I've been following your comments on this thread for a while now. I'm happy you are enjoying your N3 Ultra but it also seems you get super defensive whenever someone criticizes this DAP.
While sound too is one of my top priorities but so is a bug-free stable OS and a good battery life. According to @ToneDeafMonk Shanling M5 Ultra provides a more stable OS, better battery life and similar SQ with better output power. So when we express our concerns here hopefully it will encourage Cayin to provide a better experience for all users in the future, not just one particular user. Cheers.
I'm always curious why people comment on threads for things they aren't going to buy. From you description of your needs I suggest you get a sony player they last for much longer playing times and they have very active threads.
Or if you want a budget player the hiby R511 has 30 hours playback.
Different dacs and amps have different effects on battery life.
I'm in the fortunate position to own many Daps Inc totl ones many have poorer battery life than the N3Ultra.
I'm not being defensive just saying if you don't like the features don't buy it and find something more appropriate for you.
I'm always curious why people comment on threads for things they aren't going to buy. From you description of your needs I suggest you get a sony player they last for much longer playing times and they have very active threads.
Or if you want a budget player the hiby R511 has 30 hours playback.
Different dacs and amps have different effects on battery life.
I'm in the fortunate position to own many Daps Inc totl ones many have poorer battery life than the N3Ultra.
I'm not being defensive just saying ifvyoy don't like the features don't buy it and find something more appropriate for you.
Who says I'm not going to buy it? I really fancy this DAP and wanted to buy it immidetaly as soon as it came out. Unfortunately I can't afford to own many daps like you, so the one I do own needs to have an overall good experience, and match my standards of a bug free os and good battery life.
While I do understand that Cayin can't do much about battery life at this stage, the fact that this DAP still doesn't have a search feature is frankly ridiculous, I would be more inclined to buy it if Cayin polishes the OS more.
Even if I decide not to buy this DAP there is no law saying I can't criticize it's short comings, at least from my point of view. I definitely think there are some things Cayin could be doing better with this DAP. Cheers.
Unfortunately, the JAN6418 is not user replaceable, you need to send the DAP back to your dealer or to us (China) to replace the vacuum tubes.
For the record, we do run into JAN6418 occasionally, but most of them happened on the first month of ownership, a small number of them in the first three months, so they were all covered by warranty, technically. We attributed these to logistic and/or manufacturing failures. In our repair track record, the JAN6418 in N3Pro is as reliable and long-lasting as a lot of solid-state components we have used in our DAP.
In case these "claims" remain uncertified claims from a manufacturer, may I suggest you drop by the N3Pro thread and ask if there is a high percentage of JAN6418 failure among our N3Pro DAP users? For the record, the N3Pro was launched back in early August 2020, we have sold more than two thousand units of N3Pro in the first month, and a lot more by the end of 2020, so you'll run into a lot of users who owned N3Pro for 3-4 years already in the N3Pro official thread. If the "JAN6418 tubes have an estimated life span best case scenario of 1 to 3 year", we should have thousands of N3Pro users having trouble with their JAN6418 in N3Pro, and Cayin should be very busy repairing the N3Pro by now. Maybe this will provide counter-arguments regarding your "claim" from literature research that the JAN6418 is a high-risk component?
I appreciate the response and your openess to the question. I understand the chances of an issue are probably quite small but I have had nightmare experiences shipping DAP's to China for service. More than once having to eat the cost of the DAP when it was returned unfixed or got lost in transit. If the N3 Ultra were sold in Canada and I could get it serviced here I would feel more comfortable buying one.
Unfortunately, the JAN6418 is not user replaceable, you need to send the DAP back to your dealer or to us (China) to replace the vacuum tubes.
For the record, we do run into JAN6418 occasionally, but most of them happened on the first month of ownership, a small number of them in the first three months, so they were all covered by warranty, technically. We attributed these to logistic and/or manufacturing failures. In our repair track record, the JAN6418 in N3Pro is as reliable and long-lasting as a lot of solid-state components we have used in our DAP.
