[seanwee]

This question has been covered already have a look a Andy's answer a few pages back.

I assume he has read and knows about it since he quoted Andy's explanation in his post.

Just a rant I believe.

 

[Andykong]

Why not allow the tube DAP on balance only? It makes little sense to have the tube amp feature on the single ended instead of the (superior) balanced output. I can understand that both outputs cannot be connected to the tube DAP at the same time, but it would make more sense to prioritize the balance output over the Single Ended. People paying for a high end DAP have the money to invest in balanced compatible headphones and proper 4.4mm terminated cables.

I assume you have not click into the link of the quoted message, so maybe I suggest you check out our previous discussion?
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cay...25th-anniversary.879025/page-20#post-14235108

As other users has comment on this issue, space constraint is the biggest problem, and then we need to deal with battery and duration issues, ....

By the way, looks like headfiers are firmly believe Balanced is always better then single-ended in the game of High Fidelity? I come from a speaker system background and we don't have that kind of presumption. A lot of very expensive and well-received amplifiers are single-ended. For examples, Audio Note Kagura 211 ($170,000) or Kondo Gakuon 211 ( £128,000) are considered price-no-objective tube amplifier by the most wealthy audiophile, they use two DHT tube for amplification but Audio Notes design these as parallel single-end instead of balanced. Similar situation will also appear in Solid State System. The Goldmund Epilogue + Telos reference system will easily cost you US$1m, but Michel Reverchon (CEO of Goldmund) always prefer single end over balanced when he setup the reference system for his VIP. I am sure customers will glad to pay for the XLR cables if balanced is indeed better then single-end in thsee system.

 

[Andykong]

Very impressive. The idea of Korg Tubes for Portable is first adopted by Cayin. Not sure how it sound, but that is a job well done. Is the battery user friendly to replacement ?

Its a welding-free connection, so the replacement should not require a lot of technical skill. There is fairly high risk that you'll break the Gorilla Glass panel when you are not familiar with the internal structure of N8 but that won't cause you a lot so you can budget that into the replacement transaction.

The biggest problem is we can't find any flight carrier willing to accept an uninstalled lithium battery nowadays. We can send the battery on ground transportation only, so the quickest way to do that is to send the N8 to factory for battery replacement.

 

[jasonho]

I assume you have not click into the link of the quoted message, so maybe I suggest you check out our previous discussion?
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cay...25th-anniversary.879025/page-20#post-14235108

As other users has comment on this issue, space constraint is the biggest problem, and then we need to deal with battery and duration issues, ....

By the way, looks like headfiers are firmly believe Balanced is always better then single-ended in the game of High Fidelity? I come from a speaker system background and we don't have that kind of presumption. A lot of very expensive and well-received amplifiers are single-ended. For examples, Audio Note Kagura 211 ($170,000) or Kondo Gakuon 211 ( £128,000) are considered price-no-objective tube amplifier by the most wealthy audiophile, they use two DHT tube for amplification but Audio Notes design these as parallel single-end instead of balanced. Similar situation will also appear in Solid State System. The Goldmund Epilogue + Telos reference system will easily cost you US$1m, but Michel Reverchon (CEO of Goldmund) always prefer single end over balanced when he setup the reference system for his VIP. I am sure customers will glad to pay for the XLR cables if balanced is indeed better then single-end in thsee system.

I fully agree with Andy. During my brief N8 listening session, I do enjoy the tube ouput more than the balanced out. It's more musical and "balanced" as compared to the balanced output. After trying the 3.5 end, my mind tells me to keep listening.

In fact I have similar experiences with other devices. I always enjoy 3.5 output and they do sound more enjoyable as compare to the "powerful" balanced end.

 

[Whitigir]

Idk whose equipments doing what. I believe a simple analogy. There are 2 ears so there need to be 2 channels, and that means 4 signals lines.

 

[Rozeqloud]

It seems this DAP has a serious DAC setup in it

Maybe the best in any present DAP ?

