[Sylean]

HiByLink Beta with Cayin N3 DAP

HiBy Music, Strategic partner of Cayin Audio, will introduce a new feature know as HibyLink in their HiByMusic App. Cayin is honored to participate since early stage of the project and we firmly believe that the HiByLink will revolutionize manipulation and user experience in our DAPs’ operation.



HibyLink will be an integrated component of the next generation HiByMusic App scheduled to be released by the end of June. This will enable a large number of HiBy-engineered DAPs and other playback devices with duplex Bluetooth or WiFi connectivity to be remotely controlled by the app (feature only available to Android based installation at the moment). Users can now browse and manipulate their playback device from their mobile phone, and change a non-touch-screen, “dumb” DAP or desktop player into a feature-rich, smart touch-screen player. This is no less than Nirvana to all the DAP users that can take advantage of HiByLink, and we should all salute HiBy Music for their innovation and hard work.

HiByLink and Cayin HeadFi products

Cayin and HiBy Music have put up a HiByLink live demo through both our iDAP-6 desktop network player and our N3 DAP back in Shenzhen Audio Carnival (3-4 June 2017). The response was very positive and we have decided to move on and conduct an official testing session to evaluate the implication to our Cayin N3 DAP with HiByLink in place.



After testing the N3 with HiBy Link for couple of days, we really enjoy this new approach to manipulate our “little” DAP. The Beta setup is fairly stable and being able to use the N3 in a i5-type User interface is indeed a brand new experience (Cayin i5 DAP uses an adopted version of HibyMusic as native player).

Gone completely was the issue of clicking the wrong capacitive button, and the up/down, left/right, next/pre controls are a lot more intuitive. You can browse through long lists of folders or music files at ease, and even create playlists on the big screen of your mobile phone. The best part is that you can perform all this while the N3 stays in your backpack / pocket.

If you go back home and connect your N3 to your home entertainment system, HiByLink becomes your full function remote from 10-20 ft. away, and you don’t even need a line-of-sight like the regular IR remote.

With consent from HiByMusic, we have decided to put up an early-bird beta program to let N3 users to try out the HiByLink experience. To do this we have put up a “package” that contain the following resources. This is meant to be a debugging and exploration exercise for further system optimization, so please keep us informed after you have tried this out, your opinion is most important to us and to HiBy Music.

1. Beta N3 firmware with HiByLink built-in ((update.upt)
2. Mew HiByMusic (Beta) App (HibyMusic_3.0.0_build_5085.apk)

Acquiring HiByLink for the Cayin N3 DAP

1. Download the “N3 Hibylink Beta Package” that contains the new HiByMusic Beta App and the new N3 Beta firmware from the following link
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B2hOfIpcK24hck5XMEM4LTRiaFk

2. Copy update.upt to the root directory of your TF card, insert into N3 and select System Update in the System setting menu. The player will update the firmware and reboot when completed. You can verify the firmware version from System setting -> About the Player


3. Turn on the Bluetooth of N3 and you can see the new HiByLink option; turn this on and set apt-X to On as well.


4. Copy HibyMusic.apk to your Android mobile phone and install the app; You probably need to enable the phone to “allow installation of apps from sources other than Google Play Store” under Security menu

5. Start up the HiBy Music App, tap the HiByLink icon

, and turn on HiByLink; the system will pop up a window to seek your approval to set the Bluetooth to broadcast mode. Make sure you have turned on the Bluetooth of both N3 and your mobile phone now. Click “Search for devices” to locate your DAP, and the system should display your N3 DAP as an available device, you can now select N3 to proceed.




6. After you select your device, the HiByMusic App will display a pairing notification. The N3 will NOT display any passkey. We recommend you to setup the connection from the HiByMusic App, so please select the “Pair” option. N3 will now be displayed as a “currently paired” device.




7. You can now leave the HiByLink page and go back to the music playback interface by pressing

the Music Note icon. From now on, all display and control on the HiBy Music App will pertain to / be directed to the remote device (i.e., your N3 DAP). We recommend you to scan your music before you move on. While the music files will be sorted into Title/Album/Artist/Genre, the album art from the remote device cannot be displayed in thumbnail views; they can however be displayed on the playback screen



About HiBy Music

HIBY MUSIC (www.hiby.com) is a professional company that is highly connected across the HiFi music industry and expert at its work. They work mainly in portable digital music, especially for high resolution music (High definition, DSD). They offer both hardware and software design services. Their music player app "HiByMusic" has also been published on Google Play and the Apple App Store.

