Cayin N6iii: Nothing is Impossible with Gen2 User-replaceable Audio Motherboard

[Rockcoon]

Just a quick update on the R202 —

Last time I mentioned that

Just now I received the reference materials — and honestly, I was stunned. I always thought the engineer team was refining the R2R architecture or something along those line. But in reality, the R202 has pushed that extra 31% of PCB space to the absolute limit.

Suddenly, it all made sense — why it’s taken so long, and why it’s gone through so many revisions...

Feel free to take a WILD guess why I’m saying that
If anyone figures it out, I’ll reveal design details early. If not… well, I guess I’ll save the surprise for the official launch!

Some kind FPGA chip for more flexible control and tuning?

 

[justsomesonyfan]

maybe a dedicated lineout?

 

[Gold Fox]

Alright, here comes the answer — the R202 combines both R-2R and 1Bit, all on a single motherboard. Each of you guessed a part of it, when put them together, it forms the full picture, congrets

And you two,

Maybe, R-2R and 1-Bit combo, switching between these 2?

one with razor-sharp intuition;

and the other @WDitters basically Holmes — your deduction based on the NJW1195A as a 4-in 2-out selector absolutely floored me. Honestly, I didn’t expect anyone to dig into the chip specs and piece it together like that.

I’ve got to hand it to you guys really

And @justsomesonyfan, you nailed it too. For the R-2R side, yes, we’ve doubled the resistors — 192 — a true balanced R-2R architecture this time. The entire DAC section of the R202 — both the R-2R and the 1-Bit architectures — is fully balanced and fully discrete.
(Alright then — another quick quiz, how many resistors are there in total? )

That’s all I can confirm for now. Just like RU9, R202 is still under revision and fine-tuning, so I won’t spill all the beans yet until rest of the parts are finalized. Once again, hats off to you all!

 

[Gold Fox]

It mines crypto. Mark my words.

rofl, what do you say 1Bit-coin

 

[WDitters]

Alright, here comes the answer — the R202 combines both R-2R and 1Bit, all on a single motherboard. Each of you guessed a part of it, when put them together, it forms the full picture, congrets

And you two,

one with razor-sharp intuition;

and the other @WDitters basically Holmes — your deduction based on the NJW1195A as a 4-in 2-out selector absolutely floored me. Honestly, I didn’t expect anyone to dig into the chip specs and piece it together like that.

I’ve got to hand it to you guys really

And @justsomesonyfan, you nailed it too. For the R-2R side, yes, we’ve doubled the resistors — 192 — a true balanced R-2R architecture this time. The entire DAC section of the R202 — both the R-2R and the 1-Bit architectures — is fully balanced and fully discrete.
(Alright then — another quick quiz, how many resistors are there in total? )

That’s all I can confirm for now. Just like RU9, R202 is still under revision and fine-tuning, so I won’t spill all the beans yet until rest of the parts are finalized. Once again, hats off to you all!

Consider me sold on the R202

 

[Rockcoon]

Alright, here comes the answer — the R202 combines both R-2R and 1Bit, all on a single motherboard. Each of you guessed a part of it, when put them together, it forms the full picture, congrets

And you two,

one with razor-sharp intuition;

and the other @WDitters basically Holmes — your deduction based on the NJW1195A as a 4-in 2-out selector absolutely floored me. Honestly, I didn’t expect anyone to dig into the chip specs and piece it together like that.

I’ve got to hand it to you guys really

And @justsomesonyfan, you nailed it too. For the R-2R side, yes, we’ve doubled the resistors — 192 — a true balanced R-2R architecture this time. The entire DAC section of the R202 — both the R-2R and the 1-Bit architectures — is fully balanced and fully discrete.
(Alright then — another quick quiz, how many resistors are there in total? )

That’s all I can confirm for now. Just like RU9, R202 is still under revision and fine-tuning, so I won’t spill all the beans yet until rest of the parts are finalized. Once again, hats off to you all!

That’s impressive

Btw, i have an idea how to solve the problem of heat and interference in a tube amplifier - there is no way to solve it. But, you can select solid-state components that will give a similar "tube-analog" sound
Thus, having implemented two amplification paths on one board - first, the main one, with neutral tuning, to squeeze the maximum out of the DACs.
The second one - "flavor", bass-musical, with comfortable high frequencies, for lovers of "that very" branded multi-bit analog sound.
In the end, with r2r and 1bit DACs it gives 4 different combinations.

