac, dsd) through Bluetooth works.

Playing anything using the dac chip, even the music that came with the device (e.g. “Spanish Harlem”) causes the device to instantly switch off. Just as a test, I tried playing a song with bluetooth on and, in the middle of the song, connecting a pair of headphones to the cube using the 3.5 mm headphone port. Instantly the device shut off.

Anything I can do to somehow fix this? I’m not inclined to spend any money on the Kann Cube since I bought it to use as a Roon endpoint and to pair for use with a vehicle.

Kind regards,

audio-

 

[Newsee]

I think I have found something.
I have downloaded the tidal 2.31.0 version (apk) from apkmirror.com and installed successfully. This is the last version marked for Android 5.0+. The next tidal version, the 2.32.0, is marked for Android 6.0+. After putting this .apk into the OpenService folder of the Cube it does not even appear in the Service menu as available for install.
My suspicion is that the A&K firmware is based in Android 5, that is why it is not possible to install anything what requires Android 6.0 as minimum.

One more finding about the new firmware 1.26CM : when using the Cube as USB DAC the battery is constantly depleting even if it is connected to the USB C slot of the desktop computer, and showing the charging sign inside the battery icon. On the previous firmware the battery level was increasing when connected to the same port.

I just got a notification on my Hiby R8 from the Qobuz app, that android 4 and 5 will not be supported any more starting 1st February.
I expect that it will the end of Qobuz usage on the Cube .

 

[wormcycle]

I just got a notification on my Hiby R8 from the Qobuz app, that android 4 and 5 will not be supported any more starting 1st February.
I expect that it will the end of Qobuz usage on the Cube .

At this point the Cube will become useless to me. Implementation of Roon endpoint would fix it but they are not going to do it either. Kann Cube framework has been abandoned by A&K long ago, even on this forum it is almost impossible to get any answers.. I do not think I would ever be tricked again into buying anything A&K

 

[rfernand]

Is there a trade-in program?

 

[Nails]

Has anyone upgraded to another AK dap (or anything else for that matter) recently? I’m considering either Kann max or SP2000T, however it seems that the SP2000 might be upgraded in the not too distant future so maybe I’ll wait.
If anyone has upgraded recently I would like to hear how the new device compares with the cube please