HiBy Music has a group of specialists that provide a strong guarantee for their digital music service. With partnerships and users in 90 territories throughout the world, HiBy Music is continuing its expansion in the HiFi music industry by providing extraordinary user experience and music service and developing forward-thinking products.

Andy,

This is freaking awesome ! Thanks for this killer feature

 

[fairx]

Anybody can compare n3 with axon 7 SQ. I just listened to my friend axon 7 and really like the sound. Same? Better?

 

[Kumar Saurav]

First post, been lurking for a few weeks.
@Kumar Saurav If the device is not faulty, it's probably just a calibration issue. I have had similar problems in the past with other devices, most recently a new laptop.

My understanding is, to avoid irreparable damage, Li-ion batteries shut down before they are fully discharged at about 10%. What we are trying to achieve, is display the 10% actual battery life as the starting point of 0% on the device.

This is worth a try, it fixed a similar calibration issue for me. Run your N3 battery completely down until it switches itself off. Leave it for a while, switch it on, it may have recovered a little but will switch off again, probably not finishing booting. Leave the unit off, plug in the cable and fully charge it, until the white lines go solid. The unit should now show 100%. The circuitry should remember the 0% and 100% positions and calibrate accordingly.

It's not recommended to run Li-ion completely flat too often. A good quality 2amp charger is recommended and should charge the N3 from 0 - 100% in a couple of hours.

Hi there, i have tried your method, drained out battery flat, left it for few minutes turned it on again which it booted to main screen and again shut down as battery was 0. Left it aside for some time. Then charged it again full but again at 93% led started glowing continously.
Should i return it now i guess it is not battery calibration issuem and i used the original charger and cable of oneplus 3.
I weird thing i noticed is when i plugelged charger to charge it from 0%, the UI went super laggy, like real laggy, the main cayin logocouldn't even load completely before the screen went black again( which happens when we boot n3 up and after it stays idle and screen goes black to save power). But after 80% UI again came back to normal.
What should i do? Should i return it as i have 10 days replacement warranty and also i just flashed(cayin at 93% battery) latest beta firmware in hope that battery might show correct charging but after 93, led glows continously and it takes forever to reach 100%.

 

[gLer]

What should i do?

Sounds like you have a defective unit. Exchange it for another one.

 

[Andykong]

I'm seriously interested in getting the N3. It looks like it'll fit my needs for a stand alone and transportable quite nicely. But what intrigues me is this themes business. I'd love to be able to make some themes again as I did for the Fiio X5.

Unfortunately it seems that I won't be able to get one for review as Cayin referred me to a local seller and sole distributor, who doesn't carry the N3. Perhaps @Andykong could help out?

Thank you very much for your interest in N3, I have replied to you by PM, please keep in touch.

 

[Andykong]

Glad you like. Wonder if it's cool to post my N3 review with the custom firmware...

PS. Does anyone know how to screengrab direct from the N3? Or do I just use my camera?

I don't think there is any quick option to scree grab N3, I use camera to do that, set Exposure compensation to -2EV or -3EV, this will under-expose your photo, but you should be able to capture the detail of the screen pretty well.

 

[Andykong]

Thanks Andy . We appreciate you listening to suggestions. It is a breath of fresh air. BTW, is there any other news about possibly raising the maximum accessed file limit from 12,000 to possibly 20,000 as was mentioned in an earlier post? Would really like to shuffle my entire collection at once.

https://www.head-fi.org/f/threads/c...oax-out-for-150.833932/page-156#post-13531129

we can increase the title limit to 20,000, this is technically feasible and probably hitting the limit of N3 hardware (CPU processing power and RAM available for processing). I have submitted an request and received green light for that not too long ago, so please keep an eye on our firmware update announcement.

 

[gLer]

Thank you very much for your interest in N3, I have replied to you by PM, please keep in touch.

Hi Andy - pls see my PM about custom firmware as well... Thx!

Also, any news on possible AAC over Bluetooth support?

 

[Andykong]

Doing more testing with the N3 today, and wondering if it's technically possible to add Bluetooth support for DSD files/ISOs? Even if it's only for DSD64. @Andykong ?

PS. Fiio added this feature to their older DAPs via firmware.

We need to transform the 1bit 2.8MHz DSD bitstream to 16bit/44.1kHz before we transmit the file over bluetooth, we have no immediate plan to do this in our N3 firmware development.

 

[gLer]

We need to transform the 1bit 2.8MHz DSD bitstream to 16bit/44.1kHz before we transmit the file over bluetooth, we have no immediate plan to do this in our N3 firmware development.

Ok, is that because N3 decodes DSD natively while Fiio converts to PCM first anyway? Just limits the use of the Bluetooth function when you have a bunch of DSD albums loaded on the N3.