Just my two cents…

 

[batracom]

Alright, here comes the answer — the R202 combines both R-2R and 1Bit, all on a single motherboard. Each of you guessed a part of it, when put them together, it forms the full picture, congrets

And you two,

one with razor-sharp intuition;

and the other @WDitters basically Holmes — your deduction based on the NJW1195A as a 4-in 2-out selector absolutely floored me. Honestly, I didn’t expect anyone to dig into the chip specs and piece it together like that.

I’ve got to hand it to you guys really

And @justsomesonyfan, you nailed it too. For the R-2R side, yes, we’ve doubled the resistors — 192 — a true balanced R-2R architecture this time. The entire DAC section of the R202 — both the R-2R and the 1-Bit architectures — is fully balanced and fully discrete.
(Alright then — another quick quiz, how many resistors are there in total? )

That’s all I can confirm for now. Just like RU9, R202 is still under revision and fine-tuning, so I won’t spill all the beans yet until rest of the parts are finalized. Once again, hats off to you all!

Can someone please explain the benefits of this approach? Would DSD be handled by the 1-bit side and PCM by R2R? Or will be the user be able to select the decoding, with 1-bit upsampling everything to DSD?

Thanks

 

[littlexx26]

is it actually 1bit and r2r share the same resistors?

 

[drftr]

That’s impressive

Btw, i have an idea how to solve the problem of heat and interference in a tube amplifier - there is no way to solve it. But, you can select solid-state components that will give a similar "tube-analog" sound
Thus, having implemented two amplification paths on one board - first, the main one, with neutral tuning, to squeeze the maximum out of the DACs.
The second one - "flavor", bass-musical, with comfortable high frequencies, for lovers of "that very" branded multi-bit analog sound.
In the end, with r2r and 1bit DACs it gives 4 different combinations.

Just my two cents…

It's not so much a tuning challenge but much more about the behaviour in the time domain. Vast generalisation following:

Where the best transistor design in theory produces a 100% perfect pulse, the best tube design overshoots both going up and coming down. This being less precise creates a few audible effects, a tiny bit of smearing in different frequencies being one of them. BAD!!! Well, not so fast, as it's exactly this effect that makes a tube sound more euphonic and natural. Not that in nature pulses do overshoot like a tube (although perfect dynamics go a long way), but more that transistor measurements apparently don't show things that can't be measured just yet as we don't know exactly what it is that we're looking for.

drftr

 

[justsomesonyfan]

And @justsomesonyfan, you nailed it too. For the R-2R side, yes, we’ve doubled the resistors — 192

My IQ doubled itself for this task, now back to being a frog.

 

[Rockcoon]

It's not so much a tuning challenge but much more about the behaviour in the time domain. Vast generalisation following:

Where the best transistor design in theory produces a 100% perfect pulse, the best tube design overshoots both going up and coming down. This being less precise creates a few audible effects, a tiny bit of smearing in different frequencies being one of them. BAD!!! Well, not so fast, as it's exactly this effect that makes a tube sound more euphonic and natural. Not that in nature pulses do overshoot like a tube (although perfect dynamics go a long way), but more that transistor measurements apparently don't show things that can't be measured just yet as we don't know exactly what it is that we're looking for.

drftr

Well, Cayin team just created a DAC Frankenstein. Who knows what else they can do…

 

[Dron86]

N6iii Firmware v1.5 Update Announcement

New Functions and System Optimization

1. Added support for Roon (Roon Ready).
2. Other optimizations and modifications. (Improvements in the efficiency and heat reduction of Class AB mode on the E203 audio motherboard)

Firmware URL: https://en.cayin.cn/drive/9/18/705.html

Firmware Update

Cayin will release firmware updates to enhance and optimize N6iii as deemed required. Users can update the firmware through OTA or local updates. To manually download the firmware, please visit the SUPPORT center on our official website and please make sure you select “Personal Audio” on this page.

Attention

• Please make sure the device has not less than 30% battery power, otherwise please charge up the player before you proceed to a firmware update.
• Please make sure your N6iii has more than 2GB of storage before the firmware update.
• Do not operate the device during a firmware update.
• During a firmware update, the device will turn off and reboot automatically. If the device does not reboot 3 minutes after being turned off, please press and hold the POWER BUTTON for 3 seconds to boot up the device, the device will resume the firmware update process.
• Please delete the firmware file from the TF card or internal storage after you have completed the firmware update process

OTA Update Procedures

1. Connect the N6iii to the internet via Wi-Fi.
2. Enter the Settings menu, and then proceed to “System” -> “Wireless Update”.
3. Press “Check for updates”, and the system will check for new firmware.
4. Press “Download” when your DAP detects new firmware. The N6iii operating system will download the new firmware as instructed.
5. Press “Install now” after the firmware is successfully downloaded.
6. Press “OK” at the pop-up dialogue, and the system will start installing the new firmware.

