Fully Balanced Design
While Dual Timber is the focus of attention, but the audio design of N3Pro didn’t stay at that. N3Pro is a genuine fully balanced design Digital Audio Player.
Dual DAC: AK4493 x2
N3Pro is designed around the latest 32Bit DAC chipset AK4493EQ from AKM. The player can natively decode up to DSD256 and 32 Bit/384kHz and can playback all popular file format including direct handling of SACD-ISO disc image. It is very convenient to see the ISO file break down into track right in front of you.
To implement the fully-balanced design all the way through, N3Pro has incorporates two AK4493EQ instead of on3. Each DAC chipset is operated in Mono mode taking care of one stereo channel. The DAC will deliver better dynamic range, signal to noise ratio and channel separation in mono mode.
Differential Headphone Amplification
The DAC outputs the hot and cold signal streams identically except for the polarity. These two signal stream will go through LPF (Low Pass Filter) and headphone amplifier in parallel, completing a fully balanced audio circuit.
When L+, L-, R+ and R- signal streams are transmitted and processed independently, common-mode noise and cross-talk reduction will be cancelled out. The differential headphone amplifier outputs the difference between the hot and cold signals, and this will increase the output power and channel separation significantly. In the case of N3Pro, the 4.4mm balanced headphone output will deliver 800mW, 220mW and 110mW at 32Ω, 150Ω and 300Ω respectively, these are very respectable output at loaded condition from a players at this size and price.
To usability of the DAP is also an important factor in our product design. For this reason, we packed a custom design and built 4100 mAH (3.7V) Lithium battery into N3Pro. This will provide 11 hours continuous playback on 3.5mm single-ended headphone when Solid State Timbre is selected. The battery duration will drop to 9hrs continuous playback when you select Tube Timbre, or switch to 4.4mm balanced headphone output.
Flexible Input/Outputs Options
S/PDIF Coaxial Digital Out: Cayin developed a proprietary solution to embedded the S/PDIF signal into the SBU (Sideband use) pins of the Type-C connector. These pins are NOT USED for in USB transmission, so they are not occupied in normal application and left out in normal USB-C cable. This implementation is plug and play, the S/PDIF bitstream is directly embedded into connector, it is NOT a conversion of USB Audio to S/PDIF. To get the S/PDIF out of N3Pro, you need a custom make Type-C cable by wiring the SBU pins to a coaxial cable. (
CS-30TCR and
CS-40TC35 from Cayin website)
USB Audio In/Out: N3Pro also support both USB Audio Out (USB Transport) and USB Audio In (USB-DAC) from the Type-C USB connector, you need an OTG Type-C cable to access these function. The USB Audio output is, from functional point of view, similar to the coaxial output but it offers noticeably better specification so if you need DSD256 or PCM upto 768kHz, you'll have to go for the USB Audio option instead of Coaxial.
3.5mm single-ended line out: The single-ended line out of N3Pro is a dedicated 3.5mm TRS port and users can set the output level to 2.0V, 1.5V, and 1.0V through the Audio setup menu. This single-ended Line out didn’t go through the headphone amplification stage at all, it is branched from the Solid-state Timbre buffer and is as clean as it should be. It is fit for audio equipment with input impedance higher than 10kΩ (which is fairly common in desktop systems).
4.4mm balanced line out: The balanced line out of N3Pro is a shared 4.4mm TRRRS port with the ground pin connected. This is a fixed voltage output from the 4.4mm headphone amplifier output and users can set the output level to 4.0V, 3.0V, 2.0V through the Audio setup menu.
Multipurpose Hi-Res Bluetooth
Wireless DAC: N3Pro supports UAT, LDAC, AAC and SBC codec at BTv5.0 standard in both receive and transmit connections. This will enable the N3Pro to serve as a wireless player (to Bluetooth headphones and speaker) and wireless DAC with your mobile phone as music source. Since UAT (up to 192kHz) and LDAC (up to 96kHz) are Hi-Res ready, you can enjoy their streaming app such as Tidal and Qobuz on mobile and playback through N3Pro in UAT, LDAC or AAC. For your information, the UAT codec is developed by HiBy and it transmits upto 1.2Mbps audio signals from an Android mobile device to UAT compatible DAP, support up to 192kHz sampling frequency
HiByLink: The Bluetooth capability also enabled HiByLink, a feature in HiBy Music Player app that allow you to remote control. browse and playback your DAP music library remotely. The remote control concept is similar to regular Bluetooth remote that allow you to adjust volume and perform basic play/pause/next/prev control from your mobile phone.
The HiByLink is a resources sharing protocol, it reads the file header from the music library and fit into the HiBy Music App of your mobile phone. This will facilitate you to browse the music library content, manage music file, search and crate playlist from HiBy Music App. It can even display your DAP Album art on your mobile phone when you played a song on your DAP.
