[BartSimpson1976]

Just upgraded to 2.0. Will test USB DAC function later when at home.
I believe that was the main feature added as tag reading problems and 30:00 bug are still there and these items come in next FW then as USB DAC was
an important milestone.

 

[Andykong]

Announcement of Cayin i5 firmware v2.0

Cayin i5 is our key product in 2016, we have devoted our complete R&D resource to deliver and maintain this Digital Audio Player. We have attempted numerous innovative features and service on a brand new hardware platform, we were aggressive in product design and we play safe during our development and product optimization process. After spending several months on bug fixing and serious follow up on system stability, we finally have delivered the v1.8 firmware that we feel comfortable with.

If v1.8 is good, why was its codename suggested that it is a minor firmware upgrade? Well, that’s because we think there is something missing.

Ever since the launch of Cayin i5, we have been asked, and promised, USB DAC function for our Android DAP. We thought this will be a straight forward feature after what we have done for N6 and N5, turned out this is much harder than we anticipated. We have rejected numerous beta versions in between, and finally we can proudly present the i5 USB DAC.

We might be late, but we deliver, that we can promise.

http://en.cayin.cn/download/show?id=13482



New Functions and System Optimization

1. Add new USB DAC function, user can connect i5 with their computer facility and function as an external sound card.
   - PCM supports upto 24bit/192kHz,
   - DSD supports DSD64 and DSD128, choice of DoP mode or D2P mode.
   - ASIO Native mode not supported.
   Using i5 USB DAC (please refer to download page of Universal USB-Audio driver for detail instruction):
   1. Download appropriate version of Cayin Universal USB DAC driver according to your Windows system
   2. Install USB DAC driver
   3. Set USB mode of i5 to DAC, and connect i5 to computer facility
   4. Set audio output of our computer as Cayin i5
2. Retain user setting on “idle shutdown” after power off
3. Refine and correct UI wordings
4. Other bugs fixed.

Attention:
When connect i5 to computer in DAC mode, i5 will cease to operate/playback. You can turn off DAC and resume regular playback control by disconnect the i5 from your computer facility, but the DAC mode setting will remain unchanged even after power off and on. Unless you change the USB mode manually, i5 will remain in DAC mode and you can reconnect the USB cable and resume USB-DAC playback immediately

Cayin i5 Firmware Upgrade

Cayin i5 is based on a fully customized Android 4.4 system, this is uniquely developed to become the foundation of i5. Cayin will issue updated i5 firmware from time to time to enable new function, optimize the features and functions of the player, and improve the efficiency and performance of the hardware platform. Cayin reserves the right to modify the firmware without prior notice.

Attention:

1. Each version of firmware might contain minor different, please review the modification list and decide on your own accord whether you want to update the firmware of your i5 Player.
2. Under normal circumstances, firmware upgrade will not cause any damage to user information, including installed applications and downloaded music files. However Cayin cannot exclude the possibility of upgrade failure due to mal-operation or any other reason. For these reasons, you might be required to reset your i5 player and result in losing person data stored on the player. We suggest you backup all your personal data stored on the player before you perform firmware upgrade.
3. The i5 Android firmware is fully customized for i5 only and cannot be used in other Android devices.
4. Please do not temper the i5 firmware or intend to replace the i5 firmware with other Android based system or firmware.

Firmware upgrades procedure

Cayin i5 offers OTA upgrade and Manual upgrade options. The firmware content is identical in both cases, users can select their preferred option freely.

Cayin i5 was launched with firmware v1.0, and we have added OTA upgrade function at v1.1 and v1.2 respectively. If your i5 firmware is remain at v1.0, you’ll not be able to use OTA firmware upgrade, we suggest you to perform at least one firmware upgrade manually, this will allow you to enjoy OTA upgrade in subsequent firmware release.

A. OTA upgrade instruction

1. OTA upgrade is only available to i5 with v1.1 firmware or after.
2. Please make sure the player has not less than 50% battery power before you proceed.
3. When you activate WiFi connection, system will detect and alert you when new firmware is identified automatically, please use the pull down menu to accept the firmware upgrade offer, or select “System Update” command under the Setup menu to invoke firmware upgrade process.
4. You will enter a download screen and when the download is completed, confirm to proceed update and the system will complete the update process automatically.