In case these "claims" remain uncertified claims from a manufacturer, may I suggest you drop by the N3Pro thread and ask if there is a high percentage of JAN6418 failure among our N3Pro DAP users? For the record, the N3Pro was launched back in early August 2020, we have sold more than two thousand units of N3Pro in the first month, and a lot more by the end of 2020, so you'll run into a lot of users who owned N3Pro for 3-4 years already in the N3Pro official thread. If the "JAN6418 tubes have an estimated life span best case scenario of 1 to 3 year", we should have thousands of N3Pro users having trouble with their JAN6418 in N3Pro, and Cayin should be very busy repairing the N3Pro by now. Maybe this will provide counter-arguments regarding your "claim" from literature research that the JAN6418 is a high-risk component?
If one day equal 24hr, we are looking at 8760hr for 1 year of life span.
So we are looking at 8760hrs of listening time...
If we use it for 3hrs daily = will be 2920 days of usage = 8yrs of usage.
If one day equal 24hr, we are looking at 8760hr for 1 year of life span.
So we are looking at 8760hrs of listening time...
If we use it for 3hrs daily = will be 2920 days of usage = 8yrs of usage.
I actually use this method since I caved in and bought the leather case which covers the card slot. Speed is decent, but I wouldn't transfer large amounts of data.
BTW, the N3U drives the empyrean 2 wonderfully, as expected.
Thank you for keeping us informed, I'll forward your message to our software engineers and ask them to check out the compatibility with the exFAT format. I didn't know enough to promise a fix, but I'll ask them to look into this option.
Thanks for the reply
Currently I have found that the home button can wake the player up. Will there be any settings to avoid such behavior like the volume and controls buttons did? ‘cause it bothers me a lot when I put it into my pants pocket.
Also the FOLDER view still omits some folders. Some albums cannot be found in FOLDER view but in ALBUM view.
I appreciate the response and your openess to the question. I understand the chances of an issue are probably quite small but I have had nightmare experiences shipping DAP's to China for service. More than once having to eat the cost of the DAP when it was returned unfixed or got lost in transit. If the N3 Ultra were sold in Canada and I could get it serviced here I would feel more comfortable buying one.
My previous writing was trying to clarify the claim that "JAN6418 tubes have an estimated life span best case scenario of 1 to 3 year", nothing personal. For the record, I am not trying to convince you to get the N3Ultra. On the contrary, I always steer customers away if the product doesn't meet their needs or preferences. As an audiophile, I want to stress the importance of enjoying and appreciating your music through your HiFI gear. If you feel anxiety about the reliability of a particular product, statistics and track record don't always help, and this is a sign that you should look elsewhere. In my experience, being able to relax and feel leisurely is an important aspect of appreciation, anxiety, and worry will kill your passion, even with the best-sounding equipment.
Thanks for releasing this new firmware so quickly but after the issues caused by the previous update and also the loss of the ability to edit the drop down menu a.i. the little pencil next to the drop down settings cog went mia, I for one am not so keen to update to this new version without a bit more information. Could you please answer the following questions?:
- Is there a menu option to enable or disable the double-click wake up function ?
- Could you please give a bit more information about point 3 Other optimisations and bug fixes ?
Unfortunately, you cannot roll back the N3Ultra firmware. We would have offered that if we could. We offered firmware rollback on N7, N8ii, and N30LE, this is a system limitation on N3Ultra.
I've been following your comments on this thread for a while now. I'm happy you are enjoying your N3 Ultra but it also seems you get super defensive whenever someone criticizes this DAP.
While sound too is one of my top priorities but so is a bug-free stable OS and a good battery life. According to @ToneDeafMonk Shanling M5 Ultra provides a more stable OS, better battery life and similar SQ with better output power. So when we express our concerns here hopefully it will encourage Cayin to provide a better experience for all users in the future, not just one particular user. Cheers.
I just feel proud to enjoy this DAP, nothing more than that. I understand your wishes and respect them, of course. There is so much to choose from... Later I will invest more money and level up if possible, but I assure you that this N3U will stay in my collection. When I need portability I go with my HiBy R3 II or my cell phone. I also love this small model from HiBy.
Thank you for your interest in N3Ultra and for devoting your precious time to discussing the player.
