[heliosphann]

where are these 4 sale in the us?

Think they've pretty much been discontinued.

 

[Soundtrap]

hello

Cayin i5 HEAVY DISTORTION when BASS is high on the EQ

I have purchased a Cayin i5, now ive had it for a week now, used it for a few hours, do i have to burn in to get better sound?

My issue is when i increase the bass via the EQ (last 2 on the left) on the i5 I get heavy distortion.

I read the reviews before purchase and it stated that the device has strong booming bass

The mids and highs are nice and the sound stage is wide, however the bass is very disappointing, if I increase it more than 30% then the distortion kicks in and its horrible, i wanted to email Cayin support but its in chinese, support

Im using 80ohm fostex tr90s HD650 and beyers Amirons

they are all high impedance cans but something like the Cayin should not distort on increased bass

Im thinking to buy low impedance headphones now, ive already purchased the C5 amp and had to use the bass on the amp, but I shouldnt need a amp on the i5

Is it faulty?

What do I do to get nicer sound in the lows dept, my cheap sony A35 has better bass, my ibasso DX80 does not distort on full bass, what am i to do to correct the problem?

Hi, sorry for the late reply. I have I5 for year and a half now and what you experience with bass is my experience as well, so it is safe to say that your player is not faulty it just does not tolerate bass as advertised. FiiO X5lll, which I also own blows it out of the water as far as bass goes, but and it is a BIG BUT I5 has phenomenal clarity and when pair with something like Creative Aurvana Live 2 , HiFi Man HE4XX or Think Sound OE2 sounds like a audio Nirvana. Yes I am annoyed that bass is a failure on this gorgeous piece of audio jewelry, but I did find a solution to make it work, at least for me.

 

[Andykong]

Hi, sorry for the late reply. I have I5 for year and a half now and what you experience with bass is my experience as well, so it is safe to say that your player is not faulty it just does not tolerate bass as advertised. FiiO X5lll, which I also own blows it out of the water as far as bass goes, but and it is a BIG BUT I5 has phenomenal clarity and when pair with something like Creative Aurvana Live 2 , HiFi Man HE4XX or Think Sound OE2 sounds like a audio Nirvana. Yes I am annoyed that bass is a failure on this gorgeous piece of audio jewelry, but I did find a solution to make it work, at least for me.

As advertised? I believe Cayin always position ourselves as high fidelity product and we never emphasis our performance on a particular waveband. We might employ keywords such as neutral, balanced, warm/cold, resolving, fidelity, clarity, holographic, extension, ... etc, so I would like to know if any of our dealer has deviated from our brand practice and promote i5 in such a way that might cause misunderstanding to our customers.

 

[Soundtrap]

As advertised? I believe Cayin always position ourselves as high fidelity product and we never emphasis our performance on a particular waveband. We might employ keywords such as neutral, balanced, warm/cold, resolving, fidelity, clarity, holographic, extension, ... etc, so I would like to know if any of our dealer has deviated from our brand practice and promote i5 in such a way that might cause misunderstanding to our customers.

Ok Andy I'll rephrase it: I5 does not perform in lower bass spectrum as some of us expected and certainly can not match (in the bass department) any of the other players that I have, ie. FiiO X5, FiiO X5lll, Cowon PM2, Cowon PD, Opus #1, AK Jr, AK70, IBasso DX50 and IBasso DX90. I5 simply distorts way to much if you try to crank the bass up and none of the above mentioned players do. Now, as I've said before I like I5 for it's design, clarity and awesome midds, but bass is the flaw of this player. Still, it is one of my favourite players, even if occasionally I have to hook it up to FiiO A5 or E12 Mount Blanc to rectify issue with the bass.

 

[Ziggomatic]

Ok Andy I'll rephrase it: I5 does not perform in lower bass spectrum as some of us expected and certainly can not match (in the bass department) any of the other players that I have, ie. FiiO X5, FiiO X5lll, Cowon PM2, Cowon PD, Opus #1, AK Jr, AK70, IBasso DX50 and IBasso DX90. I5 simply distorts way to much if you try to crank the bass up and none of the above mentioned players do. Now, as I've said before I like I5 for it's design, clarity and awesome midds, but bass is the flaw of this player. Still, it is one of my favourite players, even if occasionally I have to hook it up to FiiO A5 or E12 Mount Blanc to rectify issue with the bass.

I don't usually use EQ, but out of curiosity I just now tried cranking up the lower three bands all the way while listening to some hip hop on my Cardas A8, and it distorts heavily as well. I think I probably would have expected that to happen prior to reading this post, though, and I personally see no need whatsoever to crank up the bass on the i5. I'm more than satisfied with the bass level when I listen to the Foxtex TH-X00 (mohogany) straight out of the player. It's awesome. In fact, without EQ, I think the i5 has the best sounding bass I've heard (comparing it by memory to several FiiO players and the iBasso DX80). Just my unsolicited two cents.