Local Update Procedures

1. Download the latest firmware update package from the SUPPORT center of Cayin’s official website, you should receive a compressed file as a zip file which is used for the N6iii firmware update.
2. DO NOT decompress the zip file.
3. Copy the firmware file into the root directory of the N6iii internal memory or TF card, and insert the TF card into the N6III before you proceed to the next step.
4. Enter the Settings menu, and then proceed to “System” -> “Wireless Update”.
5. Press the “┇” icon on the top right corner of the screen.
6. Select “Local updates” in the pop-up menu.
7. Proceed to the directory where the firmware file is located, and then select the firmware file.
8. Press “INSTALL NOW”.
9. Press “OK” at the pop-up dialogue, and the system will start installing the new firmware.

Did anyone notice any sound changes with this 1.5 firmware update? Something happened with the bass. Feels like less note weight and less control in low frequency. Outstanding Class A amplification came closer to AB instead of Hyper.


By the way, heating is the same. Nothing changed.

 

[Rockcoon]

Here is an article about R2R technology

https://www.electronics-tutorials.ws/combination/r-2r-dac.html

 

[Gold Fox]

Can someone please explain the benefits of this approach? Would DSD be handled by the 1-bit side and PCM by R2R? Or will be the user be able to select the decoding, with 1-bit upsampling everything to DSD?

Thanks

is it actually 1bit and r2r share the same resistors?

Good questions, these two are actually related, so I‘ll explain them together.

First, the R-2R and 1-Bit sections on the R202 do not share resistors. Each architecture has its own independent resistor network. That’s why I previously letting you guys guessing the total number of resistors

(Alright then — another quick quiz, how many resistors are there in total? )

• For the 1Bit circuit: in order to achieve a fully balanced architecture, we use 128 resistors (4 x 32).
• For the R-2R circuit: in earlier designs like the R02 and RU6, we used 96 resistors for stereo 24-bit decoding (48 per channel; 23xR and 25x2R). However, many sighed over the fact that it wasn’t fully balanced.
  So this time on the R202, we doubled that to 192 resistors to achieve a true balanced R-2R architecture.

Thus in total, the R202 features 320 resistors.

---

As for how it operates — based on the current design concept, the R202 offers three selectable modes:

• 1Bit Mode: Use 1Bit circuit to decode, all audio signal will convert to DSD format before feeding to the 1-bit DAC circuit (ALL TO DSD).
• R-2R Mode: It’s like the opposite of 1Bit Mode — the R-2R circuit is used for decoding, and all signals are converted to PCM.
• Auto Mode: The system automatically detects the incoming format — PCM signals are handled by the R-2R circuit, while DSD signals are routed through the 1-Bit circuit.

 

[justsomesonyfan]

Good questions, these two are actually related, so I‘ll explain them together.

First, the R-2R and 1-Bit sections on the R202 do not share resistors. Each architecture has its own independent resistor network. That’s why I previously letting you guys guessing the total number of resistors

• For the 1Bit circuit: in order to achieve a fully balanced architecture, we use 128 resistors (4 x 32).
• For the R-2R circuit: in earlier designs like the R02 and RU6, we used 96 resistors for stereo 24-bit decoding (48 per channel; 23xR and 25x2R). However, many sighed over the fact that it wasn’t fully balanced.
  So this time on the R202, we doubled that to 192 resistors to achieve a true balanced R-2R architecture.

Thus in total, the R202 features 320 resistors.

---

As for how it operates — based on the current design concept, the R202 offers three selectable modes:

• 1Bit Mode: Use 1Bit circuit to decode, all audio signal will convert to DSD format before feeding to the 1-bit DAC circuit (ALL TO DSD).
• R-2R Mode: It’s like the opposite of 1Bit Mode — the R-2R circuit is used for decoding, and all signals are converted to PCM.
• Auto Mode: The system automatically detects the incoming format — PCM signals are handled by the R-2R circuit, while DSD signals are routed through the 1-Bit circuit.

Will this have dedicated LO by any chance? or even shared that bypasses amp section, would be incredible.