Maxim Zhukov 05/14/2019 3820
$382 Portable players 2016
Cayin N5 is a high-quality portable Hi-Fi audio player with good smooth sound, USB 3.0 charging and an interesting appearance. It combines the “old school” design of old “top” players, great functionality and specific features.
Cayin once surprised everyone with the appearance of the Cayin N6. His sound was also excellent. Since then, the manufacturer has firmly established itself in the portable Hi-Fi market, producing truly high-quality devices.
Cayin N5
- Discussion of Cayin N5 on the Player.ru forum
pros:
- Sound;
- Appearance;
- Versatility
Minuses:
- Ergonomic features;
- Sound Features
First among equals: "Cain" from China
One of these brands was Cayin - “Cain”, or “Tsain” in another transcription: a small Chinese brand specializing in audiophile sound equipment.
The basis of the company's product range is desktop tube amplifiers for speakers and headphones at crazy prices. But we are much more interested in the other side of Cayin. The one that develops and produces portable devices.
With their help, Cayin covers the needs of any mobile fan of high-quality sound: 7 players of different price categories, a USB DAC and a headphone amplifier. You can choose one for any budget, for any request, with any set of functions.
Today we’ll focus on the most interesting: Cayin N5 Mark II S the N5II already familiar to our readers (review). It seems that in it the developers were able to combine under one lid all the necessary opportunities for an audiophile and a simple music lover to listen to music. For very real money.
Cayin N5 Mark II S is: USB DAC, digital or analog transport, network source for desktop audio system and just an excellent portable player in a compact case. With excellent sound and convenient controls.
It will rock any headphones, so we will test it on Campfire Atlas for 100 thousand rubles. But first things first.
Compatibility
I think it’s clear even from the characteristics that the N5ii is quite capable of handling most headphones, except perhaps the tightest models. On the other hand, the three-stage Gain adjustment allows the player to work well with sensitive IEMs; in my memory, this is one of the quietest players in terms of background noise. Thanks to the neutral presentation, the hero of this review copes well with almost any headphones, helping them reveal their strengths at a normal level.
The player is universal in genre (with adjustments to the owner’s taste), but it is especially good at styles with natural instruments and live emotional vocals. He is moderately tolerant of recording quality, about 6 points out of 10 on the conventional “picky” scale.
As usual, a few sample tracks from
Joe Bonamassa - How Deep This River Runs . The reliable and mainstay of modern blues-rock, Joe Bonamassa, has long avoided my selection. Apparently, he expected a moderately priced player on which his virtuoso guitar skills would be fully revealed (listening to the blues on a $3,500 player is not “true”). A high-quality recording greatly benefits from the spacious and neutral sound of the N5ii, allowing you to enjoy both the complex guitar parts and the overall arrangement that this track is rich in.
Roxette - Listen to Your Heart . A little bit of absolute and total classics never hurts, especially since the second generation N5 from Cayin does an excellent job with both Marie Fredriksson's vocals and everything that Per Gessle added himself. The finale was especially effective, in which the main melody of the song is replaced by a sonorous coda.
The Clash - Should I Stay or Should I Go . Of course, the Sex Pistols greatly undermined the reputation of punk rock, convincing almost everyone that “the worse punks play, the better,” but The Clash effectively managed to refute this thesis. Having mixed in their work an explosive cocktail of punk, new wave, funk, and sometimes even getting into styles like reggae, they were able to give impetus to many groups that developed genres like rockabilly. But this is, perhaps, a subject for a separate discussion, let’s return to N5ii. As I already said, he doesn’t add anything of his own, but what is included in the track plays out perfectly, and this hit is proof of that.
The main rule: strict style and convenience
In general, the Cayin N5 Mark II S can be called a high-end reference audio player. The body is made in the form of an all-metal frame made of a single piece of steel (aluminum in the basic model), durable and resistant to any impact.
The front and back panels are covered with tempered glass: transparent above the screen and with beautiful engraving as decoration on the back side. An excellent solution compared to all-metal or “leather” counterparts.
The glass is scratch-resistant, and the sides of the frame, in turn, protect it well.
The buttons are also metal. On the right are the player controls (“Forward”, “Back”, “Play/Pause”), on the left are the switches. And what a volume control wheel in the Cayin N5 Mark II S, with what tactile feedback! Accidental activations are excluded.
By the way, about the screen: the Cayin N5 Mark II S has a touch screen with a diagonal of 3.65 inches and a resolution of 854×480. The matrix is IPS from LG, beyond all praise. Almost Retina - clear, bright, juicy. The developers did not forget about the “Back/Home” touch button. Without it, Android is not very comfortable.
Yes. In Android .
