Awesome and good luck with the N7 but I'm getting out of the "hobby" for a while. This is not specific to Cayin but when I see the price of stuff HeadFi constantly increasing I get a bit burned out personally, especially we we are bombarded daily with cost of living issues.
Lots of hard working folks can't afford to even heat their houses and I got a email yesterday about a $2,700 IEM "cable", not even an IEM supplied with it. Enough is enough.
If N6ii is considered a reasonably priced audiophile DAP, why not consider N7 as equivalent to R01+A02? From a functional point of view, these two options are very close to each other. R01 was the only Audio Motherboard that you can't buy it with an N6ii directly, you have to own an N6ii with at least one motherboard before you can jump on board the R01 wagon. The N6ii+A01 or T01 was retailed at $1199, N6ii+E01, E02 or A02 was $1299, R01 was never sold in the package, and you can only buy the module at $619. So the packaged price of N6ii with A02 and R01 (if you can find one) is $1918. Isn't that close enough to the retail price of N7? Yes, we ask for an extra premium of around $100 in comparison, but with that, we threw in a fully balanced design (R01 is a single-ended DAC), fully discrete circuit like E01/E02, plus an updated Android 12 system.
Users and manufacturers see things differently. From Cayin's perspective, we didn't develop N7 as an upgrade to N6ii users. We develop a new DAP for the continuous marketplace. We want to enlarge our customer base as we believe making a bigger cake is more beneficial to the company than draining the existing "cake". That's why you won't see me selling N7 in the N6ii thread, or encouraging N6ii users to upgrade their DAP to N7. To illustrate my point, when Honda introduced their 11th generation Accord for 2023 release, they don't expect their 2022 or 2021 Accord users to rush into the market and buy the new Accord. Instead, they should focus on consumers who are in the market for a new car in 2023. That's a more cost-effective approach IMHO.
To a certain extent, I don't agree with the claim of getting out of the "hobby". Did you aware of the famous "5 Customer Segments of Technology Adoption"? Maybe your concept of "in the hobby" means you must be an innovator or early adopter, but in reality, early majority and late majority formed the bigger and more "meaningful" hobbyist group because they are the main target (and driving force) of new products, especially when we are referring to a hobby of a very niche market such as $1000+ DAP. There are brands that are focused on the innovators and early adopters markets, you can differentiate this from the duration of the product life cycle. If you are with us for a longer period, you probably notice that Cayin adopts a fairly long product cycle in our DAP lineup. N6ii was announced way back in 2019 and N3pro was in 2020, and their direct successors are still nowhere in sight. N8ii was launched in 2022, almost 4 years after the original N8. So the message is loud and clear, we are targeting the early majority and late majority market segment primarily.
If you feel uncomfortable being an innovator, step back and enjoy yourself as an early adopter or early majority. If you feel uncomfortable being an early adopter, step back and enjoy yourself as an early majority or late majority. Enjoy your music, enjoy your current hardware and software, and be happy.
