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

 

Unfortunately this feature still works , the player can turn off the timing but 2 of the 3 cases, the player itself off when listening to music . I recommend not to use this feature in firmware 2.2 player in sleep mode loses 1% of battery per night .
Andikong I have a question for you : player is Android 4.4 which is limited to 16 bit 48000 Hz , due to this limitation, the side players do not know how to play Hi rez without downsampling . Why did you choose such an outdated version of android , why not take a basis at least version 5.1 which has no restrictions 16/48000 ? Should we the owners of player to wait for the firmware to android above 5.1 ?

 

Back to my beloved i5 thread after a few days off fighting with new DAP documentation.

It is strange that the DAC can lock i5 correctly but no sound is coming out. To confirm the setup again:

By AQ USB Type-C Adapter, you are referring to this one:
http://www.audioquest.com/usb-optical-adaptors/usb-a-to-c-adaptor

The setup is as follows:
i5 -> AQ USB Type C adapter -> Standard USB data cable -> Cambridge Audio 851N USB Audio in

and when you select USB Audio on Cambridge Audio 851N, the DAC can detected i5, lock the signal and display the Bit/Sampling frequency correctly, but there is no audio output.

When i5 plays music with different resolution, will the DAC display be able to reflect the change in Bit/Sampling frequency (e.g., from 16Bit/44.1 kHz to 24 Bit/88.2kHz) ?

 

Your observation is correct. the search function only work on title. Some did suggested to expand this function further, or to create a dedicated search page, but we were too busy with handling other features and has not come back on this issue again.

 

If this happens on a few albums but different each time, then it has certain degree of randomization, this will be more difficult then repeatable bugs. In the past, I did experienced a few album art that take longer to show up then others, but never run into similar situation that I need to play the album before the album art can be displayed correctly. If this is not consider as critical, may I skip this bug and focus on other issues that are relatively more important?

 

I can confirmed the idle shutdown is working correctly in v2.2. I have reported the idle shutdown bug on the first day of v2.0 and they have correctly it immediately in next beta version, unfortunately the revision didn't publish until the USB Audio function is completed, sorry for the delay, it could have been a easy way out for the battery run down problem (due to hidden background task)!

 

The idle shutdown is working in firmware v2.2, I am using it everyday in the past week, and it shutdown alright, My routine works like this:

1. Set idle shutdown on, and idle shutdown time to 10 minutes
2. When I arrive office, I just unplug the headphone and let the idle shutdown kick in 10 minutes later and turn off the player
3. When I left office I turn on the player again, use it for roughly 2 hours, and unplug the headphone when I arrive home, the player will, again, shut down 10 minutes later.

If your player turn off when listening to music, I believe you are referring to a different feature called "scheduled power off", this feature, once turned on, will forced the player to power off at pre-set time in regardless of the operation status of the DAP. The feature is designed for one-off purpose (e.g., listen to 30 minute music when I go to bed) and will reset to OFF after invoked.

First of all, Cayin i5 has not plan or promised an upgrade to Android 5.0 or 5.1. It might eventually, or it might never happen, nobody can tell for sure, but as of today, we don't have any plan so there is no point to wait for it.

We have clarified our approach clearly in the past: i5 is optimized for local music playback, this is our top priority during product development. We provide third party applications and we devoted a lot of effort to optimize the i5 and improve its compatibility with third party applications, but in terms of our priority during Android customization process, playback interface, D to D conversion before DAC, WIFI/DLNA support, Bluetooth support has priority over third party applications. For the record, Cayin i5 project was started in Q3 2015, schedule to launch on Q1 2016, but delayed to Q2 2016 because of wifi interference problem. I don't think we had a lot of Android 5.1 based DAP during Q3 2015 to Q1 2016, so with reference to the time of i5 production development, we believe Android 4.4 is the correct choice.

 

Please provide more information so that I can try to replicate your situation. What is the file format? file size? Standard CD quality at 16/44.1? or at Higher resolution?

Your own track stored on Internal memory? or TF card? or downloaded track from streaming app.? If this is in TF card, can you try to copy the file to internal memory and test if the response time will be shortened?

