[Rozeqloud]

Very nice

I must ask how warm it gets inside a case like that ?

My N6 can get warm in its case

 

[Andykong]

Very nice

I must ask how warm it gets inside a case like that ?

My N6 can get warm in its case

That will subject to final testing with production units of N8, adding a few holes here and there is a simple task it there are evident that will improve the ventilation of the portable package.

 

[Andykong]

The latest round of N8 Engineering prototype was displayed at 2018 Shenzhen Audio Player Party last Sunday, This is the first major revision after our Munich High End demo:






One of the newly confirmed feature in this round of N8 prototype is High Impedance High Output Mode

Before we explain this feature, let take a quick look on a very interesting dilemma: variety.

One of the attractions of Personal Audio to consumer is the vast variety of headphones available, and I bet a of serious Headfier will keep more then a few set of earphones/headphones in your collection. Let’s take a look on some of the choices:

• Vision Ear VE8, 22 Ohms, 120dB/mW
• JH Roxanne, 15 Ohms, 119dB/mW
• 64Audio, U18t, 9 Ohms, 115dB/mW
• Shure SE846, 9 Ohms, 114dB/mW
• Campfire Andromeda, 12.8 Ohms, 112.8 dB/mW
• Westone W80, 5 Ohms, 111dB/mW
• Westone ES80, 80 Ohms, 111dB /mW
• Venture Electronics Zen 2.0, 320 Ohms, 108dB/mW
• AKG K3003, 8 ohm, 125 dB SPL/V (~104dB/mW)
• oBravo Ra-C, 182 Ohms, 93dB
• RHA CL1 Ceramic, 150 Ohms, 89dB

So we have impedance range from 5 Ohms to 320 Ohms, sensitivity range from 89dB to 120dB. For the record, the sensitivity range is more dramatic that the figures implied because the 30dB range actually implies 1000:1 power ratio. In other word if we want to power the VE8 to 120dB, we only need 1 mW, but if we want to power a 90dB earphone to the same level, we need to feed it with 1000mW.


http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-levelchange.htm

In addition, we have received numerous inquiries whether our DAP can drive this or that headphones, especially HD650 and HD800. If the market expect your DAP can handle all these “choices”, isn’t this a nightmare to DAP manufacturer?

Typically, Cayin’s DAP will offer gain control feature to enhance the matching ability with different earphones. We start off with HIGH and LOW gain in 2014, and then we rename the Low gain setting to MID gain and offer an even lower LOW gain on our DAP from 2017. While this is a common practice in the industry, we are not truly satisfied with the result of the matching through gain control approach. We want to handle the matching issue from the ground up, and we decided to go all the way back to square one: the power supply to amplification.

For those who have been in the HiFi hobby long enough, you probably noticed that the critical success factor of High Fidelity is electricity, i.e., power supply in your equipment. N8, as our flagship DAP, has an extremely complicated Power supply design that deserve a white paper on its own. I am not going to go through all the detail right here, but on the subject of enhancing matching capability, Cayin has designed a two-stage power supply for N8 headphone amplifier circuit. At Standard (STD) mode, the N8 will behave like regular DAP, targeted at the more common earphones, including those ultra-sensitive IEMs. When we increased the voltage of the power supply to the headphone amplifier circuit, the DAP will enter High Power High Impedance (HIGH) mode. The rated power of HIGH mode at low impedance loading will be fairly similar to the STD mode, but as the impedance of headphone (i.e., loading) increased, the rated power will ramp up gradually.



We have tried different voltage setting and almost finalized in this round of N8 prototype. Right now with 300ohm loading, the HIGH mode of balanced headphone output will rated at slightly below 8 Vrms. Please be reminded that we are talking about rated power at 300ohm loading, which is a big different from 8 Vrms at unloaded condition.

N8 will also come with the regular 3 stages of Gain Control as appeared in other Cayin DAPs. To summarize, N8 will offer THREE choice of amplification (4.4mm Bal, 3.5mm SE-SS, 3.5mm SE-Tube), user can select one out of TWO power rating mode in each option, and they can refine the matching with THREE gain stage for each combination, this is a lot of flexibility to N8 users.



