[Wyville]

Balanced out on the N5ii is not laid-back. I wish I could compare it to the AK70, to see exactly what you're saying. But overall, the signature from the 2.5 and the 3.5 is quite close.

One thing I've experienced with the large variety of balanced DAPs I've tested, is they tend to sound less warm compared to their single-ended output. I have a theory this is due to the loss of low-level noise. So low-level, you don't exactly notice it... until it's gone. I think this low-level noise from single-ended presents to our human ears as warmth and fullness. When it's gone, the signature sounds a little thinner. But only in comparison. On it's own, a good Balanced DAP will still have a nice full sound. Just clearer, bigger, and with better separation.

Thanks! The balanced on the AK70 is more laid-back in the treble compared to its SE out and it seems to differ from what I have read about other DAPs and what you explain here. Will need to add some DAPs to my Canjam London demo planning and the N5ii might be a great budget option.

Cheers!

 

[seanwee]

Balanced out on the N5ii is not laid-back. I wish I could compare it to the AK70, to see exactly what you're saying. But overall, the signature from the 2.5 and the 3.5 is quite close.

One thing I've experienced with the large variety of balanced DAPs I've tested, is they tend to sound less warm compared to their single-ended output. I have a theory this is due to the loss of low-level noise. So low-level, you don't exactly notice it... until it's gone. I think this low-level noise from single-ended presents to our human ears as warmth and fullness. When it's gone, the signature sounds a little thinner. But only in comparison. On it's own, a good Balanced DAP will still have a nice full sound. Just clearer, bigger, and with better separation.

Now I'm tempted to get balanced cables for my QDC

 

[PinkyPowers]

Thanks! The balanced on the AK70 is more laid-back in the treble compared to its SE out and it seems to differ from what I have read about other DAPs and what you explain here. Will need to add some DAPs to my Canjam London demo planning and the N5ii might be a great budget option.

Cheers!

That is unusual.

Could be AK tuned their balanced output differently. Or maybe they're using less power (also unusual. I'm looking at you X5iii) and the monitor is not getting the same juice. Hard to say. I have six balanced DAPs in my house right now, and I've never noticed treble roll-off.

 

[Wyville]

That is unusual.

Could be AK tuned their balanced output differently. Or maybe they're using less power (also unusual. I'm looking at you X5iii) and the monitor is not getting the same juice. Hard to say. I have six balanced DAPs in my house right now, and I've never noticed treble roll-off.

It is unusual and normally it doesn’t give any issues, but with the PlusSound cable I ended up switching to SE via an adapter because it sounded significantly better to my ears. It seems to be something to do with AK’s tuning of their balanced out. Hence my interest in a possible second DAP, so I have an alternative and don’t have to rely on an adapter (which I’d rather not use).

 

[Andykong]

Hello, CayinSupport and Andykong!

I have three wishes to improve player usability:

1. Please, make track navigation more slow. Now I can skip 57 min track in two (TWO!!!) seconds. I't impossible to adequate track navigation.

I don't think this is necessary because you can have better time elapse control by drag or click at the Progress bar.

N5ii has three Playback theme, you can change them by clicking the T-shirt icon at the bottom left of the album art. Each playback theme has a different shaped progress bar in place. The following example used a linear progress bar that tends to offer better control. You can click at anywhere in the progress bar and the playback will FFWD or rewind to the designation location immediately.

2. Please, allow S/PDIF out with headphones connected. Now it works only without headphones. It's really cool to listen to music from headphones and subwoofer simultaneously.

Enable headphone and subwoofer simultaneously? This sounds like a very "infrequent" setup for DAP users. Sorry, in view of our limited resource on firmware development, I am reluctant to propose firmware changes based on personal preference or issues that will be used or appreciated by limited circulation. Maybe you can consider a desktop setup for this application as subwoofer is hardly a portable device, so using a desktop setup make sense.

3. Please, improve .cue processing in filesystem navigation. I think the N3 way is better (when you see only tracks list from .cue without real sound files (flac, ape, etc)). I think PowerAmp player is the best in this case.

And of course, thank you for wonderful sound of palyer! I'm very happy

This is feasible, we can add this to our requirement list as an optimization request.

 

[PopZeus]

Can you check the firmware version number ? This is really strange.

Version 3.1en

Fyi, I restarted, the Audio Priority reappeared. I had rebooted the device before the button disappeared, so something during the normal-ish operation caused it to disappear.I wish I could be more specific as to what conditions were responsible.

Thanks for the quick reply though!

 

[snbrp]

Hi, Andy! Thanks for your reply.