DAP belongs to the Personal Audio segment, it is a personal choice, so we'll have vastly different needs and preferences, this applies to both audio preference and usage preference. The global DAP market is fairly large, and we are bound to have users having vastly different preferences, there is no right and wrong on preference, we can only agree to disagree. On the other hand, the market is large enough to have multiple successful products at the same time. I am more than happy to see alternative options such as HiBy R4 and Shanling M5 Ultra. Having good alternative products is a very important factor for the market to grow healthy. So if the M5 Ultra suits your preference better, I am happy for you.
We shall continue to revise our firmware, trying our best to improve customer experience. On the other hand, Cayin wanted to be different when we included the JAN6418 circuitry in an entry-level DAP. We make our choice regarding the duration and amplification circuit design, we tell our customers well in advance that we make this choice and publish battery duration figures with detailed testing conditions, our figures offer a very accurate picture of the battery duration of N3Ultra. There is only one reason why we do this: to steer the customers away when the N3Ultra is not going to meet their needs and preferences. There is our choice, we know what we are doing, and we don't plan to change our design decision to please more users.
Thanks for the reply
Currently I have found that the home button can wake the player up. Will there be any settings to avoid such behavior like the volume and controls buttons did? ‘cause it bothers me a lot when I put it into my pants pocket.
Also the FOLDER view still omits some folders. Some albums cannot be found in FOLDER view but in ALBUM view.
You can disable the home button wake up by disabling the "Double Click Wake Up" feature through System >Gesturers menu.
The folder view is fairly reliable in our experience, can you provide more information regarding the folders that aren't available? You can drop me a PM with more photos if that makes it easier for you to explain your problem
Who says I'm not going to buy it? I really fancy this DAP and wanted to buy it immidetaly as soon as it came out. Unfortunately I can't afford to own many daps like you, so the one I do own needs to have an overall good experience, and match my standards of a bug free os and good battery life.
While I do understand that Cayin can't do much about battery life at this stage, the fact that this DAP still doesn't have a search feature is frankly ridiculous, I would be more inclined to buy it if Cayin polishes the OS more.
Even if I decide not to buy this DAP there is no law saying I can't criticize it's short comings, at least from my point of view. I definitely think there are some things Cayin could be doing better with this DAP. Cheer
If one day equal 24hr, we are looking at 8760hr for 1 year of life span.
So we are looking at 8760hrs of listening time...
If we use it for 3hrs daily = will be 2920 days of usage = 8yrs of usage.
My previous writing was trying to clarify the claim that "JAN6418 tubes have an estimated life span best case scenario of 1 to 3 year", nothing personal. For the record, I am not trying to convince you to get the N3Ultra. On the contrary, I always steer customers away if the product doesn't meet their needs or preferences. As an audiophile, I want to stress the importance of enjoying and appreciating your music through your HiFI gear. If you feel anxiety about the reliability of a particular product, statistics and track record don't always help, and this is a sign that you should look elsewhere. In my experience, being able to relax and feel leisurely is an important aspect of appreciation, anxiety, and worry will kill your passion, even with the best-sounding equipment.
I have no personal experience with JAN6418 tubes, the 1 to 3 year figure came from a friend of mine. He has experience using these tubes in his DIY tube preamps and amplifiers builds going back 15 years and I got this timing from another DIY site. This also falls in line with my own experience using tube preamplifiers and amplifiers going back decades. The other variable is how old are these tubes you are using in the R4? The JAN6418 tubes have been around for a long time and parts do start to breakdown if left on the shelf for a long time.
This all factors into my willingness to buy a DAP with non-replaceable tubes. As you say I need to be comfortable with my purchase and will look elsewhere.
In my experience, being able to relax and feel leisurely is an important aspect of appreciation, anxiety, and worry will kill your passion, even with the best-sounding equipment.
Well said. Some years ago I was shopping for a new DAP and had home the Fiio M11Plus and the AK SP2000T. Huge price difference, but very close capabilities, at least on paper. M11P was better at just about everything not sound related, faster, more responsive, etc. Soundwise they were similar. (The tubes on 2kT are nothing to write home about.)
Ended up keeping the AK, just because I felt it suited me better. I never regretted this decision, never tried to buy the M11P again. I'm sure it'd have been different had I taken the other route.
You have to take into consideration what makes you happy. If worried, look elsewhere.
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