I have tested the HIGH mode of the N8 prototype (Sample 01) with my HD800. The 3.5mm SE-Tube output cannot handle HD800 properly. It can drive the HD800 to very loud level, but lack of control and separation. The 4.4mm Balanced output is a lot better, I have to skip the full scale orchestra or very demanding tracks (e.g, Money for nothing from Brothers in Arms) as control is still on marginal side, but I can start to enjoy some less sophisticated tracks such as my favorite Woongsan (MQS at 24bit/176.4kHz), violin or Erhu solo, gospel and pop albums. The dual-AK4497 DAC also contributes significantly because you definitely need all the resolution and density available when you deal with HD800.



If you are going to audition the Cayin N8 prototype at CanJam London, make sure you’ll check out the two different Power Rating Modes. In fact, you should be able to hear the different even with low impedance IEMs if you don’t mind a shorter battery duration.

By the way, the naming of this feature are temporary, they are direct translation form the Chinese name, so if you can come out with a better name, feel free to suggest, we'll consider anything.

 

[Andykong]

Can't give any specific metrics I'm afraid. I'm not sure if Sony ever disclosed it. And I only use iems, Empire Ears Zeus or Legend X, and afaik, they didn't disclose the impedance and dB@1K Hz. Sorry! x-D



Dear Cayin, I am writing to you well in advance to ask for a MokuTi (Mokume Titanium) or Timascus (Tinamium Damascus) version of the N8, with the back engraving "From Cayin to Cagin with Love". For pick up at CanJam London of course

ps: j/k ^^
pps: I sure hope that we'll have the chance try the newer N8 prototypes two weeks from now

I don't have the Timascus version for you at CanJam London, but I'll prepared something "tasty" as alternative, maybe you need to bring a high impedance IEM to the show so that you can explore the High impedance high output mode of N8.

What? You don't have the oBravo Ra-C-Cu? Go and get it tomorrow, there is still time for that.

 

[twister6]

I don't have the Timascus version for you at CanJam London, but I'll prepared something "tasty" as alternative, maybe you need to bring a high impedance IEM to the show so that you can explore the High impedance high output mode of N8.

What? You don't have the oBravo Ra-C-Cu? Go and get it tomorrow, there is still time for that.

Should I assume in that top picture with 4.4mm L-shaped adapter and white balanced oBravo cable you had RA-C-Cu driven by N8?

 

[Andykong]

Should I assume in that top picture with 4.4mm L-shaped adapter and white balanced oBravo cable you had RA-C-Cu driven by N8?

That's the eAMT-2c, that's the best I can stretch out for, and I bring it with me to every show now.

 

[Rozeqloud]

This just keeps getting better

The only thing i found wanting in the N6 was the inability to make a play list (Just a quibble)

Will i be able to make specific playlists on the fly with N8?

On N6 i have to play an entire folder ,if i want a few tracks ie: from Talking Heads i had to open entire folder and as it plays choose the tracks one at a time after the other , then if i want some King Crimson , i have to open another folder etc

Will i be able to go into each folder on N8 and choose the tracks i want from Talking Heads for ie , create a name for the list Ie talking Heads and King crimson , then go to my King Crimson folders and send my selected tracks to the created folder ?

This would be especially nice for ie: a work out play list etc

Cheers

 

[Andykong]

This just keeps getting better

The only thing i found wanting in the N6 was the inability to make a play list (Just a quibble)

Will i be able to make specific playlists on the fly with N8?

On N6 i have to play an entire folder ,if i want a few tracks ie: from Talking Heads i had to open entire folder and as it plays choose the tracks one at a time after the other , then if i want some King Crimson , i have to open another folder etc

Will i be able to go into each folder on N8 and choose the tracks i want from Talking Heads for ie , create a name for the list Ie talking Heads and King crimson , then go to my King Crimson folders and send my selected tracks to the created folder ?

This would be especially nice for ie: a work out play list etc

Cheers

N8 supports HibyLink, which mean you can control the player through your mobile phone with all the features available to HiByMusic Player, including making playlist.

Cayin picked up HiByLink since N3 (June 2017, you can check out the explanation of HiByLink here if you haven't come across this feature previously.

