Cayin N3 Hi-Res DAP with AKM4490 DAC, apt-X Bluetooth, and Line, USB & Coax Out for $150

[Grumpy1]

Case on or case off it doesn't matter, starts at random but never right away.

 

[velasfloyd]

Glad you like your N3. I am quite confident that if someone managed to get alone with the "old-school UI", the N3 is definitely a lovable DAP at $149.

Andy can't do that , I am a small potato in Cayin and hardly the brain beyond all these wonderful engineering creations. We are working on two new DAPs right now, and one of them is Android based, it won't be classified as i5 mk2 but we'll retain some of the i5 design/features in this new DAP.

I dont like Android based stuff!! Im an apple guy, but as I know it is impossible to create an iOS based DAP (apart from Apple) I like those custom operative systems created with passion and love. Whats the point of a Android based one? I know, a lot of capabilities due to Android features.... but whats the point? if I would want Android I would buy any cheap smartphone as a transport and I would better put my money in a good dac/amp like mojo.

just my very personal point of view

waiting my red N3... it has to travel the whole America continent to arrive to my home

 

[Andykong]

So I just noticed something interesting in regards to playback speed on the N3 and I was wondering if any of you have noticed this. I have a mix track MP3 of City Pop songs and I have to usually seek/ffwd to get to my favorite tracks, and when I listen to it on my laptop through Foobar, I have to cue it up to the 8:06 mark of the track to get to the beginning of the song I want to listen to. However, on the N3, I have to cue it up to the 8:16 mark. On another track, Ice Cube's "Today Was a Good Day," I also noticed some interesting behavior, where I can detect a slight but noticeable slowing down and speeding up of the tempo of the song, by a few bpm that does not occur when I playback the track on my computer through Foobar. Anyone else experience this or have any ideas? @nmatheis ? @CayinSupport ?

I'm sorry to bring this up again, but maybe my earlier post got lost in the shuffle... has anyone else had any timing issues with their N3? I will give my most salient example again for information purposes... I have a mix track (over an hour long) that when I normally play on my computer through Foobar, I cue up to the 8:06 mark to get to the beginning of a particular song. However, on the N3, I have to cue it up to the 8:16 mark, a difference of 10 seconds. Any idea why this would happen? @Andykong ?

So far I've only noticed that with one track, Ice Cube's "Today Was a Good Day," where the pitch/tempo changes within the track from faster at the beginning to slower when the verses begin. This does not happen when I play through my computer.

I'm actually not using any cue files. The Ice Cube track is selected independently, by itself. Previously when I said "cue" I meant fast forwarding in the mix track to where the song I like begins (it's basically one over-hour long MP3 file). So far I've only noticed the tempo/pitch change on the Ice Cube track because it was so noticeable. I don't know that I would have noticed the timing difference on the mix track had I not tried to seek/ffwd to where I know the song I like should be.

This is a very strange, I am not sure if I can solve the problem, but I'll give a try.

I can think of a few questions to explore the problem.

(1) You have mentioned that you normally FF to 8:06 mark to get to the beginning of a particular song. However, on the N3, you have to FF it up to the 8:16 mark. What about the total duration of the complete file as reported by N3 and Foobar? Do they maintain 10 second different? or more?

(2) You have noticed "slowing down and speeding up of the tempo" in Ice Cube's "Today Was a Good Day, I assume the song plays correctly on your Foobar, may I ask you to time the duration of this song by staring the song on N3 and Foobar simultaneously, and find out if the duration from computers playback different from N3 significantly. Please be reminded that timing error does existed because the computer and the N3 are operating under very different clock synchronization, but the different should not be significant.

(3) If (1) and (2) are appeared with different music file, I suggest we consider (1) and (2) as two independent cases.

(4) The "slowing down and speeding up of the tempo" problem might be related to auto error correction. For the sake of discussion, lets assume this track is encoded with minor error (which is quite often for compressed audio file). When the error correction routine in N3 failed to "correct" the error automatically, the file will continue to playback but the error will appear in the form of inconsistent tempo. On the other hand, the Foobar/Computer offer higher processing power, their error correction might be strong enough to recover from the encoding error, hence playback the song WITHOUT any inconsistent tempo. If this is the only song that demonstrate similar problem in your Music collection,

(5) We might need to collect the two files from you and evaluate the problem with our own computer and N3. I'll drop you an PM and give you my gmail address. I'll be travel to LA for the LAAS tomorrow, so I might not be able to respond promptly.

