Announcement of N8ii Firmware V1.4EN
New Functions and System Optimisation
- Add new feature to support 16x MQA decoding (up to 768kHz)
- Cayin Music app and HiBy Music app can playback MQA music files on N8ii
- MQA compatible music apps can play/stream MQA files on N8ii.
- N8ii can decode MQA content from USB DAC input
- Added new feature to support “Knob Reverse”, allowing users to set up the direction of the volume knob according to their own preference or practical need.
- When turned off (default setting), N8ii will increase volume by rotating the volume knob clockwise
- When turn on, N8ii will increase volume by rotating the volume knob anticlockwise
- Other bugs fixed and system optimization.
N8ii Users can update to the latest firmware through OTA updating or manually local updating. Please visit
our official website for more information.
You can find out more information regarding the N8ii MQA implementation from our
Press Release. For more information about the MQA technologies, please visit
www.mqa.co.uk
When Cayin N8ii plays back downloaded MQA files, the screen will either display MQA or MQA Studio on the status bar below the album art, alongside the bit depth and sampling frequency information of the original file. On the other hand, when users playback MQA content via Tidal streaming, N8ii will display the Master icon instead. ‘Master’, ‘MQA’ or ‘MQA Studio’ indicates that the player is decoding and playing an MQA stream or file. ‘MQA Studio’ indicates it is playing an MQA Studio file, which has either been approved in the studio by the artist/producer or has been verified by the copyright owner.
With MQA technologies in place, we have revised
N8ii product page to explain the MQA support in more detail.
N8ii supports 16x MQA, with that, N8ii can unfold the MQA file to an impressive 705.6 kHz (~44.1kHz X 16) or 768 kHz (~48kHz x 16). N8ii users probably are peculiar here since they won't find these sampling frequencies from the N8ii playback screen. What happened is that there are two sampling frequencies in a playback chain: the sampling frequency of the music document and the decoding (or outputting) sampling frequency of the DAC circuit. Cayin Music App, like most music players, displayed the former in the playback UI. Since Cayin didn't include any upsampling features in the FPGA, the sampling frequency of the document is always equal to the decoding sampling frequency, ... until the MQA unfolding comes into play.
So can we verify that we are listening to 16x MQA, instead of 8x or 4x? Well, theoretically we should trust Cayin and MQA as a team, when MQA certifies Cayin N8ii as 16x MQA decoder, it should function as claimed and unfold all MQA sources to 16x. Users can rest assured that Cayin understands your concern and has offered a feature to verify the decoding sampling frequency with Cayin Music App.
If you click on the playback information line (below the MQA status) on the Main playback screen of the Cayin Music App, it will pop up a window to display Output Information and the decoding sampling frequency is what we are looking for here. Unfortunately, we can't do that for third-party applications such as Tidal. or at least, I don't know of a way to do that with Tidal app., but since we have proven the 16x MQA support already, I suppose we can feel assured at this point.