 

[Andykong]

Hopefully Cayin will include my English language fixes in the next N3 update so I don't have to redo them again for each version. It's as 'easy' as editing a few text files, but that's not up to me to decide.

If you like the changes, be sure to let @Andykong and Cayin know!

We have a special process to make sure any update in the UI wording will be sustained in all subsequent firmware. To incorporate the French “resource” files, we have to break down the suggested French content into one line per UI entries, locate the entries on our multi-language UI table, and then update the content of each UI entries. The multi-language UI table will be transform into special syntax (delimited text) for firmware usage. This is a tedious manual job and we have to take a lot of precaution when we edit the table. I can open up the English UI table for comment if we have a of user interest to edit the content, but please understand it is a lot more complicate then flush the “resource” file into a firmware as suggested previously.

For the record, I haven’t received any English UI resource or UI recommendation so far. I’ll ask around to make sure this has not been holding up somewhere.

That's a shame. I have no issue with Cayin keeping the image as part of the startup sequence and I appreciate many users don't mind it and actually like it, but it's a pity it's baked-in and can't be changed by the user. If you simply start the first power-up with a black/white screen or Cayin logo it would just make it much cleaner and more customizable. If it is very easy to do, I would really appreciate at least giving us the option to switch it on/off in firmware.

That's a pity, but I respect your design decisions. It is after all your product. Please consider it for future products, and don't be shy to look at what other companies are doing successfully. Something 'small' like a time function can add a lot of value - especially when listening to music is very time-based. I don't know about other users, but I can easily get lost in the music and before I know it it's 3am!

It’s an unfair speculation that Cayin will not introduce a feature become “other companies are doing successfully”. I have no idea where you get this idea from. Quoting what other company are doing or not doing does not change our decision. To explain our position in a simplified statement, we look at user needs, prioritize them according to frequency of request, and implement them when it is technically feasible, within budget, and will not causing any interference with other existing function.

 

[Andykong]

Ok, is that because N3 decodes DSD natively while Fiio converts to PCM first anyway? Just limits the use of the Bluetooth function when you have a bunch of DSD albums loaded on the N3.

Can we focus on discussing Cayin product and Cayin features? I cannot comment on our competitors, strict rules in this forum. From now on, I have to neglect all posts that make reference to Cayin's competitors.

 

[Andykong]

Hi Andy - pls see my PM about custom firmware as well... Thx!

Also, any news on possible AAC over Bluetooth support?

Sorry, Cayin does not offer customized firmware service no matter its a paid request or a free-of-charge request. I can see you are truly dissatisfied with the start-up animation given you have raised the issue many many times, on forum and on PM. Sorry that Cayin cannot fulfill your personal need, if this is such an important issue to you, maybe I can help you to sell your N3, to minimize your lose so that you can look for a replacement that satisfy your requirement?

 

[Andykong]

Totally agree. We shouldn't have to worry about file limit constraints when mSD cards have larger capacity every year. Luckily, I only use folder browsing, so it's not an issue for me. However, I can see where it's a frustration for others...

The proposed solution cannot solve the problem once and for all because if we are dealing with a 256GB TF hard packed with MP3, we can easily go beyond 30,000 music files. Unfortunately 20,000 is the limit we can handle given the hardware limitation of N3, this probably is not a very "marketable" answer but we prefer to play honest as early as possible.

 

[Leglatz]

We have a special process to make sure any update in the UI wording will be sustained in all subsequent firmware. To incorporate the French “resource” files, we have to break down the suggested French content into one line per UI entries, locate the entries on our multi-language UI table, and then update the content of each UI entries. The multi-language UI table will be transform into special syntax (delimited text) for firmware usage. This is a tedious manual job and we have to take a lot of precaution when we edit the table. I can open up the English UI table for comment if we have a of user interest to edit the content, but please understand it is a lot more complicate then flush the “resource” file into a firmware as suggested previously.

For the record, I haven’t received any English UI resource or UI recommendation so far. I’ll ask around to make sure this has not been holding up somewhere.



It’s an unfair speculation that Cayin will not introduce a feature become “other companies are doing successfully”. I have no idea where you get this idea from. Quoting what other company are doing or not doing does not change our decision. To explain our position in a simplified statement, we look at user needs, prioritize them according to frequency of request, and implement them when it is technically feasible, within budget, and will not causing any interference with other existing function.

Hi @Andykong
I would be very happy if I can help you in anything for the french language. It is my native language and I am a specialist of Audio/video, for a high end brand I wil not mentionned here to respect the rules of the forum . If you think it good be a good idea I can also help you for spanish (I speak it fuently).