You can download HiByMusic Player from App Store or Google Play and give it a try, I am quite certain that you'll like the features and UI of HiByMusic if you come from N6.

 

[PinkyPowers]

The latest round of N8 Engineering prototype was displayed at 2018 Shenzhen Audio Player Party last Sunday, This is the first major revision after our Munich High End demo:






One of the newly confirmed feature in this round of N8 prototype is High Impedance High Output Mode

Before we explain this feature, let take a quick look on a very interesting dilemma: variety.

One of the attractions of Personal Audio to consumer is the vast variety of headphones available, and I bet a of serious Headfier will keep more then a few set of earphones/headphones in your collection. Let’s take a look on some of the choices:

• Vision Ear VE8, 22 Ohms, 120dB/mW
• JH Roxanne, 15 Ohms, 119dB/mW
• 64Audio, U18t, 9 Ohms, 115dB/mW
• Shure SE846, 9 Ohms, 114dB/mW
• Campfire Andromeda, 12.8 Ohms, 112.8 dB/mW
• Westone W80, 5 Ohms, 111dB/mW
• Westone ES80, 80 Ohms, 111dB /mW
• Venture Electronics Zen 2.0, 320 Ohms, 108dB/mW
• AKG K3003, 8 ohm, 125 dB SPL/V (~104dB/mW)
• oBravo Ra-C, 182 Ohms, 93dB
• RHA CL1 Ceramic, 150 Ohms, 89dB

So we have impedance range from 5 Ohms to 320 Ohms, sensitivity range from 89dB to 120dB. For the record, the sensitivity range is more dramatic that the figures implied because the 30dB range actually implies 1000:1 power ratio. In other word if we want to power the VE8 to 120dB, we only need 1 mW, but if we want to power a 90dB earphone to the same level, we need to feed it with 1000mW.


http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-levelchange.htm

In addition, we have received numerous inquiries whether our DAP can drive this or that headphones, especially HD650 and HD800. If the market expect your DAP can handle all these “choices”, isn’t this a nightmare to DAP manufacturer?

Typically, Cayin’s DAP will offer gain control feature to enhance the matching ability with different earphones. We start off with HIGH and LOW gain in 2014, and then we rename the Low gain setting to MID gain and offer an even lower LOW gain on our DAP from 2017. While this is a common practice in the industry, we are not truly satisfied with the result of the matching through gain control approach. We want to handle the matching issue from the ground up, and we decided to go all the way back to square one: the power supply to amplification.

For those who have been in the HiFi hobby long enough, you probably noticed that the critical success factor of High Fidelity is electricity, i.e., power supply in your equipment. N8, as our flagship DAP, has an extremely complicated Power supply design that deserve a white paper on its own. I am not going to go through all the detail right here, but on the subject of enhancing matching capability, Cayin has designed a two-stage power supply for N8 headphone amplifier circuit. At Standard (STD) mode, the N8 will behave like regular DAP, targeted at the more common earphones, including those ultra-sensitive IEMs. When we increased the voltage of the power supply to the headphone amplifier circuit, the DAP will enter High Power High Impedance (HIGH) mode. The rated power of HIGH mode at low impedance loading will be fairly similar to the STD mode, but as the impedance of headphone (i.e., loading) increased, the rated power will ramp up gradually.



We have tried different voltage setting and almost finalized in this round of N8 prototype. Right now with 300ohm loading, the HIGH mode of balanced headphone output will rated at slightly below 8 Vrms. Please be reminded that we are talking about rated power at 300ohm loading, which is a big different from 8 Vrms at unloaded condition.

N8 will also come with the regular 3 stages of Gain Control as appeared in other Cayin DAPs. To summarize, N8 will offer THREE choice of amplification (4.4mm Bal, 3.5mm SE-SS, 3.5mm SE-Tube), user can select one out of TWO power rating mode in each option, and they can refine the matching with THREE gain stage for each combination, this is a lot of flexibility to N8 users.



