[Beh0lder]

Question for those who own the N7 and haven’t activated the battery charge limitation, does the battery charges fully to 100 % or stops before that ?
What would explain that ?

It kinda tries its best to hit the mark, with 5% error either way. It needs to be turned on as a poster pointed out.

 

[KelFab]

When the device is off, the battery logo on screen shows 100 %.
However, during the last 3% the red light around the button under the screen which is normally red during charging process is off, which means that it continues charging despite the charging light is off.
But despite that, while showing 100% when the device is off, when i turn it on it shows on screen “charged” and 98 % battery, not 100 %. Firmware bug ?

 

[marcus2704]

Just got my N7. When its in the case, the power button is virtually unuseable. It requires a very firm press to cause any effect. Just now I managed to get the 'power off' icon to appear after pressing the power button via the case, it then powered down as expected but then proceeded to boot straight back up again. There is no feeling of power button movement when its in the case unlike the other side buttons. It feels like the case is causing the button to stick. If I squeeze the case from top and bottom sides I can hear the button 'pop' out. I am hoping this is something that in a short time will sort itself out with use of the case.

This is really getting irritating, its on my desk and periodically the power icon appears as if the power button has been depressed. Has no one else experienced this when using the case? Visually I cant see any issue with the case or DAP, the power button is recessed from the other buttons but that must be design.

It seems that rather than a press, a touch is all thats needed to activate the power button. Its going to be fun trying to manage this when its in my coat pocket..

 

[royiko]

Yes, at least it has when watching youtube.

is it because of driver issue or others? I am puzzled why the dap used as desktop DAC have latency.

 

[sari53]

When the device is off, the battery logo on sceen shows 100 %.
However, during the last 3% the red light around the button under the screen which is normally red during charging process is off, which means that it continues charging despite the charging light is off.
But despite that, while showing 100% when the device is off, when i turn it on it shows on screen “charged” and 98 % battery, not 100 %. Firmware bug ?

it certainly needs to do several charge-to-charge cycles to fine-tune its percentage. used it for a few days and the firmware should correct itself. when I received it, it was struggling to display over 98%. now it's fixed when i did my last full charge. the rest of the time for me I charge at 85% maximum

 

[Andykong]

is it because of driver issue or others? I am puzzled why the dap used as desktop DAC have latency.

You can control the buffer setting to improve the latency lag, a smaller buffer will reduce the lag, and a larger buffer will improve the jitter at the expense of longer delay or audio lag.

(pardon me for using an old photo from N8ii thread)

The lip-sync/lag/delay is caused by the Asynchronous USB transmission for USB Audio. This will involve adding a data buffer between the DAC and your computer so it will not synchronize with the video screen of your computer accurately. This will affect the user experience when lip-syn (movie, MTV) or special sound effects (computer game) is an important feature. This is a design constraint, we can completely eliminate the delay because it is a natural outcome of asynchronous transmission.

To explain the concept of asynchronous USB transmission, I shall quote the following explanation on asynchronous USB for discussion purposes:

"Asynchronous USB (not to be confused with asynchronous sample rate conversion) uses a clock housed near the dac (usually in the external dac’s casing) and allows it to drive the converter directly, thereby not relying on the instable computer’s clock. It is called asynchronous because the DAC’s master clock isn’t synchronized directly to any clocks within the computer. Instead, the DAC is controlled by a (potentially high-precision) fixed-frequency clock. This clock controls the datastream from the computer to a buffer near the DA converter."

I would like to draw your attention to two issues in this explanation:

1. the DAC’s master clock isn’t synchronized directly to the clock of the digital source (a computer in most cases)
2. This controls the data stream from the computer to a buffer near the DA converter

In other words, the audio signal processing is deliberately "disconnected" from the computer clock but the video display remains connected to the computer clock, so the video and audio are not synchronized by nature. In addition, we have to provide a data buffer in the audio circuit to hold the audio data stream from the computer. The buffer will inevitably cause delays in the audio signal with reference to the non-buffered video signal. For the record, IEE1394 Firewire was considered the only acceptable option to connect a computer device to high-end audio back in the 90s, USB was not considered acceptable as those were the time when USB connection was operated in synchronized mode and the extremely high jitter and occasional drop out is considered unacceptable by an audiophile. The Asynchronous USB transmission has solved these inherited problems and gradually replaced the IEEE1394 Firewire connection in high-end audio, it become the necessary (but not sufficient) criteria to use USB for high-quality audio applications.

