[mgsu]

Are the distortion issues happening only while streaming or even while playing local files?

the hiss is Amp Class & IEM cable dippendent.
Hiss is audible with certain cables in Class A and Hyper Mode.

No hiss in AB+Solid State & AB+Tube Mode, whatever IEM cable is connected.

 

[zoidbb]

The stock case is made from a type of leather that if left untreated will be a magnet for stains, discolorations, etc. If you want to protect the leather from this, I highly suggesting conditioning it properly. This will also help those whose cases are too tight, as it will soften the leather up and let it more easily stretch to conform properly. The best way to do this is with a mixture of oils, which you can apply with a soft cloth or Q-tips. There are a lot of leather oils out there, personally I make my own using 50% neatsfoot oil, 25% jojoba oil, and 25% argan oil. You only need a few ounces to last a long long while with this case’s thin leather. ONLY APPLY TO THE EXTERIOR LEATHER!

This WILL darken the leather, and since Cayin chose to edge the leather with a plastic that was color matched to the untreated leather’s the edges WILL look lighter than the leather when you’re done. I’ve attached a picture.

@Andykong i would suggest you guys put more thought into your leather cases in the future. The plastic edging was a poor idea with this type of leather, and is also applied rather sloppily. Also the steel reinforcement strips on the back scratch the titanium player. Definitely not something I’d expect from a $5k luxury item.

 

[Auricon]

Had a 3hr listening sesh early this evening to gauge Class A battery use. Sesh was in H gain / P+ / Class A / Classic Tube timbre with FiR RN6 + EA Cleo II OCTA and volume 16.

With fresh reboot and battery topped off at 100%, 3hr continuous Tidal streaming sesh ended with battery reading at 61%, approximately 13.3% per hour with above settings. I'm guessing, not bad with close to 40 hours of run in so far since delivery. Planning to run a 3hr Hyper battery sesh tomorrow.

I wasn't able to locate my thermal gun but the provided case provides excellent heat dissipation. In-case, you can feel the heat radiating – it's warm, but never scorching hot and out-of-case it's uncomfortably hot as expected. If you

N30LE sound sig has been absolutely captivating.

 

[osocan]

Update from my end on distortion issue:

Listened for about 15 mins today and the distortion issue started again. Happened after I paused and restarted a track. Wasn’t able to resolve by unplugging and replugging in the Amber Pearl IEM cable. It resolved itself within 5 minutes by just pausing the track and waiting.

Previous songs that I listened to before the issue occurred worked fine, it happens for any tracks that I haven’t finished playing (maybe it’s an issue with streaming music files as they are potentially cached on the device once they finish playing)

It sounds like it’s a mixture of actual distortion and like the tracks are playing 10x slower when it occurs.

I download my songs for offline listening. Was downloading from kkbox and switched to Tidal without completing the downloads from kkbox. Everything worked fine.

On the next launching of kkbox upon powering up, the screen hung and all buttons became inoperable (or it could be a case of a prolonged delay of the power button). The unit eventually shut down on its own and did not power up immediately by the pressing of the power button. I connected the set to a wall plug and started charging it, pressed the power button, which did not respond immediately, but the screen finally turned on after a long while with the 30th Anni logo flashing and then it powered off on its own.

Eventually the unit powered on and became stable. I disconnected it from the wall plug, launched kkbox and let the downloads complete. So far so good and have not encountered the same again.

Reading about your experience leads me to think that the N30LE does not like any interruption or interference when it is downloading from streaming services. Hopefully it's an issue that could be fixed by a firmware update.

 

[Kobe4ever]

Reading all the posts by owners of this N30LE, reporting an incredible series of bugs and various problems, I allow myself to define the release of this Dap Limited edition as "disastrous".
Just for personal information, with both my A&K Sp3000 and A&K Se300, since the first turn on, I have had nothing that created problems with my IEMs, cables and Amp.

 

[RonaldS86]

Reading all the posts by owners of this N30LE, reporting an incredible series of bugs and various problems, I allow myself to define the release of this Dap Limited edition as "disastrous".
Just for personal information, with both my A&K Sp3000 and A&K Se300, since the first turn on, I have had nothing that created problems with my IEMs, cables and Amp.

But AK didn't give us a new innovation like Cayin. I guess Cayin know the risk by putting so many option on N30LE, but I can't deny that it is indeed disastrous for an anniversary product.