 

The pause from end of counting to end of scan is the database building process, This is the time when i5 sort all the music into Album, Artist and Genre category, and building the album art thumbnail is part of this process, so the time required will related to the amount of data need to be handled,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XKJRu8c2mV0​

I have tested my i5 briefly, with 774 music file (roughly internal memory and TF card in 50:50), the whole process takes about 10-11 second (the video is 12 second only), and the "pause" is around 5 second. Almost all the tracks has embedded album art at either 500x500 or 600x600. I believe album art will be a significant factor in the database building process so I clarify this specifically.

If your timing is 10 sec for 1250 tracks, and 30 sec for 4238 tracks, the number is fairly proportional to my test, give and take minor different due to file format, metadata and album art resolutions. I don't consider the timing as significantly long, but if you are certain then v2.0 is faster, I'll try to find an i5 in v2.0 and conduct the test again.

 

Absolutely, this issue is really minor.

 

I'm pretty sure I got faster scanning times in 2.0, but you may be right too... I really don't know. The audio is still perfect, and that's what matters most to me. As I've stated earlier what I would really love to see is proper album sorting (possibility to sort by release date once inside an artist window for example). Have a nice week Andy!

 

AndykongThanks for your clarification. I am very surprised that I seem to be the only one who is unhappy with UX of the stock player. Could be because I am no audiophile - just a plain user who likes to listen to good music that sounds great and who loves gadgets that feel and look good. In all disciplines the i5 scores a 9 out of 10 and all the other technical "problems" I either don't have (like battery drain) or don't notice or don't bother.
So, basically I have a great product in my hand that I that want to integrate in my daily life and use it intuitively. In the days of Spotify and other a incredibly usable software products I am used to great user experience - to be able to search and find exactly what I expect. When those expectations are not met inevitably it leads to disappointment.
Like I said, maybe my way of using this product is altogether odd - just carry it around and listen to my music - lots of it. I don't do any measuring of signals or need the i5 as DAC or whatever. It would be interesting how i5 owners use their devices - is anyone using the current search function at all?
The thing is - when you have Cayin protection sleeve on it is impossible to use the A-Z scroll on the right side of the screen unless you are lucky enough to have pencil fingers. Scrolling it is then...

Don't get me wrong, I really appreciate your work here and will be happy with the i5 the way it is. Just wondering about the prioritisation of features now that you've fixed most major bugs. Just attended a UX "testdinner" yesterday and had a checkout process tested - it's always surprising how people use a product in a way you never expected :-D

All good and again thanks for your time.

 

I use external AMP with i5 lineout. The idle shutdown does not work correctly under this mode. No matter if I am playing music or not through LineOut, i5 shuts down after 4min(my idle time).

 

Wonder if anyone has this issue with MTP connection under FW2.2
 
Using MTP, my Windows 7 64-bit immediately added i5, no error whatsoever, but opening the SD card there is nothing inside, while the Internal storage is fine.
 
  
 
Turning back to USB, MTP error shows up again as in the past but the SD card shows up probably as a drive
 
  
 
My PC has no issue connecting my LG phone under MTP mode.
 
Any ideas Andykong and others?
 
Thanks.

 

The priority we set for i5 is pretty straight forward:

1. Best on-the-go player for your personal music collection (i.e., 32G Internal storage + TF + OTG storage) at the price we asked for: that covers the audio performance, UI and UE, portability, ... etc.
2. Provide connectivity options to further enhance your music library: Dropbox, DLAN, etc
3. Enable third party apps to extend your music experience beyond your personal music library: streaming app, internet radio app, ....

As Alex (Twister6) has stated in his i5 review: "i5 feels more like an audio DAP with a limited Android access to allow apps on top of it.", the i5 is different from putting an audio app on top of a regular Android device, we used Android to achieve our objective to develop a versatile DAP for music lovers, so this might be different from the 3C approach to "Internet appliance".

 

Interesting, I have connected i5 with iHA-6 through LO and the idle shutdown works, it won't switch off during music playback, and will power off when pause or end of playback. I'll test it with C5 again when I attend CanJam Singapore.

Can you take a photo on the system setup page for me? Make it easier for me to submit a bug report.