How serious is it if i compare it to Ie a simaudio 280D (i use to own) , or the onboard DAC in my Hegel H360?

i had to sell my simaudio to afford a new amp

i know the DAC cant power my Dyn speakers , but can i use it as a satisfying DAC ?

Im thinking i can use it as a stand alone DAC , ie if im at a mates , and his DAC may be out of service , or just a bad one ?

As an aside , in the future , it would be sweet as heck to own a DAP this good , where i can run off hydro or the battery , without taxing the battery atall

Just being able to switch the battery line off and chhosin electricity

Im not even sure this is a do able?

 

[Pictograms]

It would be very cool to be able to be able to toggle power management to allow to leave your Dap plugged in 24/7 without damaging the battery.
The Hugo 2 does this I believe but you can’t toggle it, you just need to leave it plugged in for a certain length of time

 

[Andykong]

Wow the N8 is truly a monster. It has a lot of power but also takes in a lot of power. At least its not prohibitively heavy even with such a large battery.

@Andykong do you have the estimated charging times for the N8 in standard charging mode?

I don't have that, because we are still waiting for the delivery of 7000mAH battery, right now we only have a few 7000mAH battery on hand and the samples are all lined up for events already, We will conduct more test when we receive the formal product batch of production version battery.

 

[Saltyfatboy]

The most noticeable part is that the soundstage is massive. We're talking desktop grade massive. No other portable device has a soundstage this big.

Not the SP1000,


nor the Paw Gold Touch.


Comparatively speaking it's not as aggressively detailed as the SP1000 but the details are there. Just not as prominent.

Overall it has a neutral-warm signature. Lots of body but never muddy like the WM1Z.

Hi All Head-Fiers and Andy, met you at Meze booth Friday when testing the RAI, wonder how the Empryean sound on N8 : D
Would like to join impression on this one of a kind DAP, N8 for my first post on head-fi
Absolutely agree with seanwee opinion, soundstage is comparable with their desktop setup with tube amp HA-1A mkII, sadly got distorted bass from HA-300, may be too powerful for old driver lol.
All tested with a AKG K120 (not DYN) vintage 600-ohm headphone from tube SE, at first turned high-gain, switch to high-impedance, max vol, got a full bodied and details sound out of N8
then a nice staff guy saw me turning vol to max, was a bit shocked, then helped to switch to high-power mode. Loudness up to a test level and soundstage got even widen up.
tested with symphony track, imaging and details are impressive, love the bit warmth but layered sound signature
As to say the power from tube SE is enormous, since tested same HP on SPK ... the sound just make you cry, got ok loudness when turn vol to 150 max, but you feel like the SPK is screaming for its best, but lack of body and texture, for me it's just a disaster. Should have tested the same on WM1Z ....
I understand it's not the way they supposed to handle, but well it's more fun than expected. I believe the test really tells number is just number on paper.

Not sure if others did the same crazy combination on those DAP, please share the impression too

 

[seanwee]

As to say the power from tube SE is enormous, since tested same HP on SPK ... the sound just make you cry, got ok loudness when turn vol to 150 max, but you feel like the SPK is screaming for its best, but lack of body and texture, for me it's just a disaster. Should have tested the same on WM1Z ....

What do you mean when you said the SPK is screaming for its best?

Did you mean that it wasn't outputting enough power to power your headphones?

 

[Saltyfatboy]

What do you mean when you said the SPK is screaming for its best?

Did you mean that it wasn't outputting enough power to power your headphones?

I believe it's the case, probably some distortion happened when turning to max vol on SPK, you hear music is playing from HP, but certainly not way how they sounds like ..
BTW, there is bug on SPK vol too . after turning to max on SE, the 2.5 bal out vol stucked at max, even turning vol all the way to zero, my fd nearly gone deaf when tried his Andromeda on bal.. need reboot the SPK to resume

 

[Mathieulh]

I assume you have not click into the link of the quoted message, so maybe I suggest you check out our previous discussion?
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/cay...25th-anniversary.879025/page-20#post-14235108

As other users has comment on this issue, space constraint is the biggest problem, and then we need to deal with battery and duration issues, ....