I don't think this is necessary because you can have better time elapse control by drag or click at the Progress bar.

But I think it's very important. Now I need to open eyes (at home) or take DAP from pocket (on the way), switch it on and use finger on another hand to set position cursor exacly on right place on progress bar. Too many moves I think. And If I have disk image without correct .cue it is really "pixel hunting" if I need skip one song. Do you agree?
This function works perfect on N3, why you can't do the same on N5? I hope you will change your mind about this case because in current mode track navigation with hardware buttons is absolutely unusable. Please!

N5 mk2 is very cool DAP and if you fix few little bugs it can be one of the best DAPs on the market

 

[Andykong]

I have experienced frequent freezes which needs restarts when it is used either via lineout or with an external dac using the usb digital connection. It is almost ok and will satisfy you when you use it with your IEM using phone-out. I really like the sound signature of the device for that price range. There are better devices with wider and deeper soundstage having more micro-details in the market but they are over 550-600$, most of them are over 1000$, not in this price range.

I don't think that the microprocessor is uncapable of handling multitasking efficently. I think the software is not efficient enough currently. When you use an external DAC using digital connection, it is about sending/receiving async data over socket controlled by external dac(async usb) in a seperate process/threads. I think the UI events and events related with external system communication is not handled properly at the same time by the underlying framework which may be due to unhandled software bugs. Andy has given detailed information during this period which was great.

But I see that the support team and Andy is working hard and evaluating the issues with the software engineers and I believe that the team will fix it soon.

In terms of microprocessor loading, there isn't significant different between digital output and headphone output. Normal playback shouldn't cause the N5ii to freeze, but if you insert a TF card during playback, or initiate a number of control steps during playback, this could indeed cause the DAP to freeze.

When you insert a TF card (or an OTG storage), the N5ii will "process" the new storage media immediately, assess the total storage space and remaining storage space of the media and prepare the media for folder view operation. This is short-term CPU intensive operation, definitely not a problem when the DAP is idle, but stressful if the DAP is in the middle of playback Hi-Res file.

Alternatively, when you try to manipulate the DAP during playback, the UI control will also take up small amount of CPU resource, this is normal and should freeze the DAP. However, if the DAP fail to response promptly, user might "suspect" that the touchscreen (or button) control is not registered correctly, and if they click the touch screen repeatedly at this time, the multiple touch screen action will create a peak load to the CPU and freeze the DAP.

I merely provide two examples for discussion purpose, and these examples also explains why we have very different opinion on the reliability of N5ii, some user said the N5ii keep crashing, but others consider N5ii as fairly reliable after the latest firmware update.

There can be other possibilities that cause the DAP to freeze, and we are not going to slow down our optimization process because we can explain the problem.

 

[defguy]

My N5ii locks up during the initial turn on cycle, it requests language then time zone. After that it goes to the Cayin logo with the meesage: "commencing the ultimate experience" at the bottom and the machine freezes. I can swipe down to access the settings but nothing else happens. I did do a factory reset and cleared the cache but this didn't solve the problem.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? My dealer has another one set aside for me but I won't be able to get it for a week or two. It would be nice if it's just a software issue I can correct myself.

 

[Andykong]

My N5ii locks up during the initial turn on cycle, it requests language then time zone. After that it goes to the Cayin logo with the meesage: "commencing the ultimate experience" at the bottom and the machine freezes. I can swipe down to access the settings but nothing else happens. I did do a factory reset and cleared the cache but this didn't solve the problem.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? My dealer has another one set aside for me but I won't be able to get it for a week or two. It would be nice if it's just a software issue I can correct myself.

Click at the "Commencing the Ultimate Experience" to complete the initialization process.

 

[Music Enthusiast]

In terms of microprocessor loading, there isn't significant different between digital output and headphone output. Normal playback shouldn't cause the N5ii to freeze, but if you insert a TF card during playback, or initiate a number of control steps during playback, this could indeed cause the DAP to freeze.

When you insert a TF card (or an OTG storage), the N5ii will "process" the new storage media immediately, assess the total storage space and remaining storage space of the media and prepare the media for folder view operation. This is short-term CPU intensive operation, definitely not a problem when the DAP is idle, but stressful if the DAP is in the middle of playback Hi-Res file.

Alternatively, when you try to manipulate the DAP during playback, the UI control will also take up small amount of CPU resource, this is normal and should freeze the DAP. However, if the DAP fail to response promptly, user might "suspect" that the touchscreen (or button) control is not registered correctly, and if they click the touch screen repeatedly at this time, the multiple touch screen action will create a peak load to the CPU and freeze the DAP.

