[twister6]

Do you mean 20,000 songs per folder or for the entire device?

This is no different than every other non-android DAP, they all have a limit of how many songs are indexed when you sort them by artists, album, genre, etc. Some have even less than 20k song limit. Indexing is just reading ID3 tags of the files on your internal/external storage to build a search database. The more files in database, the bigger its size and slower it takes to search/browse through it. The file structure/handling/indexing in Android is different, thus no limits. Also, if you are browsing through folder view, there is no limit either, you can view and access every single song/file that way on non-android DAPs. So, many people with non-android DAPs organize their albums by alphabet, partitioned in sub-directories for easier search (0-9, A-F, G-K, etc.).

There is always an option to go with Android DAP to avoid this indexing limitation, though I'm not aware of any Android DAPs with tubes, unless you use portable tube amp with android dap. But then, might as well use N3Pro as BT wireless (LDAC) DAC/amp paired up with your phone.

 

[Andykong]

Do you mean 20,000 songs per folder or for the entire device?

20,000 is the file number limit in music scan. If you have more than 20,000 songs in your TF card, N3Pro will only scan the first 20,000 songs into the Music Library. In your terms, it is a limit for the entire device.

 

[staticdynamo]

To each his own, but just to give you an example, PCs run mighty fast with mSata/m.2 Sata SSDs, you do not really need NVMe drives for a DAP, m.2 SSD should do fine while saving you a ton of battery too. Do give it a try if you can.

If you already tried this then please pardon my ignorance.

I tried M2 NVMeSSD, SATA SSD and even optane memory with Cayin N8 and iBasso DX160. And I know that in portable cases, perhaps because of conversion chips
in the case, the speed difference is not so big. Even fast NVMe SSD can't operate at full speed. I understand other people say that SATA SSD is fast ecough.
But after I tried ultra fast optane memory (even it is only 32GByte), I cannot say SATA SSDs fast enough. The difference in sound quality was clear.
Yes, good SATA SSDs don't cause listening fagtigue. Fast enough. But not the best.
So I use both SATA SSD and NVMe SSD(Intel's optane memory).

My current opinion is the faster the better. I did try some SATA SSDs and NVMe SSDs with Cayin N8 and iBasso DX160 . And I will try with Cayin N3 Pro.

 

[Andykong]

Any data on the battery life if a 300mA SSD is used as the source pls?

We didn't measure the battery duration with SSD connected, sorry.

 

[Andykong]

In year 2020 a file limitation by 20.000? Really? This is the BIGGEST showstopper! In Year 2000 this limitation would be okay, but not today!

Cayin device -> checked -> non buying!

What kind of development are you doing? tubes and other gimmicks but a HW / OS / SW limitation....

For the record, Cayin has developed several Android based DAP that doesn't have any file number limitation, there were launched back in 2016 (i5, $499), 2017 (N5ii, $369) and 2019 (N6ii, $1,199) respectively. So this is nothing to do with budget or date, and it is not particularly complicated, been there, done that. In fact, Cayin i5 was one of the very early Android based DAP, there wasn't a lot of DAP provides an app. drawers and allowed users to install third party applications such as Tidal and Spotify through pre-installed Google Play back in 2016. let alone priced at $500 only.

We decided to detour from the feature-packed approach to audio-priority approach. In other word, we want to focus on a different market segment with N3Pro and you happen to be in a different segment, that's why I suggested to look at other options as N3Pro is not your cup of tea. I can understand why you didn't appreciate the effort we put into N3Pro because you think all DAPs sound the same, but from what I read in this thread, there are customers that like this approach.

 

[Andykong]

Could you tell me is the USB connection USB 3.x now?

