Cayin N6ii, Unlimited Possibilities: a fully modularized smart DAP

[kmmbd]

Very strange, since I had the absolute opposite experience when I paired my T20i with the E01. To my ears the treble agreesiveness sort of tamed down while the mid-range having superb body and texture. I guess it boils down to preference, and there's something for everyone with the N6ii's range of motherboards.

 

[DaYooper]

No, not yet. I'm listening to the A01 from the 3.5mm single-ended output. It synergises with my T20s so much better than the E01 does. No burn-in on the A01 at all. I'm going to leave the A01 burning in overnight to see if it improves even further tomorrow. So far Ive only done one hour's worth of listening on the A01 and I'm very, very impressed.

The E01 sounded a little flat and lifeless after about 20 hours of burn-in and around 9 hours of listening. Disappointing. However, I do have a a pair of beyerdynamic Xelentos arriving some time next week and the E01 may synergise better with those.

I kind of felt the same way about the E01. I burned it in for about a week, switching between A/AB. But to be sure the single ended thing is for me a big deal. I've been listening to everything balanced for a very long time. All my phones have been cabled in balanced. I do have the single ended cables for most of them though. And for comparison the Cowon PL has the same dac chip and listening to that in single ended leaves the same 'something is missing' feeling. My next step is to play them through an amp and find out how that works.

 

[jmills8]

If you believe then its real for you. Well real until you start reading more opinions and guesses and your beliefs gers replaced with new beliefs and hopes.

 

[Taz777]

If you believe then its real for you. Well real until you start reading more opinions and guesses and your beliefs gers replaced with new beliefs and hopes.

Ha ha, I know what you mean!

The only equipment I use to judge sound quality is my ears. The reason I’m surprised is that the electronics on the E01 module is supposed to be of higher quality. However, I’ve only had my N6ii for a few days so there’s a long way to go.

Over the next few weeks the A01 and E01 boards will go through many overnight burn-ins, as will my headphones before I can properly judge the sound quality. One thing is certain: they do have different sound signatures.

 

[Taz777]

In case anyone is interested, here's some battery performance data that I've got from my overnight burn-ins.

Cayin N6ii + A01 module
Gain: Medium
Volume level: 40 (this provided a good level of volume in a quiet environment)
Screen: Off
WiFi: On
Bluetooth: Off
HeadphonesL RHA T20 IEMs

Music source: TIDAL App playing an offline playlist (almost all of the songs are TIDAL CD-quality)

Battery tested from 100% down to 3%
Start time: 21:30
End time: 11:10 next day

Battery life: 13 Hours and 40 minutes

That's pretty good. I would knock off 30 minutes or so as I hardly used the screen during this test.

 

[111MilesToGo]

However, I do have a a pair of beyerdynamic Xelentos arriving some time next week and the E01 may synergise better with those.

Please let us know your experiences on N6ii with both A01 and E01 via the Xelento. Thanks in advance!

 

[Taz777]

Please let us know your experiences on N6ii with both A01 and E01 via the Xelento. Thanks in advance!

Yes, will do. Give me a week or two as I need to get a few overnights of burn-ins done on the Xelentos once they arrive later this week. Happy to give you out-of-the-box impressions towards the end of the week too.

 

[hkpants]

Thinking about getting the N6ii so I'm also interested in your impressions!

 

[DaYooper]

Regardless of my amp remarks the bluetooth performance of this dap is better than any other dap I own. I can go places in my small home I can't reach with any other dap's bluetooth. And since the DSR9BT , using AptXHD, sounds great no matter the device connected to this is a big deal!

 

[Taz777]

Does anyone know how to create playlists in the Cayin Music and HiBy Music apps? I have loaded hundreds of albums of of my ripped CDs and I'd like to make playlists of my favourite songs within those albums. Is there any software that I can use on my Mac desktop to create playlist files that I can then load onto the micro-SD card that goes in my Cayin N6ii?

 

[DaYooper]

I did notice that when on the scan for music files page there is a toggle for create playlists from M3U files. Also on the play screen when tap three verticle dots upper right a window pops up that includes an add to playlist option

 

[Taz777]

I did notice that when on the scan for music files page there is a toggle for create playlists from M3U files. Also on the play screen when tap three verticle dots upper right a window pops up that includes an add to playlist option

I've just been playing around with Audirvana which has exactly the same music library folder on my Mac as there is on my N6ii. I've already created some playlists in Audirvana and noted that there is an 'Export Playlist' function when right-clicking on a playlist. Looking at the file that it produces, it seems like it creates an M3U file and I have the ability to use relative path names.

I think this will help me a great deal as it is far, far easier to create playlists in software like Audirvana on a large screen. I'll do some more testing to see if either Cayin Music or HiBy Music pick these up.

 

[Taz777]

We insist and proud of our Line Out feature. The 3.5mm line out of A01 and T01 module has a dedicated line amplifier op-amp to drive the line out option, the output is very clean and stable upto 10kohm. We call this desktop grade line out because they can work with desktop amplifier satisfactory.

The 4.4mm line out of A01 and T01 are shared with balanced headphone output and is rated at 600ohm only. Audiophile users sometimes refer these as "pseudo-line out" because the signal go through an current amplification circuit. Right now only N8 has "real" balanced line out that by-pass headphone amplification completely.

Okay, I did some testing today using the 4.4mm balanced line out on the N6ii. I set the line out gain to Medium. The balanced 4.4mm pentacon connector goes to two XLR 3-pin connectors as line input to my Arcam rHead headphone amplifier. I'm listening with my new beyerdynamic T1 2nd Gen headphones. These headphones are 600-Ohm. The sound quality is better than when I use the 3.5mm single-ended line out! In fact, the sound quality is truly beautiful.

When I connected my headphone amp up to the N6ii I did get a warning that I was switching to line out mode and to be careful about the volume, so the N6ii detects a line out load on the 4.4mm socket automatically.

Also, when I try to adjust the volume on the N6ii, there is no change in volume in my headphones. This tends to indicate that it is not going through the headphone amp circuit (at least it is by-passing the rotary volume control), or maybe what you are saying is that the volume level is fixed for 4.4mm balanced line out (fixed to gain setting)?

Anyway, it works great, I am really, really pleased with this setup for my new bedside headphone system.

The complete balanced out system is:

Source: Cayin N6ii / TIDAL HiFi / FLAC library
Interconnect from N6ii to Arcam rHead headphone amp: 8-core silver-plated 4.4mm balanced male (pentacon) to dual 3-pin XLR connectors
Headphone amp: Arcam rHead using balanced XLR input
Headphones: beyerdynamic T1 2nd Gen

The single-ended unbalanced output configuration is:

Source: Cayin N6ii / TIDAL HiFi / FLAC library
Interconnect from N6ii to Arcam rHead headphone amp: AudioQuest Evergreen 3.5 mm to 2 x RCA (phono) connectors
Headphone amp: Arcam rHead using phono inputs
Headphones: beyerdynamic T1 2nd Gen

I'm hearing better sound quality from the 4.4mm line out. But this is only on initial testing as the headphones have no burn-in yet.

 

[greyforest]

got this pic somewhere, 9038q2m*2

 

[qsk78]

any info about the output power @ 32ohm?