If you cross-check with other audio manufacturers, the following video from Cambridge Audio explained the various options (synchronous, adaptive, and asynchronous) briefly.



Additional references are available HERE, HEREand HERE. I hope we can accept the industrial consent that Asynchronous USB transmission is the appropriate choice for a Digital Audio Player.

 

[Andykong]

When the device is off, the battery logo on sceen shows 100 %.
However, during the last 3% the red light around the button under the screen which is normally red during charging process is off, which means that it continues charging despite the charging light is off.
But despite that, while showing 100% when the device is off, when i turn it on it shows on screen “charged” and 98 % battery, not 100 %. Firmware bug ?

The battery reading is never an exact number like a ruler, it is an estimation from SoC (System on Chip) based on power consumption and several primary battery parameters. Mobile phones tend to provide a more accurate reading because the SoC controls everything. In the case of DAP, the SoC only control a small portion of the events in N7, there is a big chunk of circuitry, from DAC to headphone output outside SoC control, that you can't expect the SoC battery estimation is as accurate and stable as your mobile phone, and more so when the unit is newly initialized. Use it as-is for several charge cycles and let the algorithm in the SoC to collect more battery consumption data, it will become more stable after roughly 5 full charge/discharge cycles.

Last but not least, shallow discharge and shallow charging are more beneficial to lithium batteries, including the battery in N7, so please don't make it a regular practice to charge the battery to 100%..

 

[Andykong]

This is really getting irritating, its on my desk and periodically the power icon appears as if the power button has been depressed. Has no one else experienced this when using the case? Visually I cant see any issue with the case or DAP, the power button is recessed from the other buttons but that must be design.

It seems that rather than a press, a touch is all thats needed to activate the power button. Its going to be fun trying to manage this when its in my coat pocket..

Sound like you have a very tight-fit case bundled with your N7. Since the N7 case is made of genuine leather, the measurement, especially the thickness of the leather, isn't identical across all cases. I believe the case will start to stretch slightly after daily use, and this problem will solve itself.

 

[marcus2704]

Sound like you have a very tight-fit case bundled with your N7. Since the N7 case is made of genuine leather, the measurement, especially the thickness of the leather, isn't identical across all cases. I believe the case will start to stretch slightly after daily use, and this problem will solve itself.

Thanks, I hope so also. I am trying to get used to having the cable ports at the bottom of the unit, I believe it to be the first DAP I have owned that is designed like this, I expect over time it will become more natural to use. Otherwise very happy, it feels to be a notch or two above the N6ii I previously owned and the level of detail is superb. Like anything, this will take some time to bed in with daily use but (case aside) am very pleased so far. Going back to the case once more (sorry!), I do wish it was a darker colour as I can imagine this looking very marked in time. I understand that a green case is available separately, if I were given the choice at point of sale I would have preferred that.

 

[ECKHUAAA]

IIRC the N7 is not R2R, it's just resistor network based?

Very correct N7 is bit stream DAC and a very advanced Cayin discrete components implementation not using any off the shelf DAC chip. That is why it's performance characteristics are incomparable to any other except with life music itself. I know there is a need sometimes to be protective of previous investments but we soon discover that some of those were deliberately engineered to please in some ways , rather than aim for the hard to reach ultimate truth. But when a company takes that aim the effort should be praised....typically too those products tend to endure the passage of time....my 2 cents

 

[davidmolliere]

IIRC the N7 is not R2R, it's just resistor network based?

Yeah I stand corrected, it's a 1bit DAC... been out of the game for a few months

 

[KelFab]

Is there a real benefit on adding a C9 to the N7 ? For IEM only vs for full size headphones (like the Elite by example ) ?
If so, can someone who own / use both detail the differences and what the C9 brings ?
Thanks.

 

[HarlanDraka]

Any online store in Europe where to buy the royal blu case for the N7? I couldn’t find any store and Musicteck does not seem to have it in stock at all, maybe they didn’t order any

 

[davidmolliere]

N7 is on the way and will arrive next monday thanks to Andrew at Musicteck for speedy shipping... too bad monday is a holiday in France

I'll soon be able to report on RS8 vs N7 comparison

 

[Ichos]

Dear friends here is my review of this exquisite player including comparisons with the iBasso DX320 and FiiO M17.

https://www.head-fi.org/showcase/cayin-n7-1-bit-dap.26376/review/30696/

Thank you for reading and please share your comments.