[SusanoO]

Hello everyone,

I am a new owner of a Cayin N5ii, that I just had the chance to try for a day or two now and have been very pleased with the sound so far. I bought it from MusicTeck, and Andrew was very helpful, as I had an issue with my first one which had a defect on the front screen with a small piece of the lower left corner was chipped (I admit that it was pretty small but I am kind of a maniac with my tech gear and feared it would worsen with time), so I got it replaced very quickly and the new one was fine. Thanks again Andrew!

I have a question for other N5ii owners: is the power button different than the other in feel? To explain it better, the buttons on the other side (play, forward, reverse) all have a "click" to it when pressed, but my power button almost feels like a "capacitive" style, such as it doesn't click when pressed but you could only turn on or off the player by applying your finger gently on it. Is that normal or not?

The issue with Google Play services is a little annoying, as other people mentioned you need to connect to Internet in the first place to get Spotify or Tidal to work. It even does it while offline in audio priority mode (supposed to kill all third party apps running), so you get this error message all the time and it even affects listening to the player from your music on your TF cards. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for your help!

 

[acroyear]

Hello everyone,

I am a new owner of a Cayin N5ii, that I just had the chance to try for a day or two now and have been very pleased with the sound so far. I bought it from MusicTeck, and Andrew was very helpful, as I had an issue with my first one which had a defect on the front screen with a small piece of the lower left corner was chipped (I admit that it was pretty small but I am kind of a maniac with my tech gear and feared it would worsen with time), so I got it replaced very quickly and the new one was fine. Thanks again Andrew!

I have a question for other N5ii owners: is the power button different than the other in feel? To explain it better, the buttons on the other side (play, forward, reverse) all have a "click" to it when pressed, but my power button almost feels like a "capacitive" style, such as it doesn't click when pressed but you could only turn on or off the player by applying your finger gently on it. Is that normal or not?

The issue with Google Play services is a little annoying, as other people mentioned you need to connect to Internet in the first place to get Spotify or Tidal to work. It even does it while offline in audio priority mode (supposed to kill all third party apps running), so you get this error message all the time and it even affects listening to the player from your music on your TF cards. Hopefully this will be fixed soon.

Sorry for the long post and thanks in advance for your help!

The directions are on page 217. You'll find a link to the APK of a Google play services version that works. I've owned an N5ii and currently the N5iiS. Your power button should be the same as the others.

 

[SusanoO]

The directions are on page 217. You'll find a link to the APK of a Google play services version that works. I've owned an N5ii and currently the N5iiS. Your power button should be the same as the others.

Hi acroyear,

Thanks for the reply. And sorry I should have mentioned that I had already seen the solution regarding the Google Play issue on page 217, but it seems like it is not a definite fix (someone mentioned still having issues after doing it), as I assume this will force people to manually update their app through apk everytime they want the last update.But hopefully this will be fixed in the next fw update, fingers crossed.
Btw, can I ask you if you think it is worth upgrading to N5iis from N5ii (just curious)?

 

[CayinSupport]

I am sorry to write it here. After using Cayin C5, Cayin N3 I had huge expectation on my Cayin N5 II. Obviously, it was up to my expectation in sound quality, but it didn't match the reliability expectation. I never had issue with Cayin N3 or C5. I bought Cayin N5 II back in January 2018 from the authorized seller in India "Headphonezone". We have to pay some premium in India compared to US price(around 50$ premium over MSRP) due to taxes. After couple of months, there was black spots on screen. I immediately contacted Headphonezone and they replaced the unit within couple of weeks. Things were good until last week. Now there is some colour problem on screen. I contacted the seller and they have asked me ship it to them, hopefully they will replace it again. But the warranty will expire soon and I am afraid how long it will last before some new problem appears. Maybe I am one of the unlucky users, but I expect the problem once, not twice within a year. I request Cayin to please take look on QC, so that N5IIs doesn't suffer from this. It is hard, but probably I will find it difficult to buy another Cayin product for me or suggesting it to someone else.

Hi, sorry for the inconvenience caused! Actually, this is a known issue and we have already added it into our bug list . You can restart the N5ii or power off/on its screen to solve it temporary. I will give your feedback to related department again We have upgraded the N5iiS screen, so this problem should never happen on N5iiS. Thank you for your kind feedback!

 

[CayinSupport]

So, any roadmap for future firmware, when etc?

We are still working on the new firmware now but I cannot assure the firmware release date currently. Once we release it, we will post the announcement quickly here. Please wait patiently. Thank you for your cooperation!

 

[acroyear]

Hi acroyear,

Thanks for the reply. And sorry I should have mentioned that I had already seen the solution regarding the Google Play issue on page 217, but it seems like it is not a definite fix (someone mentioned still having issues after doing it), as I assume this will force people to manually update their app through apk everytime they want the last update.But hopefully this will be fixed in the next fw update, fingers crossed.
Btw, can I ask you if you think it is worth upgrading to N5iis from N5ii (just curious)?

