Cayin RU6: R-2R USB Dongle DAC with Head-Amp
Feb 21, 2022 at 3:23 AM Post #2,056 of 3,665
All DAC have output stage to push out 2v etc so there is nothing like double amping here. If RU 6 is double amping then won’t Chord Mojo etc double amp ?
Something to add to what Andy said, is that, if the input impedance of an amplifier is sufficiently high, which most are, then you likely wont get any current gain from a headphone amplifier output stage anyway.

What people are referring to with a "true line out" is only a single, voltage gain stage after the DAC, rather than the dual dual-stage, voltage and current amplifiers used for headphones.

Chord DACs aren't the same. The reason for this is that one of the critical aspects of a regular DAC is for the first gain stage to filter out high-frequency noise that is output alongside the music. That isn't an issue with Chord DACs, so they only require one gain stage for everything.

I wonder, if a similar form-factor R2R DAC with 1) a rail of R-2R dedicated for DSD native decoding and 2) transcoding any PCM signal inside the bridge to DSD - would sound more interesting, airy?.. And I don't expect you need so many R2R resistor pair for such DAC. And, perhaps, simpler engineering?

This sounds appealing on the surface, but would not really be sensible. Converting to DSD requires a lot of power, and the quality of the conversion would suffer in a portable device. It would also not produce any useful sonic benefit, but just move complexity elsewhere, switching from a complex R2R ladder to a complex high-frequency circuit, converter, and filter. You could, conceivably use DSD upsampling with something like Onkyo's HFPlayer on a phone, but that tends just to make the sound somewhat soft and blunted, depending on what it is fed to.

Something people forget is that real, live music sounds raw and edgy. What people call "analog" is the opposite of natural. It's nicer, in some respects, to listen to music that has been softened by whatever means, but if you listen to even something as simply as a drum set relatively close, you realise that most music has had the actual dynamics grossly muted, even at best.

There is no ground rule that says all R2R NOS DACs measure poorly. Holo Audio, Sonnet have shown good measurement out of their DAC.

Holo Audio does this by using a cheap, generic over-sampling chip, which nobody in their right mind uses to listen to music with (as using it sounds awful in my experience) just to get good measurements for standard test signals. Basically, they are gaming the system.
 
Feb 21, 2022 at 8:39 AM Post #2,057 of 3,665
I read many post about some crazy exercices about ru6. Welll. ..ru6 is just a dongle that sounds really good. No line output but if you want you connect to an amplifier do it without problems. C' mon guys it is just a dongle. I had many things in the past. When i listen ru6 wuth my iems sometimes i ask to me: why you don' t sell mains system? And c'mon twice. Just enjoy ru6 like a dongle end of history
 
Feb 21, 2022 at 9:10 AM Post #2,058 of 3,665
I read many post about some crazy exercices about ru6. Welll. ..ru6 is just a dongle that sounds really good. No line output but if you want you connect to an amplifier do it without problems. C' mon guys it is just a dongle. I had many things in the past. When i listen ru6 wuth my iems sometimes i ask to me: why you don' t sell mains system? And c'mon twice. Just enjoy ru6 like a dongle end of history
Sadly, I see this way too often. People expecting "X" feature from a device intended to be used as a "Y". If not Line Output, some one will ask for bluetooth input or EQ and so on... I kinda get where they are coming from but 🤷

@Andykong In the future, is there any chance for a portable R2R DAC? RU6 is a good sounding dongle but does not sound in the same level as the Mojo or iDSD Signature.

A battery powered R2R DAC, that's not limited by power constraints & size. Something priced at a similar price to Mojo 2 or Gryphon (I would not mind it costing less 😁).

There is the Cayin R01 but, I don't wanna pay extra for feature (Display, OS, Chipset...) I won't use.
 
Feb 21, 2022 at 9:23 AM Post #2,059 of 3,665
Does the leather case get rid of some of the EMI ?
 
Feb 21, 2022 at 10:28 AM Post #2,060 of 3,665
Does the leather case get rid of some of the EMI ?
That's what I would like to know as well. It would be easy to solve the problem with a shielding layer inside the leather case
 
Feb 21, 2022 at 10:29 AM Post #2,061 of 3,665
Does the leather case get rid of some of the EMI ?
No.
Even if you wrap a ru6 with aluminium sheet.
20220205_113154.jpg
 
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Feb 21, 2022 at 10:45 AM Post #2,062 of 3,665
Sadly, I see this way too often. People expecting "X" feature from a device intended to be used as a "Y". If not Line Output, some one will ask for bluetooth input or EQ and so on... I kinda get where they are coming from but 🤷

@Andykong In the future, is there any chance for a portable R2R DAC? RU6 is a good sounding dongle but does not sound in the same level as the Mojo or iDSD Signature.

A battery powered R2R DAC, that's not limited by power constraints & size. Something priced at a similar price to Mojo 2 or Gryphon (I would not mind it costing less 😁).

There is the Cayin R01 but, I don't wanna pay extra for feature (Display, OS, Chipset...) I won't use.
I use the RU6 as a DAC in a desktop setup that I have described in several of my previous messages.
It sounds a bit different when double amping, but its remarkable musicality is preserved.
It's my D.I.Y. version of the Ares 2 😁
 
Feb 21, 2022 at 11:07 AM Post #2,063 of 3,665
The EMI noise on 4G network is the only major issue I have about this DAC. I think I will get the leather case and try to fit some aluminum foil inside to get rid of this annoyance
Does the leather case get rid of some of the EMI ?

From what we observed, the biggest source of EMI interfernce comes from the USB cable, it act as an antenna to attract EMI signal and then passed it into RU6. Adding a layer of aluminum foil around RU6 won't make a lot of different. Maybe an USB cable with stronger shilding can help to eliminate the EMI noise.

