[originalsnuffy]

Andy. Thank you for giving an update on the firmware. We appreciate that you are hard at work on it and that a candidate was prepared but failed QA. I know you want this to be a good release and wish you good luck.

I wandered over to the tech QA forum and it was helpful. I think its usage will take off once the firmware update is launched and this forum will open up for other items.

 

[CayinSupport]

Quoted for convenience

Thank you

 

[jeffhawke]

Just got my review unit as part of the European Tour: what a beauty! Starting burn-in now.

 

[Gayron]

Just got my review unit as part of the European Tour: what a beauty! Starting burn-in now.

Hi Jeff, do you think burn-in is necessary with a DAP? What can it give you? Thanks.

 

[PinkyPowers]

Hi Jeff, do you think burn-in is necessary with a DAP? What can it give you? Thanks.

It's never necessary, but I have found burn-in to benefit some DAPs. Can't say I heard much of a difference with the N5ii, though. But the Cayin N3? Hell yes. It was quite dull-sounding out of the box. After burn-in, it picked up nicely in dynamism.

 

[jeffhawke]

Hi Jeff, do you think burn-in is necessary with a DAP? What can it give you? Thanks.

Honestly, I'm not really sure. But I've seen amp manufacturers suggesting a burn-in period in their user manuals, and the N5ii has 3 op-amps, so, why not try? It sure isn't gonna hurt, and it's not that I'm not listening to the music while it's burning in (as a matter of fact, I am in this moment listening to the Cadenza of Mozart's Violin Concerto in D-minor on a DSD track, out of the balanced output, and it's total bliss!). I've been using the N5ii for just about an hour, after unboxing, reading the User Manual and figuring out the rest by myself, the result being that I'm having a lot of fun so far, none of the bugs I've been reading about have shown up, I've been playing from both SD slots and the internal memory, so far so good, and the sound is blowing me away.
So bear with me if I do some "burning in" while listening. After all, I'm just an economist who loves music, not a sound engineer.

 

[jeffhawke]

I am still trying to decide between N5ii vs R6 vs DX150

I don't think I will have a chance of demoing the R6 any time soon, and the DX150 won't arrive before the two weeks testing period of the N5ii expires, unfortunately. I find the N5ii however to be an amazing DAP. What impresses me most is its very wide range of usability: I've been driving with great ease fairly sensitive iems such as the Trinity Master and Delta V2, to a range of much harder to drive full size headphones, on medium or high gain, including a pair of modded Beyers DT880 600Ohm (well, I had to dial all the way up to 100% on those ), and the sound quality is always wonderful. The UI is for me, as an Android user, seamless and fast, and I haven't come across any of the bugs that were previously reported, meaning they listened to all the observations and complaints and did something about it. Also, the battery capacity seems to be really good, I've been using the DAP for about 10 hours on the first charge, and I've still got 25%. More to come, as I keep listening and playing with it. In a day or two I'll start streaming.

 

[PinkyPowers]

I don't think I will have a chance of demoing the R6 any time soon, and the DX150 won't arrive before the two weeks testing period of the N5ii expires, unfortunately. I find the N5ii however to be an amazing DAP. What impresses me most is its very wide range of usability: I've been driving with great ease fairly sensitive iems such as the Trinity Master and Delta V2, to a range of much harder to drive full size headphones, on medium or high gain, including a pair of modded Beyers DT880 600Ohm (well, I had to dial all the way up to 100% on those ), and the sound quality is always wonderful. The UI is for me, as an Android user, seamless and fast, and I haven't come across any of the bugs that were previously reported, meaning they listened to all the observations and complaints and did something about it. Also, the battery capacity seems to be really good, I've been using the DAP for about 10 hours on the first charge, and I've still got 25%. More to come, as I keep listening and playing with it. In a day or two I'll start streaming.

Nice! Glad you're enjoying it. I brought the N5ii to work today. I shall hear firsthand how it plays with Legend X.

 

[jeffhawke]

I shall hear firsthand how it plays with Legend X.

Lucky b.....

 

[seanwee]

In light of TBomb06 supposedly flawless N5ii, I have decided to run a week or fortnight long test of the N5ii.

I shall be resetting my unit (goodbye playlists ) using every single reset function possible (both software resets and recovery mode resets).

I'll use the N5ii unaltered for the first 1-7 days and if it runs flawlessly, I will download apps one by one to see if any one app is causing issues. Passing that, I will enable WiFi and Bluetooth to see if they will affect stability after use. Finally, I will connect it to PC and copy over some files. (maybe the data management of the N5ii gets corrupted when copying?)

I will not be touching the smart clean function. Its possible the "smart" clean has been cleaning away some essential processes which are important for stability.

I'll be using the same 2 microsd cards I mentioned in previous posts.

Edit : I'll also test out the eq and other bells and whistles to narrow down the cause of the instability.

I don't think I will have a chance of demoing the R6 any time soon, and the DX150 won't arrive before the two weeks testing period of the N5ii expires, unfortunately. I find the N5ii however to be an amazing DAP. What impresses me most is its very wide range of usability: I've been driving with great ease fairly sensitive iems such as the Trinity Master and Delta V2, to a range of much harder to drive full size headphones, on medium or high gain, including a pair of modded Beyers DT880 600Ohm (well, I had to dial all the way up to 100% on those ), and the sound quality is always wonderful. The UI is for me, as an Android user, seamless and fast, and I haven't come across any of the bugs that were previously reported, meaning they listened to all the observations and complaints and did something about it. Also, the battery capacity seems to be really good, I've been using the DAP for about 10 hours on the first charge, and I've still got 25%. More to come, as I keep listening and playing with it. In a day or two I'll start streaming.

After the reset I have had no freezes at all. It's been 2 100% to 20% discharge cycles.

So far the only bug that popped up was the inverted colour (blue) bug, but that easily went away with a simple display on off.

It's still inconclusive as I've had 3 freezeless cycles before, if it runs a 7 cycles without freezing then I'll pass default configuration N5ii as stable and slowly install apps.

 

[jeffhawke]

After the reset I have had no freezes at all. It's been 2 100% to 20% discharge cycles.

So far the only bug that popped up was the inverted colour (blue) bug, but that easily went away with a simple display on off.

It's still inconclusive as I've had 3 freezeless cycles before, if it runs a 7 cycles without freezing then I'll pass default configuration N5ii as stable and slowly install apps.

I copied files from my Mac into the N5ii's internal memory without any issue. Recharging now. As I keep using features or adding apps I'll report progress.

 

[PinkyPowers]

And the verdict?

Heavenly.

 

[jeffhawke]

And the verdict?

Heavenly.

Yeah yeah, rub it in....

 

[Gayron]

And the verdict?

Heavenly.

Did you feel it might be a bit too bright? I'm asking, because with Andromeda I find trebles to be a bit too much in some recordings. Or perhaps I'm just still not used to it after my previous darker DAP.

 

[PinkyPowers]

Did you feel it might be a bit too bright? I'm asking, because with Andromeda I find trebles to be a bit too much in some recordings. Or perhaps I'm just still not used to it after my previous darker DAP.

Andromeda isn't the best choice if you are treble sensitive. It will limit your options to just a small handful of DAPs.

Legend X isn't very bright in its upper frequencies. Especially compared to some of my other IEMs, like Encore and Fourté.