I liked my N5ii, but it was a little laggy. I returned it. Got a Hiby R6, and although the UI is amazing, and it sounds fantastic I missed the energetic quality of the N5ii. I went looking to buy another one (the sound is THAT good).. I found out about the stainless version with the better screen and 2gb of ram and got excited. The sound is the best I've heard, but without being able to A/B compare them I can't say it's different than the original but it sure is great. My gripe is the sleep mode is pathetic. I can leave my Hiby R6 on for weeks and it barely drains the battery. I would love it if Cayin could make firmware that did that! Is the upgrade worth it? In my opinion, it depends on whether you have the cash. Your N5ii should suit you well. If you want the gorgeous stainless steel body, better screen and snappier UI it will just be a matter of your financial priorities.

 

[SusanoO]

I liked my N5ii, but it was a little laggy. I returned it. Got a Hiby R6, and although the UI is amazing, and it sounds fantastic I missed the energetic quality of the N5ii. I went looking to buy another one (the sound is THAT good).. I found out about the stainless version with the better screen and 2gb of ram and got excited. The sound is the best I've heard, but without being able to A/B compare them I can't say it's different than the original but it sure is great. My gripe is the sleep mode is pathetic. I can leave my Hiby R6 on for weeks and it barely drains the battery. I would love it if Cayin could make firmware that did that! Is the upgrade worth it? In my opinion, it depends on whether you have the cash. Your N5ii should suit you well. If you want the gorgeous stainless steel body, better screen and snappier UI it will just be a matter of your financial priorities.

Thanks for the info. I think I remember someone talking about the sleep mode issue and Cayin support said they were looking into it. Hopefully this will get fixed as well. I think I'll stick to my N5ii for now, if I don't run into other issues, I can do without the 1Gb extra ram and better screen.
Still have to test my brand new Fiio FH1 with balanced cable, but have to fix the Google Play issue first, might do that tonight!

 

[PlaZid]

Hi, sorry for the inconvenience caused! Actually, this is a known issue and we have already added it into our bug list . You can restart the N5ii or power off/on its screen to solve it temporary. I will give your feedback to related department again We have upgraded the N5iiS screen, so this problem should never happen on N5iiS. Thank you for your kind feedback!

I have N5iiS, there are broken pixels, and there are a lot of them. I have a suspicion that you don’t check your devices at the factory before selling.
In the future, I will not consider your products to purchase.

 

[NicholasS]

I have N5iiS, there are broken pixels, and there are a lot of them. I have a suspicion that you don’t check your devices at the factory before selling.
In the future, I will not consider your products to purchase.

I'm 100% with you man. Already forgetting my current N5ii and buying R6. The way the company treats customers and the product is awful, despite the sound quality.

 

[Andykong]

The covers redrawing slowly issue is interesting, because when you use another app like Poweramp on the N5iiS the covers draw almost instantly. It's Cayin's native player that needs an update. Also, why can't we change how many covers per row? 3 is too many. A choice would be nice

The audio performance of N5ii and N5iiS are well-received among sub-$500 players and there is a reason for that: Cayin puts Audio Performance as the top priority in our product development process. the term Audio Priority is not just a feature, it is our prime objective. I think it probably won't occur to our users that the delay and redraw of Album art is one of the compromise we make in order to achieve Audio Priority.

When N5ii (in fact, this is applicable to all or DAPs) start to play a track (i.e., a new music file), it will read the data from your storage (internal or TF card in most cases), write it to the internal buffer, and start to decode when the buffer reached certain level. Nothing special here, I suppose most if not all DAP are doing this.

Cayin deliberately delay the album art read/display process until the player has completed the buffering process and is into the decoding stage steadily, That's why the album art is delayed. Its not a hardware constraint, it is one of the decision we make alongside our Audio Priority thinking.

When CD was the main music storage solution, we can assume the "playlist" are all in the same file format (PCM 16bit/44.1kHz), but when we enter file based era, we can no longer assume that already. So even when we playback a folder which, to most users are collections of music files from the same album, we have to assume the files are in different format (afterall, we have to consider the shuffle mode as well). Depends on different of format, the transition from one song to another might result in a silent transition, a small pop or an annoying pop (quite rare but when you change from PCM to DSD or vice versa, it happens). Cayin DAP always mute the payer during playback transition, this will safeguard a silent transition but will result in short lag in UI. Again, Cayin vote for audio playback experience over UI experience.

Because of the album art delay and the mute process, there is a 1 sec gap between the previous album art and the new album art, we don't want to display the album art of the previous song in the first second of the newly played song, so we swapped out the album art to a default wallpaper at the end of the song and display the new album art after the 1 sec delay.