Upon completion on firmware upgrade, the firmware package is stored at the root directory of the internal storage under the name of “update.zip”. You can delete this file (with ES explorer preinstalled under Third Party Application drawer) to redeem storage capacity.

B. Manual upgrade instruction

The i5 v2.0 firmware package is around 216MB, consider some users are using the i5 as a standalone player or having a much faster network connection with their desktop computer, Cayin has offer manual upgrade option for your convenient.

1. Go to download page of Cayin website (http://en.cayin.cn/download), click into the latest i5 firmware upgrade entry, download the installation package titled [COLOR=FF00AA]I5-Update-2.0-International.zip[/COLOR]
2. Please check the final download file size to confirm that you have successfully download the complete firmware package. Cayin has provided two download link for your convenient, if you run into any problem with the FTP
3. Copy the installation package to the root directory of i5 internal storage or the root directory of the TF card that will be used in firmware upgrade.
4. Please make sure the player has not less than 50% battery power before you proceed.
5. Enter Recovery Mode of Cayin i5 by pressing Down key at the right side and Power On/off at the left side
6. Once you have arrived at Recovery Mode, you can move around with the Volume control or the Up and Down key on the left, and select an option with Power On/Off key
   • If you have stored the installation package at root directory of internal storage, select “apply update from internal storage”
   • If you have stored the installation package at root directory of the TF card, select “apply update from external storage”
7. Select [COLOR=FF00AA]I5-Update-2.0-International.zip[/COLOR] with Power on/off key to activate upgrade process
8. At the end of system upgrade, select “reboot system now” at Recovery Mode to complete the firmware upgrade.

Attention:

1. Do not operate the machine during firmware upgrade
2. Please delete/remove the firmware file from the internal storage/TF card after firmware upgrade
3. Please perform a complete Music Scan after firmware upgrade.
4. In case you have third party applications installed and find the system/applications are not performing satisfactory, please wipe cache partition (in recovery mode) and restart the system.
5. If the system freeze or cannot resume to regular operation, you can turn off the device by press and hold the Power on-off key for around 10 seconds. The system will shut down in regardless of operation status. If problem persist, you can perform a Factory Reset (under Setting menu) or Wipe data/factory reset (in recovery mode) to resume the system.

 

[Andykong]

This v2.0 firmware upgarde has concluded our complete series of announcement. Cayin has announced Hi-Res Audio endorsement, Universal USB Audio Driver, CS-30TCR Type C to RCA Coaxial cable and the i5 USB DAC in v2.0 firmware upgrade within 24 hours and i5 is definitely the center of all four announcements.

Our i5 firmware upgrade process has not been a satisfactory experience to users, to remedial the situation, we have setup a new web server in Hong Kong to host our English website, and if you were to upgrade your i5 firmware manually, you will download the firmware package from Hong Kong, this will be a more stable connection to almost everyone here. When I test the new website, I can download an i5 firmware in around 5 minutes, that's our full speed for 1 user, which mean if you have 5 users downloading firmware at the same time, it will take 25/30 minutes to complete the download, not a very excited figures but at least the download will stay connected and you'll not dropped out prematurely, this is something that we desperately wanted to get it right.

Although we have improved our download service, we still keep the Google Drive mirror link just in case, so if you have run into any trouble with our download service, please use the mirror download link instead.

We have also started the OTA upgrade service, we'll push the firmware upgrade notice to all international i5 users in 5 batches. So theoretically it will take 5 days to complete the OTA upgrade roll-out. Unfortunately we cannot migrate our OTA service to Hong Kong server in this round, so if you were to upgrade your i5 via OTA, you'll still go through our server in Mainland China. We should be able to move the OTA service to HK in next firmware upgrade.

Regarding the USB DAC firmware, we have are satisfied by the final product, and I hope you'll be happy with it too. We are still working on it, trying to improve the stability of the system. For instance, we are aware of the following bug:

At v2.0 firmware, set i5 DAC mode to DAC, play music, turn off machine, connect to PC with USB cable and power on again. Under this "unlikely" steps, i5 will go into DAC mode when power up, the screen will display DAC mode interface, but there is no output from both PO and LO, even when you disconnect the USB cable, the DAC interface will remain on the screen. We don't think this will be a serious threat to the i5 USB DAC function, so we decided to roll out the v2.0 firmware as-is and leave these optimization to next round of firmware.