The N3Pro only supports USB2.0. That's because N3Pro doesn't has any internal storage, so we expect most of the time you'll be copying music to TF card on card readers instead of connecting the N3Pro to the computer via USB-C cable.
;;

 

[Andykong]

Thank you Andykong. The first DAP I tried OTGSSD is Cayin N8. And also Cayin N6ii can handle a difficult NVMeSSD well.
I didn't doubt Cayin N3 Pro would support it.
And I will check the power consumption data of SSD before I go to portable audio shops.
I am willing to listen to Cayin N3 Pro in the shop. And I

300mA is the limit we recommend, the DAP wil output slightly more than that, and when a SSD is rated at over 300mA, it doesn't necessarily mean the SSP will consumer more than 300mA "all the time". So it might work, but not sure how reliable it can be.

 

[rbf1138]

So when are we getting the review @twister6 ?! Just excited

 

[Rockwell75]

Has this been released yet? I was thinking of upgrading to the E02 board but I might get this first instead

 

[staticdynamo]

300mA is the limit we recommend, the DAP wil output slightly more than that, and when a SSD is rated at over 300mA, it doesn't necessarily mean the SSP will consumer more than 300mA "all the time". So it might work, but not sure how reliable it can be.

Thank you for the information. Yes, I know I can't judge whether a SSD is usable with a DAP with limited data. I will carry my SSDs to the portable audio shop and will try them there. I hope my Intel optane memory will work stably. But if any of my SSDs works, I will be happy.

 

[Andykong]

Any updates on when preorders and shipments for the US may start?

Probably will arrive at US dealer by mid- September.

 

[Andykong]

Has this been released yet? I was thinking of upgrading to the E02 board but I might get this first instead

We are selling it in China but out of stock right now. The first production batch were all gone with days and we'll start our second production batch next week. We even stop taking pre-order in China, we need to fulfill all existing orders first, including the oversea orders.

 

[kenz]

We are selling it in China but out of stock right now. The first production batch were all gone with days and we'll start our second production batch next week. We even stop taking pre-order in China, we need to fulfill all existing orders first, including the oversea orders.

Sounds like a happy problem, Andy.

Given everything going on now, selling out is a testament to the Cayin brand and that the dedicated player segment is still alive and well.

 

[Andykong]

I've been building my digital music collection for a decade and am still at only around 11K files total. This is a portable DAP, not a home server. Right tool for the right job etc

Just sort your files into categorised folders and it's vastly superior to any built in sorting.

I use file explorer exclusively, it's way faster, doesn't need to scan and it's guaranteed to work on any device.

This is well put.

By the way, assuming you have 30,000 songs in your "portable" music library, that's roughly 2000 albums? the album page of portable DAP normally display 9 album arts per page, so to scroll through the music library, you need to go through 125 pages of album art? Is this an efficiency way to navigate your portable music library?

With home music server we can use 10" tablet for navigation, and I can squeeze around 30 album art per page on Jriver, but to do that on a 4" - 5" portable device? I have to agree with @seanwee, folder view is the way to go. I have a 512GB TF card with over 8000 songs and I used in on N6ii and N3pro, I always locate songs or album faster then going through the library features, even though 8000 songs are well within the limit of N3Pro.

 

[seanwee]

This is well put.

By the way, assuming you have 30,000 songs in your "portable" music library, that's roughly 2000 albums? the album page of portable DAP normally display 9 album arts per page, so to scroll through the music library, you need to go through 125 pages of album art? Is this an efficiency way to navigate your portable music library?

With home music server we can use 10" tablet for navigation, and I can squeeze around 30 album art per page on Jriver, but to do that on a 4" - 5" portable device? I have to agree with @seanwee, folder view is the way to go. I have a 512GB TF card with over 8000 songs and I used in on N6ii and N3pro, I always locate songs or album faster then going through the library features, even though 8000 songs are well within the limit of N3Pro.

I carry my entire library with me which totals to about 23000 songs last i checked. Sure I don't listen to all of them but having the ability to just pick any song in my library on a whim is nice.

What really bloats up my song collection is well, its a collection, and i ain't about to delete songs that i dont like in an album.