I have tested the HIGH mode of the N8 prototype (Sample 01) with my HD800. The 3.5mm SE-Tube output cannot handle HD800 properly. It can drive the HD800 to very loud level, but lack of control and separation. The 4.4mm Balanced output is a lot better, I have to skip the full scale orchestra or very demanding tracks (e.g, Money for nothing from Brothers in Arms) as control is still on marginal side, but I can start to enjoy some less sophisticated tracks such as my favorite Woongsan (MQS at 24bit/176.4kHz), violin or Erhu solo, gospel and pop albums. The dual-AK4497 DAC also contributes significantly because you definitely need all the resolution and density available when you deal with HD800.



If you are going to audition the Cayin N8 prototype at CanJam London, make sure you’ll check out the two different Power Rating Modes. In fact, you should be able to hear the different even with low impedance IEMs if you don’t mind a shorter battery duration.

By the way, the naming of this feature are temporary, they are direct translation form the Chinese name, so if you can come out with a better name, feel free to suggest, we'll consider anything.

That is bloody cool, Andy. Pinky supports this!

 

[x RELIC x]

The latest round of N8 Engineering prototype was displayed at 2018 Shenzhen Audio Player Party last Sunday, This is the first major revision after our Munich High End demo:






One of the newly confirmed feature in this round of N8 prototype is High Impedance High Output Mode

Before we explain this feature, let take a quick look on a very interesting dilemma: variety.

One of the attractions of Personal Audio to consumer is the vast variety of headphones available, and I bet a of serious Headfier will keep more then a few set of earphones/headphones in your collection. Let’s take a look on some of the choices:

• Vision Ear VE8, 22 Ohms, 120dB/mW
• JH Roxanne, 15 Ohms, 119dB/mW
• 64Audio, U18t, 9 Ohms, 115dB/mW
• Shure SE846, 9 Ohms, 114dB/mW
• Campfire Andromeda, 12.8 Ohms, 112.8 dB/mW
• Westone W80, 5 Ohms, 111dB/mW
• Westone ES80, 80 Ohms, 111dB /mW
• Venture Electronics Zen 2.0, 320 Ohms, 108dB/mW
• AKG K3003, 8 ohm, 125 dB SPL/V (~104dB/mW)
• oBravo Ra-C, 182 Ohms, 93dB
• RHA CL1 Ceramic, 150 Ohms, 89dB

So we have impedance range from 5 Ohms to 320 Ohms, sensitivity range from 89dB to 120dB. For the record, the sensitivity range is more dramatic that the figures implied because the 30dB range actually implies 1000:1 power ratio. In other word if we want to power the VE8 to 120dB, we only need 1 mW, but if we want to power a 90dB earphone to the same level, we need to feed it with 1000mW.


http://www.sengpielaudio.com/calculator-levelchange.htm

In addition, we have received numerous inquiries whether our DAP can drive this or that headphones, especially HD650 and HD800. If the market expect your DAP can handle all these “choices”, isn’t this a nightmare to DAP manufacturer?

Typically, Cayin’s DAP will offer gain control feature to enhance the matching ability with different earphones. We start off with HIGH and LOW gain in 2014, and then we rename the Low gain setting to MID gain and offer an even lower LOW gain on our DAP from 2017. While this is a common practice in the industry, we are not truly satisfied with the result of the matching through gain control approach. We want to handle the matching issue from the ground up, and we decided to go all the way back to square one: the power supply to amplification.

For those who have been in the HiFi hobby long enough, you probably noticed that the critical success factor of High Fidelity is electricity, i.e., power supply in your equipment. N8, as our flagship DAP, has an extremely complicated Power supply design that deserve a white paper on its own. I am not going to go through all the detail right here, but on the subject of enhancing matching capability, Cayin has designed a two-stage power supply for N8 headphone amplifier circuit. At Standard (STD) mode, the N8 will behave like regular DAP, targeted at the more common earphones, including those ultra-sensitive IEMs. When we increased the voltage of the power supply to the headphone amplifier circuit, the DAP will enter High Power High Impedance (HIGH) mode. The rated power of HIGH mode at low impedance loading will be fairly similar to the STD mode, but as the impedance of headphone (i.e., loading) increased, the rated power will ramp up gradually.