Photo gallery
Cayin N5
Cayin N5 interface themes
Cayin N5 board
Cayin N5 quality player
Cayin N5 ergonomics
Cayin N5 features Cayin N5 II
Cayin N5 back panel
Cayin N5 in case
Cayin N5 in a box
Cayin N5 menu
Cayin N5 power button
Cayin N5 kit
Cayin N5 plug (first revision)
Cayin N5 bottom panel in the second revision
Cayin N5 left side
Cayin N5 vs Cayin N5 II
Cayin N5 USB 3.0 cable
Cayin N5 in analysis
Cayin N5 sound path
Cayin N5
Cayin N5 Hi-Fi player
Cayin N5 dimensions
Cayin N5 top panel
Player with “brains” on Android
Instead of reinventing the wheel, Cayin developers use Android as the operating system for their players. In the case of Cayin N5 Mark II S - versions 5.1.
The shell was developed by Hiby , known for their cool firmware for a variety of audio devices. It turned out very convenient: everything needed for the player was outside. The firmware even has its own 9-band equalizer.
But Android always remains itself, so there are a lot of settings. And a store of absolutely standard Android applications.
In addition, the N5 Mark II S can surf the Internet via Wi-Fi. music-related apps from Google Play I tested Google Music , Spotify , Tidal and scrobbled it on Last. Fm . Like a smartphone, but with cool sound.
You can also surf, since the firmware has a built-in browser. If you need the Internet on the road, you can share it from your mobile phone, both in its pure form using a Wi-FI point, and with a connection via Bluetooth or wire.
IMPORTANT: according to an old audiophile legend, network interfaces and additional programs degrade sound quality. Therefore, the firmware has an Audio Priority mode, which disables all player functions except those necessary for playback.
conclusions
I think anyone who has read up to this point has already understood that I really liked the player. The perfect balance of affordable price, compact size, stylish design, modern features and quality sound is what the N5ii offers. It is not without some shortcomings (the main ones, I think, will be corrected with firmware), but still Cayin has raised the bar well in the mid-range segment, and I will look forward to what they will offer in the top model (and sooner or later they will still they will do it).
PS If you love music and/or are actively interested in the topic of portable audio, subscribe to my channel @PortaFi on Telegram, where I announce reviews and sometimes share news, thoughts and good music.
Buy Cayin N5ii
What is the flagship Cain made of?
Perhaps a similar function is really useful for the N5 Mark II S. Although the company calls its own component architecture “new,” it can only be considered as such for the audio players themselves.
The device is based on a Rockchip RK3188 (1.6 GHz per core) and 2 gigabytes of RAM. That is, in 5 years the browser will begin to lag. In the meantime, the performance is sufficient even for Chrome with 20-30 tabs. In the player. Yeah.
The audio path is based on a digital-to-analog converter ESS9018K2M , 3 OPA1652 and 3 OPA1622 . The Cayin concept is officially shared, you can familiarize yourself with it and make sure that everything is fair and of very high quality.
The audio path is divided into 2 channels immediately after the amplifier. Balanced wiring extends to the OPA1622 power amplifiers for a balanced 2.5mm jack. A similarly unbalanced signal is obtained for the main 3.5mm output. Total, 4 lines from the “ends”.
The hardware allows the N5 Mark II S to decode all common formats in hardware, including DSD/DST/DSDIFF/SACD-ISO up to 64 bit/384 kHz . The more common WAV, AIFF, FLAC, ALAC, APE, WMA, MP3, OGG, AAC work fine up to 24 bit/192 kHz .
If a new format suddenly appears, the processor capabilities will be enough for software decoding without errors. Although knowing Cayin and Hiby, they will definitely release updated firmware.
Audio files with such a bitrate require a large storage device, so in addition to the built-in memory of 64 GB, the Cayin N5 Mark II S is equipped with a pair (!) of microSD slots for cards with a total capacity of up to 400 GB each.
The battery is generally adequate - not only does it last for 12 hours at medium volume, but the developers did not forget about fast charging. Using a charger that supports Quick Charge , the player charges in just an hour.
How to connect: to a computer, smartphone or standalone?
I already mentioned Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Using the first, the player can play audio files on the network via DLNA, and the second will allow you to use any wireless speakers.
For traditional wired connections, the Cayin flagship is equipped with balanced and unbalanced outputs. Unbalanced can be switched to linear output mode with increased output power. The maximum voltage in this case is 2 V , and the resistance is up to 10 kOhm .
This mode is required solely for using the N5 Mark II S as an analog music source for desktop audio systems. The headphones will simply burn out.
If that doesn't seem like enough, the USB-C charging port will also be of use to the naughty audiophile:
- USB-DAC mode will turn the player into a final DAC/amplifier for a laptop;
- USB-OTG mode allows you to connect an external drive;
- An adapter from USB-C to coaxial SPDIF will allow you to transmit a digital stream for serious audio systems.