 

[crazyhank]

Has anyone had the opportunity to try the Pearl and Regular versions? Especially with non Pearl IEMs.... Odin pairing with each would be super interesting to hear...since it's so transparent. It should reveal how each DAP version sounds... just thinking out loud... Thanks!

 

[Kobe4ever]

But AK didn't give us a new innovation like Cayin. I guess Cayin know the risk by putting so many option on N30LE, but I can't deny that it is indeed disastrous for an anniversary product.

I'm also reading that this titanium DAP gets scratched easily, the leather case gets stained...
all unacceptable things in a very expensive product.
We can discuss the innovation (they used discontinued DACs, for example), but the hardware/software control must be done in a maniacal way if you then release a product of this type.
There are people who talk about audio distortions, restarts, faulty charging, various hissing.
This is not acceptable .
Personal opinion

 

[mgsu]

Reading all the posts by owners of this N30LE, reporting an incredible series of bugs and various problems, I allow myself to define the release of this Dap Limited edition as "disastrous".
Just for personal information, with both my A&K Sp3000 and A&K Se300, since the first turn on, I have had nothing that created problems with my IEMs, cables and Amp.

I wouldn't call N30 disastrous!

The hiss issue in Class A with certain IEM cables is annoying but nothing more.

 

[zoidbb]

I wouldn't call N30 disastrous!

The hiss issue in Class A with certain IEM cables is annoying but nothing more.

Disagree that’s it’s merely annoying. It’s unacceptable for a $5k DAP to have an issue that literally no other DAP in production has. This lack of attention to quality calls into question the longevity of the product as a whole.

I'm also reading that this titanium DAP gets scratched easily, the leather case gets stained...
all unacceptable things in a very expensive product.

The leather case being stainable isn’t a big deal if they communicate to users that it’s meant to be treated as a premium leather product. A lot of premium leather products need to be properly treated before use to prevent stains, as the leather is shipped in a “dry” state awaiting conditioning “to taste” by the user. The real issue here is that I don’t think Cayin intended the case to be a premium leather product, as it is not constructed as one. Gratuitous adhesive, poorly applied rubber/plastic edging that doesn’t color-match with the leather’s treated color, gaping holes where the edge of the DAP can easily be marred, and steel ribs that scratch the back of the DAP easily. There was very little attention to quality or detail in the design of the case. THAT is the problem. For $5k, they should’ve gone through the effort of having a proper case designed and manufactured. The corners should have been properly saddle-stitched closed. The steel ribbing should have had something protective over them to prevent scratching on the back of the device.

The same thing seems to ring true with their titanium case design. While it is a nice piece of titanium, their coating sucks. They mention that it’s PVD, but whatever material they chose to coat into it is very soft and easily scratched. They should have gone with a clear DLC coating. Even hardened steel has a hard time scratching a quality DLC coated surface.

And then we come to the bugs. They apparently did very minimal QA on these devices. It’s not enough to merely validate core functionality, they needed to have done field testing to ensure compatibility with various cable and transducer configurations, and ensured “grace degradation” when the device is used with sub-optimal cables. This is the bare minimum when doing hardware engineering, these types of mistakes are the type we would see from junior engineers where I work — not seasoned professionals.

Even more worrying is that this is the care they have to an ANNIVERSARY edition device. Disgraceful.

Yet. I still love mine. Because it sounds so good. So at least they put in the proper effort /there/.

 

[Kobe4ever]

I wouldn't call N30 disastrous!

The hiss issue in Class A with certain IEM cables is annoying but nothing more.

There are various problems reported so far by various owners. Too many, I would say.
Someone here on head-fi is also thinking about returning his product.
And for a few days there is total silence from Cayin.
But maybe I'm wrong

 

[zoidbb]

And for a few days there is total silence from Cayin.
But maybe I'm wrong

Employees are allowed to take weekends off, mate.

 

[Kobe4ever]

Disagree that’s it’s merely annoying. It’s unacceptable for a $5k DAP to have an issue that literally no other DAP in production has. This lack of attention to quality calls into question the longevity of the product as a whole.