We have tried different voltage setting and almost finalized in this round of N8 prototype. Right now with 300ohm loading, the HIGH mode of balanced headphone output will rated at slightly below 8 Vrms. Please be reminded that we are talking about rated power at 300ohm loading, which is a big different from 8 Vrms at unloaded condition.

N8 will also come with the regular 3 stages of Gain Control as appeared in other Cayin DAPs. To summarize, N8 will offer THREE choice of amplification (4.4mm Bal, 3.5mm SE-SS, 3.5mm SE-Tube), user can select one out of TWO power rating mode in each option, and they can refine the matching with THREE gain stage for each combination, this is a lot of flexibility to N8 users.



I have tested the HIGH mode of the N8 prototype (Sample 01) with my HD800. The 3.5mm SE-Tube output cannot handle HD800 properly. It can drive the HD800 to very loud level, but lack of control and separation. The 4.4mm Balanced output is a lot better, I have to skip the full scale orchestra or very demanding tracks (e.g, Money for nothing from Brothers in Arms) as control is still on marginal side, but I can start to enjoy some less sophisticated tracks such as my favorite Woongsan (MQS at 24bit/176.4kHz), violin or Erhu solo, gospel and pop albums. The dual-AK4497 DAC also contributes significantly because you definitely need all the resolution and density available when you deal with HD800.



If you are going to audition the Cayin N8 prototype at CanJam London, make sure you’ll check out the two different Power Rating Modes. In fact, you should be able to hear the different even with low impedance IEMs if you don’t mind a shorter battery duration.

By the way, the naming of this feature are temporary, they are direct translation form the Chinese name, so if you can come out with a better name, feel free to suggest, we'll consider anything.

Very glad to see a manufacturer state that the sensitivity of a headphone is a more dramatic indicator of drive ability of a headphone. This is honest marketing with the consumer’s interests in mind. Awesome Andy!

Regarding the impedance of the load hooked up to the player, it will affect the ratio between the Voltage and Current required to reach the desired dB level, where as the sensitivity is the more important factor regarding drive ability and total power (mW) required. So, a low impedance headphone will draw much more Current and little Voltage, and a high impedance headphone will sip the Current but requires more Voltage.

My question is, what is the max Current that the N8 can deliver? 250mA would be plenty for the majority of impedance loads at a very high SPL, but it would be nice if it were 500mA like the Mojo/Hugo2 for very rare cases.

Edit: By the way, headphone owners can check the power required to drive their headphones to different SPL by using this calculator. Just enter the impedance and sensitivity to see the Voltage / Current / Power required.

http://www.digizoid.com/headphones-power.html

 

[Rozeqloud]

N8 supports HibyLink, which mean you can control the player through your mobile phone with all the features available to HiByMusic Player, including making playlist.

Cayin picked up HiByLink since N3 (June 2017, you can check out the explanation of HiByLink here if you haven't come across this feature previously.

You can download HiByMusic Player from App Store or Google Play and give it a try, I am quite certain that you'll like the features and UI of HiByMusic if you come from N6.

Thanks for that mate

It does look very intriguing mate

Does that mean i cant make a playlist directly on N8 myself?

Once i ve created the playlist on HiBy , can i access and initiate the playlist on the N8 without having my HiBy cell near ?

Also does having a blue tooth/or any wireless capabilities in a hi-end audio device interfere with the sound in anyway?

I know some time ago hi end devices avoided putting wireless capabilities in their devices for this reason

Having control with such a large screen is really nice tho ,as i get older my eyes dont get better , but worse

Thanks mate for your informed kind replies

 

[Andykong]

That is bloody cool, Andy. Pinky supports this!

Pinky, start saving up, LOL!

 

[Andykong]

Very glad to see a manufacturer state that the sensitivity of a headphone is a more dramatic indicator of drive ability of a headphone. This is honest marketing with the consumer’s interests in mind. Awesome Andy!

Regarding the impedance of the load hooked up to the player, it will affect the ratio between the Voltage and Current required to reach the desired dB level, where as the sensitivity is the more important factor regarding drive ability and total power (mW) required. So, a low impedance headphone will draw much more Current and little Voltage, and a high impedance headphone will sip the Current but requires more Voltage.