Please understand the problem is NOT a matter of software incompetence. Sometime it takes a stubborn and persistent attitude to deliver best audio performance within limited resources. So unfortunately, these "problems will STAY, we don't plan to change or "rectify" them in the future.

 

[NicholasS]

You add more issues with firmware updates, and even when customers give u a feedback there are still to even minor fixes, have to wait for months to get even what worked before. This is not how production for even 500$ have to work in 2018. Shame.

 

[acroyear]

The audio performance of N5ii and N5iiS are well-received among sub-$500 players and there is a reason for that: Cayin puts Audio Performance as the top priority in our product development process. the term Audio Priority is not just a feature, it is our prime objective. I think it probably won't occur to our users that the delay and redraw of Album art is one of the compromise we make in order to achieve Audio Priority.

When N5ii (in fact, this is applicable to all or DAPs) start to play a track (i.e., a new music file), it will read the data from your storage (internal or TF card in most cases), write it to the internal buffer, and start to decode when the buffer reached certain level. Nothing special here, I suppose most if not all DAP are doing this.

Cayin deliberately delay the album art read/display process until the player has completed the buffering process and is into the decoding stage steadily, That's why the album art is delayed. Its not a hardware constraint, it is one of the decision we make alongside our Audio Priority thinking.

When CD was the main music storage solution, we can assume the "playlist" are all in the same file format (PCM 16bit/44.1kHz), but when we enter file based era, we can no longer assume that already. So even when we playback a folder which, to most users are collections of music files from the same album, we have to assume the files are in different format (afterall, we have to consider the shuffle mode as well). Depends on different of format, the transition from one song to another might result in a silent transition, a small pop or an annoying pop (quite rare but when you change from PCM to DSD or vice versa, it happens). Cayin DAP always mute the payer during playback transition, this will safeguard a silent transition but will result in short lag in UI. Again, Cayin vote for audio playback experience over UI experience.

Because of the album art delay and the mute process, there is a 1 sec gap between the previous album art and the new album art, we don't want to display the album art of the previous song in the first second of the newly played song, so we swapped out the album art to a default wallpaper at the end of the song and display the new album art after the 1 sec delay.

Please understand the problem is NOT a matter of software incompetence. Sometime it takes a stubborn and persistent attitude to deliver best audio performance within limited resources. So unfortunately, these "problems will STAY, we don't plan to change or "rectify" them in the future.

I was referring to scrolling through different album covers, no music playing.

 

[Andykong]

Shouldn't I be able to attach a USB cable to my phone, and use its UI to drive the N5ii as a DAC, to benefit from the improved audio quality over my phone? Never had a DAC so not sure how it works.

If you are using iPhone, the USB-C port of the mobile won't deliver USB Audio signal, you need to attach a camera connection kit to it, the USB port in the CCK is full-function and you can use it for USB digital audio application. Yes. Apple has deliberately stopped you from using the USB-C of your iphone for this function.

If you are using Android phone, you have to try your luck. The USB Audio is part of the OTG implementation. Unfortunately there is NO well-defined requirement on Android OTG implementation. Some mobile phone doesn't have OTG, while some only implemented the File Management feature of OTG and keep the Audio service out of the picture. So we can't be sure if you mobile phone can serve as a digital transport to N5ii until you plug it in and give it a try.

 

[KuroKitsu]

The audio performance of N5ii and N5iiS are well-received among sub-$500 players and there is a reason for that: Cayin puts Audio Performance as the top priority in our product development process. the term Audio Priority is not just a feature, it is our prime objective. I think it probably won't occur to our users that the delay and redraw of Album art is one of the compromise we make in order to achieve Audio Priority.

Its not a hardware constraint, it is one of the decision we make alongside our Audio Priority thinking.

Please understand the problem is NOT a matter of software incompetence. Sometime it takes a stubborn and persistent attitude to deliver best audio performance within limited resources. So unfortunately, these "problems will STAY, we don't plan to change or "rectify" them in the future.

Excellent response and probably the most honest Ive seen from any OEM regarding software priorities and hardware constraints. Glad to see Cayin sticking to their guns, I constantly deal with clients in a similar regard.

While the price is more like sub-700 Canadian for me, I am the happy owner of a N3 currently running as a USB DAC at work. I saw that it was mentioned that Cayin would be moving away from Android based DAPs which seems to be a good move. Android has caused nothing but grief.

 

[mkrzych]

We are still working on the new firmware now but I cannot assure the firmware release date currently. Once we release it, we will post the announcement quickly here. Please wait patiently. Thank you for your cooperation!

That's a good thing. Keep up the great work and hope we will get decent update for N5iiS because this device is very capable.