[NehPets]

...
- Runs hot so definitely not pocket friendly
...

Is this running in STD or HIGH output mode?
Stainless steel was probably a wise choice for the chassis; if they'd used either Aluminium or Copper, these could have presented a burn hazard!

 

[Decreate]

Is this running in STD or HIGH output mode?
Stainless steel was probably a wise choice for the chassis; if they'd used either Aluminium or Copper, these could have presented a burn hazard!

This was on low gain with the output mode on P+

 

[Andykong]

So I've been playing with this for the last couple of days and so far I really like how it sounds. I find that my WM1Z sounds more polite when compared to this. However I have had the following issues with it:
- Random shutdowns - I've had times when the thing would just suddenly shut down by itself after a few songs without warning. This has happened both when at home and when walking around out in the streets. It was especially bad today as I remember the battery was at around 80% when I first started pressing play and after a few songs it shut down but when I switched it back on after about a minute, the battery was down to around 60%.
- Runs hot so definitely not pocket friendly
- Fails to detect files on my Sandisk 400gb micro SD card from time to time; however the same card works perfectly fine on my WM1Z. I have even went as far as reformatting the card; however it didn't help so I'm now using my Samsung 256gb micro SD card and seems to be fine so far.
- The idle shutdown function is kinda strange because normally one would expect the timer to only activate if the device wasn't playing music and was left idle at the same time; however the timer is activated even if the device was playing music.
- Battery drain - in the picture above the battery was at 58% and this was while playing song number 4. By the time it got to song 7 it was down to 36%.
I really don't know whether this a software or hardware issue but it is quite annoying especially for the amount of money they charge for this...

Sorry, we are in the middle of National Day holiday, I can't forward you case to our Support staff, I'll bring up your case as soon as we finish our 1-week break.

Some quick explanation.

(1) Idle Shutdown

Cayin N8 has two set of Auto Shutdown feature, know as Idle Shutdown and Scheduled Power Off. This is a two-step setting, you need to turn on the feature and then specify the duration of timer. The idle shutdown works like what you have claimed: when the player is idled (not in any form of playback, touch screen or button control) over a pre-designated period of time, the player will power off automatically. On the other hand, the scheduled power off will turn off the player at designated time in regardless of the status of the player, i.e., even when the player is in the middle of playback. This feature works like a SLEEP function, the typical scenario is you put on some music before you go to bed, set the scheduled power off to 1 hours, the player will assume you were asleep by that time and turn off itself exactly 1 hour later, even when the player is in the middle of playback.

The idle shutdown setting will remain intact AFTER a power off, the schedule power off will be reset to OFF status after power off, you need to turn it on manually.

If the timer is activated even if the device was playing music, then maybe you have activated the scheduled power off instead of idle shutdown feature. Unfortunately the setting will be reset after auto power off, so you probably didn't ware of the when you review the System setting menu after you turn on the player again.

(2) Operation Temperature

Heat management is one of the issue we have considered carefully during the development stage, The CNC Stainless Steel chassis act like a big piece of heat sink, and we have apply PGS to increase the efficiency of heat dissipation and spread the heat across the chassis evenly.



These are the thermal imaging of N8 at tube mode after 1 hour of continuous playback of 16/44.1kHz music files:




According to the thermal imaging test we have conducted, the nominal temperature of the front panel is around 36 degree celsius, with the hot spot at the the upper part of the screen at 38.3 degree celsius. The rear panel is slightly warmer with nominal temperature at 38 degree celsius and hot spot at top right corner at 39.5 degree celsius. It is very warm, but not very hot unless you are charging and playback at the same time. The Nutube is not a major concern in heat terms of heat dissipation.

(3) Battery capacity reading

There are two problems here. First of all, the battery reading indeed can be misleading in the first couple of charging cycle, especially the first charging round. Once you completed 2-3 charging cycles, the situation will be rectified immediately. Secondly, the battery capacity of Lithium is an estimation based on a capacity estimation algorithm. The 7000mAH lithium battery is a custom developed battery for N8 specifically, and we have only received our first batch of N8 battery at mid-September, so we didn't have time to submit the battery for laboratory evaluation "after" installed into N8. We'll collect these information promptly and improve our capacity estimation algorithm in the subsequent firmware update.