I merely provide two examples for discussion purpose, and these examples also explains why we have very different opinion on the reliability of N5ii, some user said the N5ii keep crashing, but others consider N5ii as fairly reliable after the latest firmware update.

There can be other possibilities that cause the DAP to freeze, and we are not going to slow down our optimization process because we can explain the problem.

Hi there. Thanks for this explanation. However, I am finding the DAP freezes temporarily when just playing a track from an SD card to headphones and not (to my knowledge) performing any other processes. This is with NO 3rd party apps activated. Wi Fi OFF / Blue tooth OFF and just letting the track play and not touching the screen / scrolling or any other activity/intervention whatsoever as a user. I can certainly sympathise with, and back up, the experiences of those users who find that playback is not as reliable as it should be - and this for me is something that most definitely needs proactive fixing/improvement via FW . I also found that on the 2nd N5ii unit I tried issues regarding slow - unreliable scanning of various SD cards were the same as the 1st I tried - and this is regardless of whether FW 2.1en or 3.1en was used.

 

[CongoFather]

Maybe you just gave and example but I want to mention that I did not insert Tf card or an OTG storage as you said.
During the listening session(when either tidal or spotify is running and External Dac is used over usb), clicking the power button only once to activate the screen (when the screen is idle) should not cause a sudden freeze in any of the DAPs in the market.. I understand what you mean.. Concurrent clicks on the screen or the buttons on the right or left side( like a monkey test done in UI tests) may trigger lots of events which may cause it to freeze (like old windows versions in late 90s ). (This is also due to the lack of responsiveness of the UI of the application, but it is another detailed major subject about responsive UI development. )

Anyway, it is not the case. Most of the time, only one single click cause it to freeze if usb-out is used(async usb protocol is running; reclocking is managed by the external Dac). If you or the test engineers have a chance to run the Dap in debug mode, maybe it will be useful to get a dump file of the running process during the crash.

In terms of microprocessor loading, there isn't significant different between digital output and headphone output. Normal playback shouldn't cause the N5ii to freeze, but if you insert a TF card during playback, or initiate a number of control steps during playback, this could indeed cause the DAP to freeze.

When you insert a TF card (or an OTG storage), the N5ii will "process" the new storage media immediately, assess the total storage space and remaining storage space of the media and prepare the media for folder view operation. This is short-term CPU intensive operation, definitely not a problem when the DAP is idle, but stressful if the DAP is in the middle of playback Hi-Res file.

Alternatively, when you try to manipulate the DAP during playback, the UI control will also take up small amount of CPU resource, this is normal and should freeze the DAP. However, if the DAP fail to response promptly, user might "suspect" that the touchscreen (or button) control is not registered correctly, and if they click the touch screen repeatedly at this time, the multiple touch screen action will create a peak load to the CPU and freeze the DAP.

I merely provide two examples for discussion purpose, and these examples also explains why we have very different opinion on the reliability of N5ii, some user said the N5ii keep crashing, but others consider N5ii as fairly reliable after the latest firmware update.

There can be other possibilities that cause the DAP to freeze, and we are not going to slow down our optimization process because we can explain the problem.

 

[defguy]

Click at the "Commencing the Ultimate Experience" to complete the initialization process.

Doh! why didn't I try that? Usually I'm fairly good with this stuff, total user failure Thanks Andy!!

 

[CongoFather]

You can play DSD files over coaxial with N5ii. You need to set the DSD mode in the Music setting to DoP, and if your DAC is DoP ready, it will decode the DSD bitstream correctly.

I think it is explained in one of my favourite and your most detailed informative answer about digital connection types supported for N5ii on page 26. I have quoted only a small part of it..

The USB Audio option offers noticeably better specification so if you need DSD128 or PCM upto 384kHz, you'll have to go for the USB Audio option instead of Coaxial.

In addition to that, as far as I know, management of the clocking is done by the external Dac if asynchronous usb protocol is used. Whereas, on SPDIF , the source manages this. If your external DAC is better than your source, asynchronous usb is preferred with a good usb cable which also cause less jitter(the difference may change and most of the time vey low or nearly zero in high quality Dacs) in comparison to digital coax connection.

As a result, I look forward to trying the following releases which will probably solve usb issues.

 

[PinkyPowers]

Doh! why didn't I try that? Usually I'm fairly good with this stuff, total user failure Thanks Andy!!

Don't feel bad. That threw me the first time also. It looks like nothing more than a greeting message, not a button. It took me a minutes to even think to tap it with my finger.