My question is, what is the max Current that the N8 can deliver? 250mA would be plenty for the majority of impedance loads at a very high SPL, but it would be nice if it were 500mA like the Mojo/Hugo2 for very rare cases.

Edit: By the way, headphone owners can check the power required to drive their headphones to different SPL by using this calculator. Just enter the impedance and sensitivity to see the Voltage / Current / Power required.

http://www.digizoid.com/headphones-power.html

Well, this was not meant to be a marketing plot, I raise this requirements to the lead Engineer as one of their reference user and he come out with this theoretically simple but practically difficult solution: it will be straightforward if we were doing this with desktop gears but doing this in portable scenario is a different ball game. We even started off with a 3 stage power supply, but then we think its too complicated to users as they'll have a hard time to differentiate the different between Standard, High and Very High voltage setting, so we simplified it into two stages only.

I don't have the current capacity information with me, but with 4xOPA1622 in the balanced 4.4 headphone amplifier module, I am quite sure the number will be very impressive.

The problem is not whether we can pump out 500mA like the Mojo/Hugo2, the problem is whether we should. This is not necessarily a more = better game, especially when we are dealing with such a wide range of variety from 5 Ohms to 300 Ohms, and we need to take care of the practical issues such as battery duration and heat dispersion. I don't suppose a lot of people will be holding the Hugo2 on their hands for 2 hours while listening to their IEMs on-the-go but that's what we need to deal with for DAP. Even with Mojo in a smaller format, people just won't hold it when listening because it doesn't has the control button or touch screen showing album art on it.
The theoretical maximum output of 4xOPA1622 is over 10 Vrms, we didn't go for that but stick with 8 Vrms, so optimization is more important than being beefy in this game.

 

[Andykong]

Thanks for that mate

It does look very intriguing mate

Does that mean i cant make a playlist directly on N8 myself?

Once i ve created the playlist on HiBy , can i access and initiate the playlist on the N8 without having my HiBy cell near ?

Also does having a blue tooth/or any wireless capabilities in a hi-end audio device interfere with the sound in anyway?

I know some time ago hi end devices avoided putting wireless capabilities in their devices for this reason

Having control with such a large screen is really nice tho ,as i get older my eyes dont get better , but worse

Thanks mate for your informed kind replies

Yes, you can use your mobile phone, connect toN8 through Hibylink, create a playlist with HibyMusic App, and save the playlist on N8, you can use a different mobile device, connect to N8 again through HiByLink and retrieve the playlist again (because it is stored on N8, not on the HiByMusic App)

Adding wireless to DAP indeed will introduce interference, BT is not that significant, WiFi is the tough part. General users probably has no idea on the short-term brust of interference when a WiFi device is trying to make a connection. We learned to deal with the wireless interference back in 2016 when we develop the i5 DAP, we even scraped a complete production lot because of that. We couldn't eliminate interference completely, we only shift the interference frequency to a less noticeable range and attenuate it to an inaudible level. So far, we don't receive any confirmed case of wireless interference from users, but we do receive a lot of complaint on slow connection when compare to their mobile phone. Given one of the trick to combat interference is attenuation, we just have to take the punch when we put audio performance at top priority.

 

[Rozeqloud]

Yes, you can use your mobile phone, connect toN8 through Hibylink, create a playlist with HibyMusic App, and save the playlist on N8, you can use a different mobile device, connect to N8 again through HiByLink and retrieve the playlist again (because it is stored on N8, not on the HiByMusic App)



Adding wireless to DAP indeed will introduce interference, BT is not that significant, WiFi is the tough part. General users probably has no idea on the short-term brust of interference when a WiFi device is trying to make a connection. We learned to deal with the wireless interference back in 2016 when we develop the i5 DAP, we even scraped a complete production lot because of that. We couldn't eliminate interference completely, we only shift the interference frequency to a less noticeable range and attenuate it to an inaudible level. So far, we don't receive any confirmed case of wireless interference from users, but we do receive a lot of complaint on slow connection when compare to their mobile phone. Given one of the trick to combat interference is attenuation, we just have to take the punch when we put audio performance at top priority.

Thanks mate

Can the wireless be shut off ?

I suspect that will save battery ?