If you want to perform some test with aluminum foil, you can wrap the USB-C cable and test if the EMI noise is reduced. To stop the EMI to go into RU6, you should warp the USB-C connector that you'll connect to RU6, and then twisted the alumimum foil to cover roughly the half the cable.

I have this noises sometimes. I have ordered a longer usb cable. Will see

Make sure your new cable has better shielding when compare to your current USB cable.
 
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Feb 21, 2022 at 11:29 AM Post #2,065 of 3,665
Sadly, I see this way too often. People expecting "X" feature from a device intended to be used as a "Y". If not Line Output, some one will ask for bluetooth input or EQ and so on... I kinda get where they are coming from but 🤷

@Andykong In the future, is there any chance for a portable R2R DAC? RU6 is a good sounding dongle but does not sound in the same level as the Mojo or iDSD Signature.

A battery powered R2R DAC, that's not limited by power constraints & size. Something priced at a similar price to Mojo 2 or Gryphon (I would not mind it costing less 😁).

There is the Cayin R01 but, I don't wanna pay extra for feature (Display, OS, Chipset...) I won't use.

I think similar questions have been raised many times, and our resposne are consistent. First of all, we don't have any plan to develop another dongle, this is not in our roadmap.

Secondly, we don't think adding battery to dongle is a good idea from our product planning perspective. Dongle are mean to be small, dongle trades performance for form factors and portabilities. If we were to develop a R2R product with battery built-in, it will become a DAC/Amp like Chord Mojo, but most like a lot more expensive. Think about that, if we re-engineer R01 into a DAC/Amp with its own USB and SPDIF digital receiver, lithnium battery, power management circuits, and a chassic with practical UI and decent finishing ..., I am not surpirsed that this new DAC/Amp will sell at 2x of R01 suggested retail price.

Can we do this with reference to RU6 instead of R01? Technically yes, but that is not a good business practise. Honestly speaking, we should maximize our profit while offering high quality product. When we have an business opportunity open up right in front of us, we should identical all viable alternatives and always select the most profitable choice, shouldn't we?
 
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Feb 21, 2022 at 11:56 AM Post #2,066 of 3,665
I think similar questions have been raised many times, and our resposne are consistent. First of all, we don't have any plan to develop another dongle, this is not in our roadmap.

Secondly, we don't think adding battery to dongle is a good idea from our product planning perspective. Dongle are mean to be small, dongle trades performance for form factors and portabilities. If we were to develop a R2R product with battery built-in, it will become a DAC/Amp like Chord Mojo, but most like a lot more expensive. Think about that, if we re-engineer R01 into a DAC/Amp with its own USB and SPDIF digital receiver, lithnium battery, power management circuits, and a chassic with practical UI and decent finishing ..., I am not surpirsed that this new DAC/Amp will sell at 2x of R01 suggested retail price.

Can we do this with reference to RU6 instead of R01? Technically yes, but that is not a good business practise. Honestly speaking, we should maximize our profit while offering high quality product. When we have an business opportunity open up right in front of us, we should identical all viable alternatives and always select the most profitable choice, shouldn't we?
Thank you for your honest answer about seeking profit, which is the ultimate goal of every company. I understand that RU6 is your cheapest product and that the rest of your offering normally cost a lot more. Cayin is seen as a luxury brand in the audiophile world and you want to cultivate that image.

I won't name any other company here but there are other R2R DAPs that could be miniaturized into the dongle DAC form factor like you did with the R01.
That might be a good thing to keep your advantage on this niche as you are the first to market.

Well, I don't know anything about business and hardware manufacturing but I would buy anything that ressemble the RU6 with even more performance and features in a heartbeat.
 
Feb 21, 2022 at 12:25 PM Post #2,069 of 3,665
No.
Even if you wrap a ru6 with aluminium sheet.
Where’s the grounding/earthing wire to the tin foil. That’s needed for EMI attenuation. Unless the EMI is wire-bound or originates from the source. Looks like something some shady people try and sell you in dark alleys…in this case with wires sticking out of it…
 
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Feb 21, 2022 at 1:42 PM Post #2,070 of 3,665
Secondly, we don't think adding battery to dongle is a good idea from our product planning perspective. Dongle are mean to be small, dongle trades performance for form factors and portabilities.
I was hinting at a transportable device (Hip-DAC, Mojo... size) and not a dongle. As a dongle, RU6 is already on a slightly larger size and adding a battery to increase the size and weight would be bad. A separate product that sits between RU6 and N6ii + R01, My LG G8x battery level went from 95% to 23% when connected to RU6 (~5 Hours) and having a DAC with it's own battery would mean longer battery for my phone, not to mention more power to drive Headphones better.

Think about that, if we re-engineer R01 into a DAC/Amp with its own USB and SPDIF digital receiver, lithnium battery, power management circuits, and a chassic with practical UI and decent finishing ..., I am not surpirsed that this new DAC/Amp will sell at 2x of R01 suggested retail price.
Even if such a device costs 2x the price of R01, it's still better than getting N6ii + R01 right? especially for those not looking for a large DAP. I don't know how the pricing is in other places but here N6ii is ~1,500 USD and importing R01 would be ~550 USD excluding customs. So, a portable DAC 2x the price of R01 would be ~1,100 USD vs ~2,000 USD for N6ii + R01.

Can we do this with reference to RU6 instead of R01? Technically yes, but that is not a good business practise. Honestly speaking, we should maximize our profit while offering high quality product. When we have an business opportunity open up right in front of us, we should identical all viable alternatives and always select the most profitable choice, shouldn't we?
As a company, definitely understandable.
 

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