 

[Andykong]

Very interesting... it does seem that the filter chosen does have some impact, but I have to really listen for it. I don't know if it's possible, but maybe in the next firmware update there can be a filter off option. Now to figure why I'm getting a time discrepancy in my longer MP3 mix track.

Its not possible to have Filter off, AK4490 always employ one of the five digital filters in their processing.

 

[Andykong]

I'm transferring music to my new sd card to use with this new purchase. I formatted as Fat32. Will this allow me to download FW updates easier in the future? I thought I had read that the N3 likes Fat32 better than ExFat. Can't wait to get my hands on this to start hearing what it can deliver. Am I reading the functions right that I can plug an external HD through the USB-C to have it read all the files stored there? That would be awesome.

Cayin previous DAP (N5 and N6) prefers FAT32, the N3 is based on a newer CPU and it supports FAT/FAT32/exFAT/NTFS format natively, it can work with any of these format even at firmware upgrade, so I wouldn't too worry about the file format on regular usage.

N3's Type C OTG can work with external HDD for file management, but the little DAP won't have enough power (current to be exact) to keep the HDD spinning, so if you plan to add massive storage to N3 through OTG, you can have the following option:

1. Go for low-powered M.2 SSD with power requirement at or below 300mA
2. 3.5" HDD with external power supply
3. 2.5" HDD with external battery pack, connected to DAP through a Y-splitted USB cable

Photo with courtesy from earfonia
https://www.head-fi.org/f/threads/c...4-pcm-64-128-dsd.802382/page-64#post-12780514

 

[Andykong]

USB driver:
Go to http://en.cayin.cn/download and download "Cayin USB Audio Driver V3.30.0(For Windows 7 and above)" and click on "Download" on the next page.

N3 firmware:
Go to http://en.cayin.cn/download and download "Announcement of Cayin N3 firmware v1.1" and click on "Download" on the next page.

Hope this helps.

Thanks for helping out, couldn't have answered better.

Another questions guys regarding drivers ; should I download the same that are to use with the N5, I5 etc ? I can't find any mention of the N3 drivers on Cayin website.

Thanks in advance !

Sorry for the confusion. The Cayin Universal USB driver was announced before N3 is available, so we only listed N5 and i5 etc on the announcement. The announcement is dated, so it doesn't make sense to edit the announcement to include N3.

 

[Andykong]

Case on or case off it doesn't matter, starts at random but never right away.

Someone has mentioned that if the power button is not pressed "vertically", the side-force applied to the button will push the button out of the center alignment
and the player will fail to register your instruction.

 

[Sylean]

Is that me or are the highs very harsh when medium gain is selected ? Don't sound like this when LG is selected and wolume is higher.

 

[Andykong]

Further to my own quote above - just read the English manual (thanks @Andykong) and it seems the USB DAC function only supports DSD64 and DSD128. Also, seems that iOS and Android aren't supported via USB DAC - not sure if that means you can't connect the N3 to an iPhone with a USB OTG cable and expect it to work as a DAC, but I guess that's the case. Don't have an OTG cable myself so can't test it.

N3 can playback DSD256, but the CPU is not fast enough to re-package DSD256 to DoP in real-time, that required a lot of processing power for portable devices, that explained whey DoP256 is relatively uncommon on DAP.

N3 has "limited" support to Android device. The problem is Android is a big family and not all mobile phone manufacturers perceive the Android connectivity (esp OTG implementation) at the same page. So we have encountered some Android devices that is not fully compatible with N3. In addition, N3 will charge up and drain the battery of Android devices, we are unsatisfied with the Android/N3 experience so we decided to not recommend Android support at this stage.

N3 can't connect to iOS devices directly, you need a CCK and Apple endorsement in order to claim iOS suppport.

 

[Andykong]

Yes, the rose Masya is 12 ohm so I needed something with a low output impedance. They sounded great on medium gain. I do have a tennmak cello that sounds good for the price, but IEMs are too isolating for me...and headphones mess up my long hair on the go I like earbuds to hear my surroundings, but I would love to try an audeze iSine 10 or 20 with the n3! That one seems like the one IEM with little isolation, that I would like.