 

[Vitalii]

The volume control stopped working. Which encoder is installed there?
Accidentally not such: ALPS EC05E?

 

[Andykong]

Ok Andy I'll rephrase it: I5 does not perform in lower bass spectrum as some of us expected and certainly can not match (in the bass department) any of the other players that I have, ie. FiiO X5, FiiO X5lll, Cowon PM2, Cowon PD, Opus #1, AK Jr, AK70, IBasso DX50 and IBasso DX90. I5 simply distorts way to much if you try to crank the bass up and none of the above mentioned players do. Now, as I've said before I like I5 for it's design, clarity and awesome midds, but bass is the flaw of this player. Still, it is one of my favourite players, even if occasionally I have to hook it up to FiiO A5 or E12 Mount Blanc to rectify issue with the bass.

Thank you very much for your clarification, I am sure we didn't emphasized on the bass performance in our advertisement, I just worry than local dealer has done that and mislead customer unintentionally.

I seldom comment on the audio performance of Cayin DAP because that is a subjective experience, so everyone is entitle to their opinion except me for obvious reason. Cayin has a very good reputation to receive both positive and negative feedback. The impression from @Soundtrap has been very consistent and represent his genuine feeling towards i5, for that I want to express my sincerely gratitude, I think we should focused on his comment on the lacking in bass performance but appreciate his complete picture. To be honest, I missed the i5, and I prefer the sound signature of i5 over N5ii (I must emphasis again that this is a personal preference).

If I might, I would like to quote the opinion from other i5 impression to demonstrate my point:

• kamcok: The added bass made it unsuitable for already bassy earphones. My Flare Audio R2S' bass felt overwhelming and uncomfortable to listen to.
• twister6: The bass in i5 is more layered with a better articulation, while X5iii bass sounds a little more one dimensional in comparison. Both have a very similar bass extension and impact.
• nmatheis: Bass is well-controlled and punchy, lower mids are full and satisfying, upper mids are restrained and sound quite refined as a result, treble is smooth but detailed, and soundstage is wider than previous fw. If you couldn't tell, I'm really liking i5's sound after the last fw update. X5 v3 in comparison has softer bass, thinner lower mids, more prominent upper mids, and less detailed treble.
• professor55: The "burned" one sounds effortless on the densely packed choruses. You can hear the bass notes separate from the keyboards, and pick out the background vocals. Amazing!

These impressions are listed in chronological order, and the only conclusion we can draw here is "inconclusive": someone said i5 has too much bass, someone like the bass performance and someone consider i5 has insufficient bass, they want to add more bass through EQ and it failed.

By the way, C5 is the only portable product from Cayin that carry a bass boost features, the feature is generally well accepted and some users even claimed that this is the best best boost they have ever encountered in regardless of price, but we still run into users that cried for more bass and go all the way to customize an EQ curve on his Rockboxed iPod Classic so that he can get a lot more bass out of the C5, you can read the story here. So can we agree the quantity and shape of bass response is a very personal thing, so we probably need to look for a special match in order to fulfill a special need.

 

[Andykong]

I don't usually use EQ, but out of curiosity I just now tried cranking up the lower three bands all the way while listening to some hip hop on my Cardas A8, and it distorts heavily as well. I think I probably would have expected that to happen prior to reading this post, though, and I personally see no need whatsoever to crank up the bass on the i5. I'm more than satisfied with the bass level when I listen to the Foxtex TH-X00 (mohogany) straight out of the player. It's awesome. In fact, without EQ, I think the i5 has the best sounding bass I've heard (comparing it by memory to several FiiO players and the iBasso DX80). Just my unsolicited two cents.

Thanks for the contribution.
I start to write my reply quite early but was de-toured by other questions, so it take a lot longer then expected, my response can be a lot shorter if I saw your response beforehand.

 

[Andykong]

The volume control stopped working. Which encoder is installed there?
Accidentally not such: ALPS EC05E?

Sounds like a hardware problem, please email service@cayin.cn for all repair and service support for Cayin products, they'll take care of you promptly.

 

[Ziggomatic]

i5 playing nice with her new buddy.

 

[moby1974]

Is there perhaps a final modded FW to be had, or has a line been drawn under the I5?

 

[WindowsX]

You can try my modded firmware from here. You can always flash stock back in recovery menu in the same manner so there's no risks involved.

http://www.fidelizer-audio.com/cayi...th-15-refund-discount-for-additional-devices/

 

[moby1974]

You can try my modded firmware from here. You can always flash stock back in recovery menu in the same manner so there's no risks involved.

http://www.fidelizer-audio.com/cayi...th-15-refund-discount-for-additional-devices/

I have one off you already, from page 200ish lol is this one newer?

thanks

 

[WindowsX]

This one was released on June 30th so if you get it sooner, newer release should be better.

 

[moby1974]

This one was released on June 30th so if you get it sooner, newer release should be better.

Yeah got it running now, all good, seems a little faster.

TBH my main gripe with the DAP was the power drain on standby, will see if this FW helps.

Thanks