[acroyear]

Try Onkyo HF Player.

 

[thedud3]

Another issue that bothers me is the following:
Player skins changing doesn't work normally

Do you always have this issue and/or did you try rebooting the unit ? Do you also have latest firmware installed ? (mine is 1.3)
Did you also tried to manage a 'Smart cleaning' to see if any background app might be messing something up ?
And finally do you also have the same issue in audio priority mode ?

I never encountered this issue so far and just been testing again and couldn't reproduce it.
There's a small delay between controls and image change for each skin on my end too (controls change first, then the image), but i don't have the wrong control/image association like you seem to have.

 

[Andykong]

i cant believe after so many discussions here, people are still having problems with spotify offline tracks. i never encounter logged out or lost offline tracks for several months already. how? use search function, you'll definitely have your answer

This has happened since the launch and is not limited to this DAP, so that's not it.

Plenty of discussion on this thread about the issue, no solid fix though.

Im just thinking, i never lose any my spotify offline song until the play services problems started. After that, every time the play services popup appeared, my spotify logged out and i lost all my offline songs.

Maybe at some degree spotify and play services work together, and the loss of offline songs are an error of cayin's fw integration to play services right from the start - or at some point started by an "uncompatible" update of play services.

Could you please investigate this @Andykong?
Thank you

Honestly, I think the N5II would sound pretty good with just about anything you threw in to the mix. As a pure digital audio player, ignoring android type features, this is a great unit. The extra android features.....Tidal, etc.....well don't get your hopes up. So if you intend to use the player for direct playback from SD cards, you are unlikely to have issues. Streaming....not so much.

Those streaming issues are not unique to Cayin....good luck on those features on anything associated with HiBy.

Spoiler

I have the same issue with the Stop button being slow, haven't run into the other issues you're having - although I don't use BT.


I'm in the same boat with you with the frustration.

The constant and persistent issue with losing Spotify offline file has made me look elsewhere, along with the awful and weak 3.5mm connection which is inexcusable in any device, let alone a premium device like this.

The thing is, I don't think any DAP based in China will be reliable with Spotify, as they don't have Spotify in China to even test any solution. Wish Sony still made Android-based DAPs, as the one I had had rock solid software.

This latest issue with the constant error messages popping up is the last straw. I can't recommend this player to anyone wanting to use Spotify.

The Spotify is indeed a hot potato issue. we have discussed this repeatedly, but since someone has raised the issue again, so I''ll summarize on our previous discussion again for the benefit of the new comers.

When we described the service as Spotify offline, we are referring to synchronize your Spotify Playlists for offline listening. This is different from buying a music file from HDTrack and download it to your TF card. You don't own any Spotify music file after you "download" the playlist to your TF card.

Spotify offline mode allows users to sync their playlists and albums to their devices but unlike other music streaming services, you don’t actually buy the songs in your playlist, instead, syncing your device with Spotify gives you temporary offline access to your saved playlists and songs even when you’re offline. Spotify doesn’t sync individual tracks but rather syncs your playlists, even playlists you have subscribed to. You can sync a maximum of 3,333 songs per playlist per device, just keep in mind that Spotify only allows you to sync three devices at a time, once you sync a fourth device it automatically deletes the synced content on your first device. You can stay offline for up to 30 days but don’t forget to connect your devices to the internet before then or risk syncing everything all over again. (here)

@Metalomaniac has spend considerable time on this issue already, so he definitely is the more knowledgeable members among us on this subject, so please correct me if I am wrong or missed out something important.

1. The offline issue seems to be a common problem with Android Spotify users, not connected to any phone or player (check here)
2. From what I observed, the two most frequently happened problem are (i) You can only sync upto three devices at a time, or (ii) If an offline playlist is unavailable at a specific time, Spotify will unsync. the list
3. You can check the offline device from Spotify. You cannot unsync. a particular device, you can only reset the list but your current device will be unsync. as well. (check here)
4. Unfortunately, Spotify can make mistake when they enforce the upto-three-device policy, we don't know how often they make mistake, but I'll blame them conveniently. (check here and here)
5. Spotify is very sensitive in using TF cards. removing/ changing it alone will reset spotify (because the offline is unavailable when Spotify try to look for it). Worst still, someone reported that Spotify will unsync. if you leave Spotify running when you power down the player or when the player goes into sleep mode (check here, here, and here)
6. Putting the offline playlist on the internal storage will maxima the "availability" of the playlist as detected by Spotify App. Dual TF card involves a data bus to swap in and out the cards so that they can be accessed by the system, this will pose higher risk to Spotify offline (check here)
7. Cayin N5ii is not on the Spotify support list, you can start an campaign to ask Spotify to include Cayin N5ii in the support list. If you can solicit enough support from Spotify community, Spotify will make N5ii compatible (see here)

Up to this stage, Cayin does not have a firm solution to this problem when Spotify remain vague and has not disclose any technical detail of this problem. We can only recommend procedure based on our observations. Some has followed these advice and enjoyed uninterrupted offline Spotify service. Someone tried but it won't work for him and the offline playlist keep disappearing, check the quoted I listed in the beginning of this post and you'll notice the inconsistency. Our player might have caused some of the problems (afterall, it is a heavily customized Android), but Spotify probably has a bigger share if we look at the list above. Someone reported that HiBy R6 also run into this problem, so maybe we should learn from non-HiBy based DAP? So what other DAPs support offline Spotify right now? AK? Pioneer and Onkyo? iBasso? Echobox? If there is a DAP that support offline spotify perfectly, I have no problem to steer customers who needs Spotify offline seriously to the appropriate product.