IEMs are too isolating for you? That's usual, we normally want the IEM to be as isolated as possible.

If you want an open sounding IEM, you definitely MUST check out Audeze iSine10 and iSine20. The iSine10 and iSine20 offer the best soundstage I have ever heard from IEM and they works with N3 pretty well.

 

[Grumpy1]

Someone has mentioned that if the power button is not pressed "vertically", the side-force applied to the button will push the button out of the center alignment
and the player will fail to register your instruction.

Thanks that seems to do the trick

 

[groucho69]

Thanks that seems to do the trick

You may want to wait before declaring victory.

 

[nplateau]

This is a very strange, I am not sure if I can solve the problem, but I'll give a try.

I can think of a few questions to explore the problem.

(1) You have mentioned that you normally FF to 8:06 mark to get to the beginning of a particular song. However, on the N3, you have to FF it up to the 8:16 mark. What about the total duration of the complete file as reported by N3 and Foobar? Do they maintain 10 second different? or more?

(2) You have noticed "slowing down and speeding up of the tempo" in Ice Cube's "Today Was a Good Day, I assume the song plays correctly on your Foobar, may I ask you to time the duration of this song by staring the song on N3 and Foobar simultaneously, and find out if the duration from computers playback different from N3 significantly. Please be reminded that timing error does existed because the computer and the N3 are operating under very different clock synchronization, but the different should not be significant.

(3) If (1) and (2) are appeared with different music file, I suggest we consider (1) and (2) as two independent cases.

(4) The "slowing down and speeding up of the tempo" problem might be related to auto error correction. For the sake of discussion, lets assume this track is encoded with minor error (which is quite often for compressed audio file). When the error correction routine in N3 failed to "correct" the error automatically, the file will continue to playback but the error will appear in the form of inconsistent tempo. On the other hand, the Foobar/Computer offer higher processing power, their error correction might be strong enough to recover from the encoding error, hence playback the song WITHOUT any inconsistent tempo. If this is the only song that demonstrate similar problem in your Music collection,

(5) We might need to collect the two files from you and evaluate the problem with our own computer and N3. I'll drop you an PM and give you my gmail address. I'll be travel to LA for the LAAS tomorrow, so I might not be able to respond promptly.

Hi Andy, thank you for taking the time to explore this issue. I think we may put aside the Ice Cube song for now, as I think that might have been the result of the digital filter I had selected. However, with the longer mix track, I have found something interesting to note that I will discuss as I address your points.

1. Both Foobar and the N3 show the same time duration for the file, approximately 1 hour and 17 minutes. So I tried an experiment where I played the track simultaneously through Foobar to my speakers and the N3 to my headphones (open back) so I could monitor the playback on both while noting the time elapsed on both Foobar and the N3. I played the file from the very beginning on both, and both Foobar and the N3 were essentially in lockstep with each other and arrived at the song right about the 8:06 mark. I stopped playing the tracks at that point, and decided to try arriving at the track through the FFWD function of both. Foobar, once again was at 8:06, however, the N3 despite having arrived at the track at 8:06 on straight playback, once again didn't come to the song until 8:16 when using the FFWD to find it. Maybe it's processing power that's causing this error, as it seems the internal clock synchronization seems to be fairly equal, if not absolutely exact.

2. Once again same time duration displayed. I think it is the filter that affects this the most, and maybe also the great resolving power of the N3 that allows me to notice such subtle things. I did notice a slight synchronization difference in that by the end of the song, the N3 was just a milisecond faster.

3. Yes I think they are independent cases.

4. So far this is the only song I have noticed this tempo issue, and I think it might just come down to what you spoke of. It's not really a big deal at the moment, just something I noticed and was curious about. It just may be one bad file, and otherwise the N3 has been fantastic.

5. Sure thing. I'd probably focus more on the long track as the FFWD issue might be the most puzzling.

 

[docholliday]

Is that me or are the highs very harsh when medium gain is selected ? Don't sound like this when LG is selected and wolume is higher.

It's just you...I use medium gain all the time and have had no harshness with the highs or mids.

 

[Francisk]

Is that me or are the highs very harsh when medium gain is selected ? Don't sound like this when LG is selected and wolume is higher.

The default filter is the "short delay sharp" filter which can sound a tad harsh. Try selecting the "slow" filter which sounds smoother. Hope this helps.