Cayin N6 audio player: put a track and flew away! But it was not a Chinese rocket..

Did the Chinese rockets become more reliable than ours?? The question, of course, is interesting. Well, here grandma says it twice, but on the gadget market the purebred Chinese Lenovo and Huawei are flaunting themselves as well as Apple. It is possible that music lovers have already received or are about to receive a big hello from China. I have in mind yet not very popular brand Cayin – it’s a small Chinese company that produces quality amplifiers, DACs, CD-players, speakers. Today the brand has sent us a premiere. Today we will talk about Cayin N6, the first portable player with a very special design and a very good sound. Built on two microchips DAC PCM1792A. Well, it’s time to dive into the nuances. You are with us?

Thank you XChesser Audio for the sample for your listening

SPECS:

VGA: 2 × PCM1792A

Processor: Ingenic Xburst JZ4760, 2 cores @ 600 MHz

FPGA: SA2000

Volume Control: PGA2311, 100 steps adjustable

Frequency Range: 20 Hz to 20 kHz ± 0.2 dB, 5 Hz to 50 kHz ± 1 dB

Non-linear distortion coefficient: 0.005%

Dynamic range: 110dB

Signal to noise ratio: 109dB

Headphone output power: 220 mW per channel @ 32&Omega

Output impedance: 0.26&Omega

Line output:7V @ 10K&Omega

USB DAC: Asynchronous, up to 24 bits/192 KHz

Selectable gain: 2 levels +6dB

Channel balance: ± 10dB

Equalizer: 10-band, ± 10dB

Display: 2.4′ IPS TFT 400 × 360

Analog outputs: 3.5mm TRS for headphones, 3.5mm TRS line out

Digital output: 3.5mm TRS coaxial S/PDIF

DSD support: DSD64 DSF, DFF , DSD128 DSF, DFF , SACD ISO

Support for lossless formats: WAV, FLAC, ALAC, APE up to 24 bits/192 KHz , WMA up to 24 bits/96 KHz

Support lossy formats: AAC, OGG, MP2, MP3

Battery capacity: 5600 mA/h

Built-in memory: 8 GB

Supports memory cards: MicroSD up to 128GB

Battery life: Up to 8 hours

Charge time: ~ 3 hours

Maximum dimensions: 126 mm × 72 mm × 19.7 mm

The size of the main body: 126 mm × 68 mm × 17.6 mm

Weight: 230 g

Appearance and Package

The device comes in a ginger-colored cardboard box, inside of which there is a box with all our delights. Namely: the player itself, an envelope with papers and protective film on the screen, MicroUSB cable for connection to power adapter and synchronization with PC, card reader, coaxial cable for digital output with s/pdif and a nice keychain with company logo to remember! Everything is clear, beautiful, elegant, I like it!

The device is quite weighty and of a decent size, but still manages to fit comfortably in the palm of your hand, like a handshake drummer. Material: aluminum. Color silver, solid build, all clear, symmetrical, you can not go wrong: the iPhone, perhaps, is not going in the same places?

The back cover is covered with carbon fiber, nice, with the company logo. Screen is in the form of a porthole with projecting edges outside the case. Surprisingly cute: for some reason after turning on the player the round window shows a square menu. And to round off the menu to the whole screen was not enough?

The picture and color rendering of the screen is very good, indicating a decent matrix. Everything, I keep telling you, clear, beautiful, elegant. A pity, the letters are a bit too small. But the menu is quite understandable, though there were moments when I got confused with the controls: wheel, buttons – where to press it? But, come on, you can get used to it.

A great plus of N6 is that the player can work as a USB DAC, if you connect it to your computer. I came in, plug it in as a soundcard and listen to the drums in the room – a very pleasant moment.

On the front side below the screen are the menu buttons. On the right side there are volume keys. On the left side, closer to the screen, there is a “wheel”, which, when rotated, finds the desired menu item, and when pressed – fixes the choice made.

On the top end are easily found: a headphone jack, line output, coaxial, and on off button player. On the bottom – connector for microUSB cable, slot for microSD memory card, and a hole for emergency reset.

Sound

I must say at once that the sound of Cayin N6, although not without minor flaws, but very decent!

To listen the following headphones were used: Etymotic ER-4P/S, Westone UM3X, MyST Nail 2, Beyerdynamic dt 1350, Audio-Technica ATH-SX1a, OPPO PM-3. The device played properly with all headphones and I haven’t found any vagaries.

The Cayin N6 sounds neutral. Musicality together with good detail, even tonal balance without any obvious distortion, accuracy, intelligibility, it is all about our PM.

Listening to favorite songs on N6 is really a lot of fun. The player builds the “virtual scene” in a very interesting way. There is depth and width. The sounds are positioned in small layers, multilevel material presentation. Impressionistic in sound, if you like.

The Cayin player stands out among modern portable devices not only by its exterior design, but also by the way it presents the musical material. For example, I’ve added OPPO PM-3 to it and installed FFS I strongly recommend it to those who don’t know – it’s a new project of Franz Ferdinand and Sparks , so I put it and flew away! Sounds stunning, cool! Every nuance, every nuance is beautifully and musically conveyed, so you could listen to an entire collection gathered over decades!

But never mind, “closer to the body”, as the erotic classic said.

The tweeters are crisp, moderately transparent, almost flawless, they are few and far between, they always come and go on time. They are as many as you need and their quality is not a complaint. Although here and there is a little crumbly, but not too critical.

The midrange is detailed, with good resolution. Every instrument is well-drawn in space. The middle is very musical.

The woofers don’t jabber, there is exactly as much as you need, no more and no less. Bass has good speed. But here is one controversial point. For example, a nice unhurried song is playing, everything is fine… and then, a lot of instruments come in, the speed increases, and… the bass begins to choke a little, moves back a little, there is a sound, and then at some point – zap and everything is fine.

You can hear it mostly on my Etymotic ER-4S, on the other headphones this moment is almost imperceptible. With dynamic headphones such a joint I did not hear at all. In general, there are little complaints about the bass, but I can’t even name them properly. And all in all it’s pretty good.

Conclusions

The player turned out to be very interesting. The design is certainly not to your liking – it looks like the Bolshevichka style from the stagnation times, but what is hiding under the dress?! In addition, the player has a porthole – a pretty round face.

In terms of sound Cayin N6 is one of the leaders in the world of portable players. His sound deserves all the praise. Prices in American online stores for Cayin N6 are around the 30 000 ruble, which is quite generous at the current exchange rate of ruble to dollar.

The sound, design not for everyone , the ability to use the player as a sound card, price again, not for everyone .

Design/control for some, it’s the other way around