The leather case being stainable isn’t a big deal if they communicate to users that it’s meant to be treated as a premium leather product. A lot of premium leather products need to be properly treated before use to prevent stains, as the leather is shipped in a “dry” state awaiting conditioning “to taste” by the user. The real issue here is that I don’t think Cayin intended the case to be a premium leather product, as it is not constructed as one. Gratuitous adhesive, poorly applied rubber/plastic edging that doesn’t color-match with the leather’s treated color, gaping holes where the edge of the DAP can easily be marred, and steel ribs that scratch the back of the DAP easily. There was very little attention to quality or detail in the design of the case. THAT is the problem. For $5k, they should’ve gone through the effort of having a proper case designed and manufactured. The corners should have been properly saddle-stitched closed. The steel ribbing should have had something protective over them to prevent scratching on the back of the device.

The same thing seems to ring true with their titanium case design. While it is a nice piece of titanium, their coating sucks. They mention that it’s PVD, but whatever material they chose to coat into it is very soft and easily scratched. They should have gone with a clear DLC coating. Even hardened steel has a hard time scratching a quality DLC coated surface.

And then we come to the bugs. They apparently did very minimal QA on these devices. It’s not enough to merely validate core functionality, they needed to have done field testing to ensure compatibility with various cable and transducer configurations, and ensured “grace degradation” when the device is used with sub-optimal cables. This is the bare minimum when doing hardware engineering, these types of mistakes are the type we would see from junior engineers where I work — not seasoned professionals.

Even more worrying is that this is the care they have to an ANNIVERSARY edition device. Disgraceful.

Yet. I still love mine. Because it sounds so good. So at least they put in the proper effort /there/.

Everything you wrote is totally right

 

[kevin638880]

I prefer the N30LE over the SP3000 by a long shot (and SP3000 had its own fair share of bugs), and I didn't run into anything major with my personal unit (except the spazzing LED while charging with the DAP turned off).

With that being said, I agree that the launch is quite awful indeed - I probably wouldn't call it "disastrous" yet, but awful it definitely is. You can't just sell people stuff that is not working properly, let alone $5000. Even without the major hissing issues, the small nuisances such as the leather case scratching the titanium or the software freezing over every hour are enough to drive customers away from a brand. Sadly this is becoming the norm for most industries - hype up something, take in all the preorders, sell an incomplete product and promise to fix it along the line. How about making sure it works first then sell it?

And don't get me into the AP differences BS on an anniversary product, which is frankly speaking just a *** you to loyal supporters of the brand. You want something better? (don't quote me, they officially said the materials in the AP version are "better") Well you better pay $7000 extra for an IEM that you probably don't need! Let's celebrate for UM as well because why not? 30 Years of Cayin, let's share the fun! Maybe next time I'll also throw in an A&K Zero 3 special edition too because let's celebrate for another company for our own anniversary product!

The N30LE is the best DAP I have heard, yes, but at this rate it is probably also going to be the last from Cayin for me.

 

[RonaldS86]

I prefer the N30LE over the SP3000 by a long shot (and SP3000 had its own fair share of bugs), and I didn't run into anything major with my personal unit (except the spazzing LED while charging with the DAP turned off).

With that being said, I agree that the launch is quite awful indeed - I probably wouldn't call it "disastrous" yet, but awful it definitely is. You can't just sell people stuff that is not working properly, let alone $5000. Even without the major hissing issues, the small nuisances such as the leather case scratching the titanium or the software freezing over every hour are enough to drive customers away from a brand. Sadly this is becoming the norm for most industries - hype up something, take in all the preorders, sell an incomplete product and promise to fix it along the line. How about making sure it works first then sell it?

And don't get me into the AP differences BS on an anniversary product, which is frankly speaking just a *** you to loyal supporters of the brand. You want something better? (don't quote me, they officially said the materials in the AP version are "better") Well you better pay $7000 extra for an IEM that you probably don't need! Let's celebrate for UM as well because why not? 30 Years of Cayin, let's share the fun! Maybe next time I'll also throw in an A&K Zero 3 special edition too because let's celebrate for another company for our own anniversary product!

The N30LE is the best DAP I have heard, yes, but at this rate it is probably also going to be the last from Cayin for me.

Why didn't they source the leather case from Dignis I wonder? I agree that the quality of the case is rather poor for a $5000 product. And IMO N8ii has a better packaging. The box feels more sturdy and better to protect the DAP during shipment.