By the way, looks like headfiers are firmly believe Balanced is always better then single-ended in the game of High Fidelity? I come from a speaker system background and we don't have that kind of presumption. A lot of very expensive and well-received amplifiers are single-ended. For examples, Audio Note Kagura 211 ($170,000) or Kondo Gakuon 211 ( £128,000) are considered price-no-objective tube amplifier by the most wealthy audiophile, they use two DHT tube for amplification but Audio Notes design these as parallel single-end instead of balanced. Similar situation will also appear in Solid State System. The Goldmund Epilogue + Telos reference system will easily cost you US$1m, but Michel Reverchon (CEO of Goldmund) always prefer single end over balanced when he setup the reference system for his VIP. I am sure customers will glad to pay for the XLR cables if balanced is indeed better then single-end in thsee system.

I am sorry, but a balanced output will always be electrically and acoustically superior to a Single Ended one, not only does it remove crosstalk between channels, allowing for a better sound but it also (and this is especially important in a portable source) allows twice the power output initially provided through Single Ended for a given amplifier at the same voltage and impedance.

You can claim whatever you like, it doesn't change the laws of electronic physics or the laws of acoustics. The truth is the tube amp would have benefited from the balanced output much better than it would from its single ended counterpart and it makes no sense to privilege the single ended output on a high end portable product where the costumers will have the resources to invest in high end balanced compatible headphones.

If someone with the means have the choice between the N8 and the NW-WM1Z and the balanced output sounds better on the later, chances are that's what he'd pick, if just for the fact that he can drive higher impedance headphones on the later.

If you manage to make the N8 sound better over SE than the WM1Z over balanced, then you might have a chance, otherwise I don't think people will see the N8 as an upgrade.

This is not a rant, I just fail to understand the choice that came with privileging the Single Ended output over the Balanced one in a potable audio source that contains both.

 

[seanwee]

I am sorry, but a balanced output will always be electrically and acoustically superior to a Single Ended one, not only does it remove crosstalk between channels, allowing for a better sound but it also (and this is especially important in a portable source) allows twice the power output initially provided through Single Ended for a given amplifier at the same voltage and impedance.

You can claim whatever you like, it doesn't change the laws of electronic physics or the laws of acoustics. The truth is the tube amp would have benefited from the balanced output much better than it would from its single ended counterpart and it makes no sense to privilege the single ended output on a high end portable product where the costumers will have the resources to invest in high end balanced compatible headphones.

If someone with the means have the choice between the N8 and the NW-WM1Z and the balanced output sounds better on the later, chances are that's what he'd pick, if just for the fact that he can drive higher impedance headphones on the later.

If you manage to make the N8 sound better over SE than the WM1Z over balanced, then you might have a chance, otherwise I don't think people will see the N8 as an upgrade.

This is not a rant, I just fail to understand the choice that came with privileging the Single Ended output over the Balanced one in a potable audio source that contains both.

Well I'm delighted to tell you the SE tube output of the N8 is leaps and bounds better than the balanced output of the WM1Z.

The N8 destroys the WM1Z in every aspect I can think of. Detail, soundstage, dynamics, extension, separation and especially control.

It doesn't just beat it, it absolutely destroys it. It is simply waaaay more accomplished on a technical level.

The only reasons I can think of anyone would going for the WM1Z after listening to the N8 would be because of the longer battery life (11 hours vs 7.5 hours) or they like the mushy and somewhat bloated tonality of WM1Z.

 

[bvng3540]

Well I'm delighted to tell you the SE tube output of the N8 is leaps and bounds better than the balanced output of the WM1Z.

The N8 destroys the WM1Z in every aspect I can think of. Detail, soundstage, dynamics, extension, separation and especially control.

It doesn't just beat it, it absolutely destroys it. It is simply waaaay more accomplished on a technical level.

The only reason I can think of anyone would going for the WM1Z after listening to the N8 would be because they like the mushy and somewhat bloated sound of WM1Z.

Does the n8 destroy wm1z in battery life?

 

[seanwee]

Does the n8 destroy wm1z in battery life?

Thanks for the catch. Missed that.