Last but not least, while Lithium battery installed in N8 does not have memory effect, it does has what we called inaccurate gauge issue, and this is a common problem to Lithium battery based appliance, especially to a newly purchased unit. If you run into inaccurate battery reading, or in the worst case, sudden power off when the battery reading indicated otherwise, I suggest you do a gauge calibration to verify the problem. In fact this is something that we all should be doing occasionally. Take a look at the following link, it explains "what" and "how" to calibrate a Lithium battery in great detail:
How to Fix Inaccurate Charge Percentages by Calibrating Your Phone’s Battery

(4) Unexpected power off:

There are multiple reasons that might triggered an unexpected power off. It can be accidentally bump onto the ON/OFF volume knob, if you put your N8 into a backpack, this can be a book or something hit on the ON/Off knob and the pressure maintained for 5-6 seconds, or the N8 has been placed (or shifted) horizontally with the ON/Off button facing downward, the weight of the N8 is heavy enough to create a pressure onto the volume knob and turn off the player. We have received scatter reports on this situation and is considering changing the power on/off sequence to minimize the disturbance. I have also encountered ONE 3.5mm headphone cable that didn't work well with N8, the bad contact of this cable will "cheat" the detection mechanism of the headphone connector, misleading the player to assume the headphone has been unplugged and then go into idle, and subsequently power off automatically because I have turned on the Idle Shutdown feature. Theoretically, the same problem can happen on 4.4mm as well, but extremely rare. While we believe the connectors are the root cause, we can rectify this by adjusting the sensitivity of the detection mechanism, and we are collecting sample for this purpose.

I need to collect more information from you regarding your unexpected power off , since we both resided at Hong Kong, maybe we can do that through WhatsApp? If you don't mind that, drop me a PM with your WhatsApp number and I'll get in touch with you.

 

[Decreate]

Sorry, we are in the middle of National Day holiday, I can't forward you case to our Support staff, I'll bring up your case as soon as we finish our 1-week break.

Some quick explanation.

(1) Idle Shutdown

Cayin N8 has two set of Auto Shutdown feature, know as Idle Shutdown and Scheduled Power Off. This is a two-step setting, you need to turn on the feature and then specify the duration of timer. The idle shutdown works like what you have claimed: when the player is idled (not in any form of playback, touch screen or button control) over a pre-designated period of time, the player will power off automatically. On the other hand, the scheduled power off will turn off the player at designated time in regardless of the status of the player, i.e., even when the player is in the middle of playback. This feature works like a SLEEP function, the typical scenario is you put on some music before you go to bed, set the scheduled power off to 1 hours, the player will assume you were asleep by that time and turn off itself exactly 1 hour later, even when the player is in the middle of playback.

The idle shutdown setting will remain intact AFTER a power off, the schedule power off will be reset to OFF status after power off, you need to turn it on manually.

If the timer is activated even if the device was playing music, then maybe you have activated the scheduled power off instead of idle shutdown feature. Unfortunately the setting will be reset after auto power off, so you probably didn't ware of the when you review the System setting menu after you turn on the player again.



(2) Operation Temperature

Heat management is one of the issue we have considered carefully during the development stage, we have to make sure the internal temperature of the DAP will not too high as this will speed up the aging of components and shorten the product life. The CNC Stainless Steel chassis act like a big piece of heat zink, and we have apply PGS to increase the efficiency of heat dissipation and spread the heat across the chassis evenly.



These are the thermal imaging of N8 at tube mode after 1 hour of continuous playback of 16/44.1kHz music files:




According to the thermal imaging test we have conducted, the nominal temperature of the front panel is around 36 degree celsius, with the hot spot at the the upper part of the screen at 38.3 degree celsius. The rear panel is slightly warmer with nominal temperature at 38 degree celsius and hot spot at top right corner at 39.5 degree celsius. It is very warm, but not very hot unless you are charging and playback at the same time. The Nutube is not a major concern in heat terms of heat dissipation.

(3) Battery capacity reading

There are two problems here. First of all, the battery reading indeed can be misleading in the first couple of charging cycle, especially the first charging round. Once you completed 2-3 charging cycles, the situation will be rectified immediately. Secondly, the battery capacity of Lithium is an estimation based on a capacity estimation algorithm. The 7000mAH lithium battery is a custom developed battery for N8 specifically, and we have only received our first batch of N8 battery at mid-September, so we didn't have time to submit the battery for laboratory evaluation "after" installed into N8. We'll collect these information promptly and improve our capacity estimation algorithm in the subsequent firmware update.

Last but not least, while Lithium battery installed in N8 does not have memory effect, it does has what we called inaccurate gauge issue, and this is a common problem to Lithium battery based appliance, especially to a newly purchased unit. If you run into inaccurate battery reading, or in the worst case, sudden power off when the battery reading indicated otherwise, I suggest you do a gauge calibration to verify the problem. In fact this is something that we all should be doing occasionally. Take a look at the following link, it explains "what" and "how" to calibrate a Lithium battery in great detail:
How to Fix Inaccurate Charge Percentages by Calibrating Your Phone’s Battery

(4) Unexpected power off:

There are multiple reasons that might triggered an unexpected power off. It can be accidentally bump onto the ON/OFF volume knob, if you put your N8 into a backpack, this can be a book or something hit on the ON/Off knob and the pressure maintained for 5-6 seconds, or the N8 has been placed (or shifted) horizontally with the ON/Off button facing downward, the weight of the N8 is heavy enough to create a pressure onto the volume knob and turn off the player. We have received scatter reports on this situation and is considering changing the power on/off sequence to minimize the disturbance. I have also encountered ONE 3.5mm headphone cable that didn't work well with N8, the bad contact of this cable will "cheat" the detection mechanism of the headphone connector, misleading the player to assume the headphone has been unplugged and then go into idle, and subsequently power off automatically because I have turned on the Idle Shutdown feature. Theoretically, the same problem can happen on 4.4mm as well, but extremely rare. While we believe the connectors are the root cause, we can rectify this by adjusting the sensitivity of the detection mechanism, and we are collecting sample for this purpose.