As tests have shown, the player’s performance is sufficient to drag DSD files with maximum quality from a home library over the network/from a laptop and immediately transfer them to bookshelf active speakers in real time.
But still, the quality of its sound is much more important than useful functions.
Bottom line
HF are clear, moderately transparent, there are few and many of them, they always come and go on time. There are exactly as many of them as needed. Although there is a slight crumbling here and there, it is not at all critical, considering the price of the device.
Mid frequencies are detailed, with good resolution. Each instrument is clearly drawn in space. The mids are very smooth and musical.
LFs don’t drone, they are just right – no more and no less. The bass has good speed characteristics, is well textured and generally has moderate massiveness.
Testing the sound with headphones for 100 thousand
A “stuffed” player like the Cayin N5 Mark II S requires special testing. In addition to many formats and compositions, the editors have prepared special headphones for it to unlock its full potential.
He was paired with Campfire Atlas - the highest-class headphones from a Portland company: Litz wire, a unique camera, hand-finished surfaces and a 10mm diamond driver... They sound very cool, but they are difficult to rock.
For testing, we used a rich library of hi-res recordings of everything in the world - from classic bebop to modern avant-garde, from rock and roll and country of the 50s to the “black” Norwegian metal of the era of great changes.
Of course, there were classical compositions and what today can be called neoclassical in the broadest sense: modern compositions in orchestral arrangements and extreme music with an abundance of strings.
No changes in sound were noticed when changing the location of audio files. DLNA and stream (Tidal Hi-Res) are characterized by a slight delay at start; local sources in the form of a laptop, flash drives and native memory behave without any questions.
When using an unbalanced output, the headphones and player tend to monitor sound transmission with slight changes in the frequency response in the lower and middle ranges for a more pleasant sound perception.
The changes necessary for a pleasant perception can be easily made using the native equalizer or using a third-party software player, for example, PowerAmp .
Professional listeners will be able to notice minor losses when playing high-pitched tracks on their favorite tracks. Where imperfect headphones will give sibilance.
In our test combination, they do not reach the ceiling of the playable range, so you can hear that the player slightly modifies parts of the compositions that are problematic for high-quality “ears”.
If connected to a balanced output, Cayin turns into a professional sound engineer's measuring tool, absolutely accurately showing all the advantages and disadvantages of the recording.
The transition to it for the Campfire Atlas is completely justified - the detail is noticeably higher. But it is worth noting that some professional monitors will require an unbalanced output due to power requirements: the 2.5 mm connector does not have such a reserve.
Sound quality
Cayin N5 offers the listener high-quality, smooth sound with natural and emotional midrange . The player's handwriting is rather analytical, with a tendency towards "dryness", but not without musicality. The quality, naturally, is at the level of analogues in price.
Cayin N5 sound path
- LF . Detailed and “biting”. The bass is elastic, accurate and fast. True, there is not very much of it. They will most likely not be enough for bass lovers. Precise attacks and decays against the background of the overall restraint of the range provide a high-quality bass foundation for most compositions.
- MF . The mids are detailed, natural and musical. The work on the midrange is very pleasing. Excellent detail and natural presentation.
- HF . The upper range tends to be analytical and dry. On the one hand, the high frequencies seem somewhat simplified, but on the other hand, they give that same “air” to the music. Although not very much.
- Detail . On par with analogs in price. It’s good, you can hear everything or almost everything in the compositions. The player is very picky about recording quality. If there is “dirt” or mixing errors, you will hear everything.
- Scene . It does not shine with depth and breadth, but it is present. Of course, visualization of CIZ is largely a subjective matter. But in general, the separation of instruments is quite good, the images are tangible, but sometimes “are closer to each other” than we would like.
- General handwriting . The player produces smooth sound. He is not “dry” yet, but he is no longer clearly emotional. Analyticity is mainly imparted by the lows and highs, but the musical middle allows the Cayin N5 not to “cross the line” of accurate but uninteresting sound.
Cayin N5 in analysis
It is important to note that the sound changed noticeably in the first firmware . The manufacturer listened to the feedback from the owners and made adjustments to the presentation as much as the software allowed. The first problems, such as unnatural sounding in places and low intelligibility and separation of instruments, have been corrected. Now, apparently, the sound is satisfactory for most users, so there are no changes.
The Cayin N5, like most audiophile players, is better suited for live, moderately complex music. Vocal genres, jazz, blues, even classical music sound interesting and accurate on the player. With synthetic bass styles the situation is worse; there will be no necessary “quality” here.
If we talk about heavy styles, then progressive and technical metal can sound interesting . True, it’s a little dry. For pop music, hip-hop and similar genres, I would not recommend Hi-Fi players at all, and this one in particular.
Cayin N5 Hi-Fi player
The player also plays old rock and simple light metal very well. It’s not for nothing that the manufacturer positions his style as the sound of the 80s.