 

[KuroKitsu]

My pleasure... Look:

Random aside, do you work at Chick Fil A?

That said, does running an external player wreck havoc with the ram. @Andykong recently mentioned that Hiby Music constantly in RAM did screw with UI.

 

[SusanoO]

I think they should drop app support, becuse you can hardly use TIDAL/UAPP. Its too much laggy. Eith they upgrade the CPU chip or better drop the whole android app thing. I mostly use "Audio Priority Mode" to get somewhat better user experience and "Audio Priority Mode" deactivate everything except the basic audio playback.

xLoud I would agree with that (not using Tidal), but if the player wasn't supposedly meant (in part) to be used as an android platform capable of music playback from the start. Once you are adverstising and promoting the fact that you can play music through apps like Tidal or Spotify (like a lot of people use nowadays), the user experience should be decent, which I believe is not always the case here. In that context, you'd be better of selling a product meant only for high audio quality (which is a strength of the Cayin N5ii, especially at its price point) and used as a pure dedicated with no streaming capabilities, such as what is done in the Opus #1 in the same price range.

 

[CayinSupport]

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.

Dear customer, sorry for trouble caused! The chance of that happen is indeed very slim from the feedback I have received. Normally we test all the devices again and again to make sure they can work perfectly before shipping it out. But sometimes, there is still some "unexpected" situation happening like this. Anyway, so sorry to hear that. In this case, it is recommended that you can contact your retailer to conduct an inspection at the shop if your N5iiS is still under warranty.

 

[CayinSupport]

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.

Thank you for your trust and support.

 

[CayinSupport]

Maybe 'satisfactory' is very subjective from one person to another because to me, having a +/- 1.5s/2s delay when pressing pause before any song effectively stops isn't really 'satisfactory'.
Note that this annoying delay seems to only occurs when pausing, but not when returning to play from pause. When returning to play from pause, the UI effectively responds quite instantly.

See the issue here :



Note that i was using the 3.5 mm jack line out for the test, but this delay occurs also with headphone, i think this issue always occurs no matter what the settings are.
Also the issue occurs whether you use the screen or the physical play/pause button.
It's even sometime worse as sometimes when pausing, it pauses after +/- 1.5s/2s and then it plays an additional few millisecond fraction before pausing (i had this, but it happened inconsistently though)
I've also been testing playing from internal storage and sd card with still the same issue. I also must add the same delay issue unfortunately also occurs with PowerAmp app.

Dear customer, the pause delay issue is a known issue and we have already added it to the bug list. Please see our reply before:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cay...-197#post-14494442?tdsourcetag=s_pctim_aiomsg

 

[CayinSupport]

Have the same issue but ready to live with that.

Issue with noise in headphones when the my N5iiS starts looks only happens with low impedance high sensitivity headphones. But I'll check 32Ohm headphones I soon as I get them from a friend and post results here. Another issue that bothers me is the following:
Player skins changing doesn't work normally. On first click it changes controls but not skin. Later when I unlock player it open player with previously selected skin, then in a second it changes skin to something else. (See I recorded video ) Could anybody confirm this?

And last but not the list Is there any official reply from cayin support related "google services" issue? Have I missed something?

Hi, thank you for the feedback! I just tried it on my device and unfortunately I failed to reproduce your issue. I would like to if other customer have the same problem?

 

[acroyear]

Random aside, do you work at Chick Fil A?

That said, does running an external player wreck havoc with the ram. @Andykong recently mentioned that Hiby Music constantly in RAM did screw with UI.

Wreak havoc on the ram? It does the opposite. It runs much smoother. That's my reason for recommending it. 2 gb of ram is more than enough to run this simple app. Do you work at Chic Fil A? I don't really understand the basis for that question.

 

[KuroKitsu]

Wreak havoc on the ram? It does the opposite. It runs much smoother. That's my reason for recommending it. 2 gb of ram is more than enough to run this simple app. Do you work at Chic Fil A? I don't really understand the basis for that question.

You live in the US and you don't know what Chick Fil A is?! I'm shocked. Basically, they're a fried chicken place and their catchphrase is "My pleasure"

Regarding the RAM, the lack of it is whats causes the lag and so on as far as people are reporting. And with the Hiby Music always loaded in RAM, the amount available is a lot lower than, 2GB so running an external app on top of that sounds counter productive. It might just be the app though. AFAIK, Poweramp has it's own audio engine which might be causing the issues if you disabled it, should be fine.