I need to collect more information from you regarding your unexpected power off , since we both resided at Hong Kong, maybe we can do that through WhatsApp? If you don't mind that, drop me a PM with your WhatsApp number and I'll get in touch with you.

Hi Andy, thanks for the reply. I'm in the process of draining the battery by having the device playback endlessly so hopefully after I recharge it again the reading would be improved. In regards to the unexpected power offs, I found that it seemed to happen more often when playing back 24bit files because right now I'm just playing back regular 16/44.1 files and it seems to be just fine. When on the go I have the device placed in a pouch which has open sides so I'm pretty sure the power button doesn't get pressed and as I've mentioned before, the shutdowns also happened at home when I had the device placed on my desk. This all happened while playing music via the 4.4mm output.

 

[Decreate]

Just when I finished typing the above message, the device shutdown again and this was while playing back a 16/44.1 file...and I can't get it to switch back on again...
***Update***
After a few minutes I got it back on, apparently the battery had drained to 0% but I remember looking at it a few minutes before it shutdown and the battery was at about 40%...well, I'm going to go charge it back up and hope the situation improves...
***Update 2***
Charged it to full, switched it on and I started to play some music; however halfway through the first track the device shut down again. Switched it on again, played something else and this time it shut down after about 3 tracks...this happened for about another 3 times before I gave up and by the time I switched it on the last time, the battery was down to about 87%

 

[twister6]

Welcome to the family!!!

 

[Decreate]

Welcome to the family!!!

Please tell me that you have not experienced any of the problems that I have had so that I know I was just unlucky and got a faulty unit.

 

[twister6]

Please tell me that you have not experienced any of the problems that I have had so that I know I was just unlucky and got a faulty unit.

I just got it out of the box, copying songs now. The only impression I have so far is that interface is super fast and smooth.

 

[Decreate]

I just got it out of the box, copying songs now. The only impression I have so far is that interface is super fast and smooth.

Here's hoping that you get a much better experience than I did because I really liked the sound while it was working.

 

[Vitaly2017]

I just got it out of the box, copying songs now. The only impression I have so far is that interface is super fast and smooth.

Hurry for the review please. If you can do comparison s to is a very welcome one mate.
Dont forget the hiss test ! Haha

 

[twister6]

Here's hoping that you get a much better experience than I did because I really liked the sound while it was working.

I think you got a defective unit, hopefully you will get your replacement soon!

I love the sound as well, keep going back to nutubes output. And the soundstage, who needs balanced output when SE output with nutubes is that holographic

 

[Cagin]

I've experienced each of those listed issues on the demo unit of Advancedmp3player during canjam london and some other things, mainly various lags, and a lack of scroll bar hold to quickly drag in Folder mode. But that was back in July

 

[Decreate]

I think you got a defective unit, hopefully you will get your replacement soon!

I love the sound as well, keep going back to nutubes output. And the soundstage, who needs balanced output when SE output with nutubes is that holographic

Thanks, Andy and Mr. Wu, an executive from Cayin, had got in touch with me and will be getting me a replacement. Talk about great customer service.

 

[Rozeqloud]

These latest problems greatly concern me for a 4200.00 (CDN) unit

But in all fairness what does not worry me , from my experience with cayin is customer support from my past experience

I hope this is ironed out

I know i would be in a vey bad place right now if iwas experiencing this after spending the price of a used car on a DAP

Thats why i will wait , with mostly confidence , that Cayin sorts this out

At 4200.00 i may be out of the game anyhow

 

[twister6]

These latest problems greatly concern me for a 4200.00 (CDN) unit

But in all fairness what does not worry me , from my experience with cayin is customer support from my past experience

I hope this is ironed out

I know i would be in a vey bad place right now if iwas experiencing this after spending the price of a used car on a DAP

Thats why i will wait , with mostly confidence , that Cayin sorts this out

At 4200.00 i may be out of the game anyhow

Well, while I wouldn't ignore any of the reports, I think it makes more sense to focus on issues reported after the official production release with a final fw. CanJam showcased engineering samples with beta fw. What you are seeing/reading now is the final product, and so far there is a single report from HK. Also, we should start seeing/reading more impressions; I know at least 3 review loaners are already out (one with me).