Last but not least, the USB Digital Audio OUT function (i.e., using i5 as a digital transport and connect to external DAC via USB) is pending, we should be able to deliver this feature in next firmware upgrade.

I can now go back to organize the i5 World Tour, hopefully the tour will bring in more reviewer to this discussion thread, and provide more opinion and impression to the i5 community. I am very excited about this an is looking forward to the reviews/impression in next 2 months, so everyone please stay tune for that.

 

[pr0b3r]

Applying update now and will post my feedback after some time of observation. Thanks for this @Andykong!

 

[Rozenberg]

How well can this DAP run an HD650?

So well, almost as well as a good desktop amp
 

---

 
Moment of truth now. Sorry for the low quality pic.
 

 
Have only tested briefly. Seems to be working fine although there is mirror stuttering sometimes in the beginning.
If the DAC displays 24/44.1, you gotta change it in the Windows sound setting to 24/192.
 
Will test other functions while I go out a bit later.
For now this is great.
Congrats @Andykong 

 

[rymnd6c28]

Just to confirm, does anyone else find it hard to get Windows to recognized the i5 with USB mode not MTP? Especially after turning on USB storage (orange android logo). I find it hard and struggling to maintain the connection. It could be seconds to 40 mins (totally random) before it disappear and require me to turn off and on again the USB storage. Since the 2.0 FW won't have MTP mode, I'm just wondering if anyone else have this problem,
 
If it's common then I guess I don't have to replace mine, since it seems to be a software issue either the FW or windows itself. Tried in both windows 10 and 7, on 2 different pc.

 

[Rozenberg]

Just to confirm, does anyone else find it hard to get Windows to recognized the i5 with USB mode not MTP? Especially after turning on USB storage (orange android logo). I find it hard and struggling to maintain the connection. It could be seconds to 40 mins (totally random) before it disappear and require me to turn off and on again the USB storage. Since the 2.0 FW won't have MTP mode, I'm just wondering if anyone else have this problem,

If it's common then I guess I don't have to replace mine, since it seems to be a software issue either the FW or windows itself. Tried in both windows 10 and 7, on 2 different pc.

I think I have that problem with my 2nd Thinkpad running Win10. However, my Win7 PC & laptop and Win8.1 Thinkpad don't seem to have this problem.

I always use USB3.0 port on PC though because it has more stable connection.

Try to update and see what happens.

 

[rymnd6c28]

I think I have that problem with my 2nd Thinkpad running Win10. However, my Win7 PC & laptop and Win8.1 Thinkpad don't seem to have this problem.

I always use USB3.0 port on PC though because it has more stable connection.

Try to update and see what happens.

Hmm, interesting. Since to be exact, only in Win 10 it's hard to recognize. Win 7 recognize it just fine, but also struggle with maintaining connection as long as it's plugged.

 

[McCol]

Will the issues with streaming services Tidal and Qobus be resolved in a future update?

 

[Soundtrap]

Just came from my evening walk and for the first time tried I5 with my moded HD555. Gorgeous synergy. It does depend of quality of the production, when is good, ie Tool , Pearl Jam, System of a Down, Depeche Mode (Exciter) then it is brilliant combo. Poorly produced recordings will not sound exciting,then again, that is the case with most of the other headphone/player combos.

 

[Farsh]

Hi Andykong ! On your main website , on the page specificaly i5 says that there is no support for a usb dac with Android system , in fact it is not . I today after a firmware new firmware have connected the player to my Nvidia Shield tablet Android 6.0.1 , and the system is fully running , the player sees the tablet and is sound , and sound without delay , checked on Yuotube and on the game . Thank you for new firmware !

 

[WillTirta]

So with this update we can use chord mojo with micro usb to type c port??

 

[BartSimpson1976]

Why people always ask questions that have been answered a few posts before? Please read andy's post #1833 properly.

 

[Rozenberg]

USB C to SPDIF 3.5mm is probably the easiest way to connect to the Mojo, but finding the cable is really hard.
I wish there'll be plan to make shorter USB C interconnects to accomodate external portable DAC users.

 

[petrovsky13]

Did anyone notice the change in sound after upgrading to 2.0? To my ears the sound is a bit brighter now, occasionally sibilant (never happened before)