 

[acroyear]

You live in the US and you don't know what Chick Fil A is?! I'm shocked. Basically, they're a fried chicken place and their catchphrase is "My pleasure"

Regarding the RAM, the lack of it is whats causes the lag and so on as far as people are reporting. And with the Hiby Music always loaded in RAM, the amount available is a lot lower than, 2GB so running an external app on top of that sounds counter productive. It might just be the app though. AFAIK, Poweramp has it's own audio engine which might be causing the issues if you disabled it, should be fine.

Haven't had the slightest problem with it. Really works perfectly.

I never said I didn't know what Chick Fil A was. I've heard people say "my pleasure" thousands of times, but I've only been to Chick Fil A once. It was pretty bad. Wouldn't go back.

 

[KuroKitsu]

Haven't had the slightest problem with it. Really works perfectly.

I never said I didn't know what Chick Fil A was. I've heard people say "my pleasure" thousands of times, but I've only been to Chick Fil A once. It was pretty bad. Wouldn't go back.

My mistake. Gotta admit its a first hearing someone call CFA bad. Esp when the options are KFC, Popeyes and Mickey D's. But thats off topic.

As long as you're okay with it, using an external app just doesnt sit well with me. Usually the integrated player is optimized for the hardware. I save external apps(Poweramp and GoneMad) for when I need to bypass the DAC on my phone and it still suffers a bit on a 4GB RAM device.

Does the player play well with Audio Priority or does that have to be disabled?

 

[acroyear]

My mistake. Gotta admit its a first hearing someone call CFA bad. Esp when the options are KFC, Popeyes and Mickey D's. But thats off topic.

As long as you're okay with it, using an external app just doesnt sit well with me. Usually the integrated player is optimized for the hardware. I save external apps(Poweramp and GoneMad) for when I need to bypass the DAC on my phone and it still suffers a bit on a 4GB RAM device.

Does the player play well with Audio Priority or does that have to be disabled?

I just tested it out of curiosity. While playing using the external app, the highest ram usage I got was 676mb out of the 2gb RAM. It really handles it fine. If I had the regular N5ii with the 1 gb ram I wouldn't feel comfortable.

 

[CayinSupport]

Unfortunately running into more issues with my N5ii.
I performed the fix from page 217 for Google Play services (clearing cache and uninstall updates), and while the "Unfortunately, Google Play services has stopped" error message is gone, I have other problems now.
First is Tidal is now unusable, trigerring a notification saying that Google Play needs to be updated for it to work again (App is opening but I can't play any song either online or offline).
While spending two hours tinkering with the player to make it work, I had many instances where I had to reboot because the interface would freeze, or Cayin Audio would repeatedly stop working, or because of issues with my TF cards.
I have a 64Gb (Samsung Evo) that is working properly (took me some time to figure out that it needed to be formatted in FAT32 for it to work, not sure why exFAT wouldn't, but now it's fine).
The problem is with the 2nd one (128Gb Sandisk Ultra Plus): it used to be in my Cayin N3 and I never had an issue with it, was in exFAT so I had to format to FAT32 like the other one for it to be recognized, but took multiple reboots until the N5ii was able to recognize it and display the good amount of space (several times it would just say calculating space and stay like that forever without succeeding).
At some point (after two hours of playing with it...), I was finally able to make everything work (player not making errors, TF cards recognized),and I could play music from the TF or Spotify online, and the sound is really great. But even then, at startup, the player takes a lot of time (in my opinion) to initialize and actually recognize the TF cards, almost 3 minutes before it actually shows the space available and I can access their content. Not sure if that to be expected or not, but my N3 wasn't behaving like that with the exact same 128Gb TF card.
I would love to love this DAP, as I mentioned the sound is really great, but it is a little frustrating to have such number of issues that you need to work around and spend time troubleshooting before you can enjoy that sound quality.
Still willing to use it for a week or two and see how it goes, before I decide if I want to keep it or return it, and buy something like a Fiio M9 (I was hesitating between the two at the time of purchase).
I understand Cayin's commitment to give us the best audio quality for an affordable price tag at the slight expense of user experience, but if you can't even enjoy your music half of the time you are using your player, I am not sure it is worth it.
Having said that, I'll still give my N5ii a chance, because again I love its sound, and also its design / form factor. Hopefully my experience will improve.
Keep up the good work Cayin, and thanks Andy for being responsive and considerate about our concerns.

Dear Susan, did you put dual cards into the N5ii? If yes, this problem is a known issue and you can see our reply here:https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cay...tal-audio-player.862763/page-73#post-13991523
By the way, I understand your frustration but still appreciate your patience and kindness! We are still trying our best to work on our firmware. Hopefully the problems can be settled quickly. Finger crossed!