Cayin i5 Lossless Android DAP with AKM4490 DAC supporting 32/384 PCM + 64/128 DSD

[Andykong]

Hello everyone. Just wanted to report that I got this player and it's excellent. Everything is simply outstanding. (battery life, sound quality, UI, design, controls.) The only problem I've had so far is the way this player sorts albums. The order seems completely random, which is kind of weird when you have a compilation album with CD1, CD2, etc... Sometimes I get the CD6 in the first place for no reason. Apart from that this player is pure perfection for any audiophile. Hope you all keep talking about its capacities.
Hails!

Thanks for your kind support, I hope you still like your i5 after two days.

Yes, the sorting issues has been reported by a Tour reviewers, we'll take a look into that after this round of firmware, we are focusing on the USB Audio out right now, will devote resource to other suggestion and bugs as soon as we finished the USB Audio implementation.

 

[Andykong]

My tour unit i5 review is now live. Apologies regarding the delay! Thank you again @Andykong
and Cayin for this wonderful opportunity. It is a stellar unit, and I enjoyed my time together very much!

http://www.head-fi.org/products/cayin-i5/reviews/17496

Thanks for the detail reports, offers very good IEM paring information as well as the amplifier upgrade suggestions. I am sure anyone who are interested in i5 or sub-$500 DAP in general will be benefited by this review.

Good job and thank you once again.

 

[Andykong]

After some research, and quite an effort in following this thread, I have decided to go for an i5.  The question is whether I should get a China version when I am there in 2 weeks.   Am attracted to the possibility of  downloading lossless Chinese/Asian music with the China version,   it's been rather difficult to access/buy lossless Chinese from Europe.

At the same time, am concerned with future firmware updates from Europe and the need to change the system to Google Play based.

Would appreciate if non China users using the the China version can share their current experience.

If I go for the international version, is it possible then,  to have the international version install the Hiby music access apps?  Ability to download music outside of China would be ideal, but if  only allow to download in China, I would take that too.  

You can install i5 international firmware to overwrite the i5 domestic version firmware, but Cayin has a very straight policy in oversee warranty support service, if you need to submit your DAP for warranty service, you need to send the player back to the seller and let the dealer handle the service request. As explained previously, Cayin is having some difficulties in handling foreign currency transaction from consumer directly because of its state enterprise nature, work with international dealers are the only option to us at this point. So if you will stay back in China for several months, or is prepared to send the i5 back tot he seller when run into trouble, I'll suggest you buy the i5 from your local dealer directly.

 

[frost15]

Absolutely still loving it guys! Thank you very much for your response. I'm really glad when I see a company surfing the forums and reading opinions to improve their products, it means a lot to me. 
Hails!

 

[Septimus]

Hey, I just received my i5 and I'm very, very happy with it!
I just have one little problem.
When one song ends and the next one starts, it skips like 0,5 seconds at the end of the song.
Is there any option to change that?
I have gapless activated, FW 1.81 and use the standard player with flac files.

 

[koluludome]

Use this great DAP for a while, great sound !
but I just changed my iem to more sensitive one, hissing become more obvious even that fw 2.0 have a lower hiss (I never compared but got it from some posts)
 
Anyway to fix this ?
Try higher power output, will it has bad effect to the sensitive iem ?
Using some impedance jack or something that I was read about in 64audio thread, will it help ?
 
Will next firmware can help or it's hardware problem that can't really fixed ?

 

[frost15]

Have you tried with gapless mode off? I was surprised to see that even with gapless mode off some albums flow really well.

 

[Septimus]

  Have you tried with gapless mode off? I was surprised to see that even with gapless mode off some albums flow really well.

I think i did try that.
But i just downloaded tidal anyway and deleted all other music i had offline.
Tidal seems to be working pretty well.
Streams are flawless and I only very rarely have any stuttering when playing offline from internal (i didnt buy a sd card yet).
Saying that I still have about 300 tracks in my download list so i guess the performance will improve even further when all
the memory brandwith can be used for the music and not for downloading.

 

[frost15]

I'm glad about that. By the way, you know firmware 2.0 is already out right?

 

[smy1]

Someone help me out cayin 5 or the onkyo dpx1?

Which one should i get?

 

[Septimus]

  I'm glad about that. By the way, you know firmware 2.0 is already out right?

Yea, but someone here stated, that the only real advantage is the dac option.
and that the sound got somewhat less warm. Although i dont know which post it was anymore.
Also it was just fresh out of the box and i wanted to listen to some sweet music asap and not wait
for some update

 

[frost15]

Someone help me out cayin 5 or the onkyo dpx1?

Which one should i get?

Cayin i5. Onkyo's sound quality is indisputable but I've heard terrible stories about its qc and it's requiring you to pay 100$ more, so I would go for the i5.

 

[Demard]

Someone help me out cayin 5 or the onkyo dpx1?

Which one should i get?

 
 

  Cayin i5. Onkyo's sound quality is indisputable but I've heard terrible stories about its qc and it's requiring you to pay 100$ more, so I would go for the i5.

depend on you want the 2.5mm balanced out or not and beware with balanced out battery on onkyo dp-x1 reportedly only last 3 hours 

 

[BartSimpson1976]

  Use this great DAP for a while, great sound !
but I just changed my iem to more sensitive one, hissing become more obvious even that fw 2.0 have a lower hiss (I never compared but got it from some posts)
 
Using some impedance jack or something that I was read about in 64audio thread, will it help ?
 
 

 
I tried a 75Ohm adapter from penonAudio. It made the hiss disappear but changed the sound not in a postive way.
 
You might try the new ifi IEMatch. That thing allegedly works very well but I have not tried it myself so far.

 

[linux4ever]

Someone help me out cayin 5 or the onkyo dpx1?

Which one should i get?

You won't go wrong with either. Onkyo has the plain Android OS and you can run almost all the 3rd part apps just like on a Android smartphone. Streaming apps for music is a plus. It comes with a balanced output if you need it. I've it and got a chance to compare the I5 when the tour demo was available. Both have interesting sound signatures. And sound from both are addictive. 
 
Cayin has USB type C. A good move but the accessories aren't there yet. It'll take some time before we start seeing USB type C accessories. Onkyo uses micro usb - the same one that powers most of the Android smartphones. It has a working USB audio out that can be used to connect it to other DACs like Mojo.
 
Onkyo supports folder play in random mode. Cayin supports only pass through folder play - meaning all files within a folder will be played randomly or in sequence (depending on the user option) and after all files are played it will move on to the next folder and so on.
 
Also Cayin didn't have the PlayAll feature to play all files in the folder or the sub folders.
 
Onkyo has two storage card slots and each can take 200GB in addition to the 32GB on board. So total 432 GB is supported as of now. That's huge for those that have lots of music. 
 
Those are the minute differences. Both are excellent in build, audio quality etc.