woah what a departure aesthetic wise, looks cool
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looks like different finish for the shell, 2 extra ba drivers, updates to the internal structure and crossover and a new eletech cable
if you ask me this is probably a precursor to a new TOTL from MMR as the thummim has been out of production for a little while now I believe… one last hurrah i guess
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That looks pretty hot ngl. I wonder where it’s gonna fit pricing-wise…
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Yes. They arw calling it a “baby wa33”. That said, see as it cant be push pull (unless its maybe se internaly?) I wonder just how close the signature will be.
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Well the form factor is much nicer for a desk lol. And yeah wonder if it’s a set amp now. I am more concerned about pricing, because that case design looks like it could be expensive lol
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They havent said anything about pricing but I would have to guess it will be like 5-6k dead base and then go up who knows how far (certainly much past a base wa33 if I had to guess)
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• Dual ROHM BD34301EKV DAC, 32Bit/768kHz, DSD512
• Balanced tube amplification, matched paired KORG Nutube 6P1
• Fully-discrete fully-balanced headphone amplifier
• Dual Amplification Mode (Choice of Class A/Class AB)
• Dual Output Mode: P (Standard) and P+ (High Power) mode
• High quality 3.5mm and 4.4mm Line Out
• Snapdragon 660, 6G RAM, 128G Internal, 1xTF card (upto 1TB)
• Android 9, Google Player preinstalled, streaming ready
• DTA bypass Android SRC, Hi-Res playback with all applications
- Dual DAC Architecture
The N8ii is designed around a pair of ROHM BD34301EKV 32Bit current mode DAC chipset. The DAC chipset was announced back in February 2021, a perfect timing to rescue our AKM based project. The AKM fire was one of the hardest hit to our industry and Cayin started to look for new DAC solution almost immediately. At the time of writing, this DAC chipset has never been used by any portable DAP so the N8ii might well be the first modern DAP with ROHM DAC chipset. We are aware of LUXMAN’s SACD player project but we are basically working under the same time frame, our engineers have spend a lot of resource to learn, experiment and find tune the supporting system of this new DAC chipset from scratch. We are truly satisfied with the result so far, and we are looking forward to share our ROHM development with our users.
- Fully-Balanced Dual Timbre
Our Vacuum Tube/Solid State Dual Timber feature shook the world back in May 2018. We solved the microphonic problem with innovative techniques and for the first time, facilitates choice of vacuum tube and solid state timbre in a portable DAP. Unfortunately we can only install one Nutube 6P1 in our N8, so the vacuum tube is only available to Single-end headphone output. We received loads of comment and request to make the vacuum tube timbre available to balanced output as well, and we have explained repeatedly that the Nutube 6P1 is a double Triode tube by design, it can used as left and right channel of stereo amplification, we cannot achieve true balanced amplification with only one Nutube 6P1.
Naturally, when we start our N8ii project, one of the priority requirements is to upgrade the Dual Timber feature to support balanced output. The Dual Nutube implementation in N8ii is even more challenging than C9 because we have to take care of a 5" OLED screen at the same time, so we have to be very innovative in circuit and component placement in order to accommodate everything in a compact hand-held solution.
- Fully-discrete Dual Output Mode
This is a unique feature that only available in N8. We alter the operation voltage of headphone amplification to increase output power, handling capability and sound signature of the circuit and allow users to choose between standard P mode and High Output P+ mode through a pull down menu. We’ll keep this feature in N8ii and better still, we upgraded the headphone amplification circuit to fully-discrete design. As a result of that, the P+ mode in N8ii will offers more dramatic different from the standard P mode.
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Mmm dual timbre. “More timbre” for us timbre lovers
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Lots of older publications and especially eastern ones use timbre to refer to like non FR based tonality. So yku can end up with warm/dry/airy/etc timbre
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I see some peeople selling their cayin n8 to get the new version
They must be looking for the dual timbre
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Sennheiser ie 600! I quite enjoy the ie 900 (on the right pairing), so it’s good to see them update their iem line accordingly. They look like the finish of the genelec speakers with the unfinished, rough look to it.
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Kerry from headcase is starting an audio company and will be releasing a “mini T2” shortly. Specs are as follows:
Eksonic Aeras - 5,995 Euro/6,695 USD
- Input: XLR – Accepts balanced or single-ended (with grounded RCA to XLR cable)
- Input Impedance: 50K x2
- Gain: 1000x
- Frequency Response: 1Hz – 60KHz
- Max P-P Voltage: 1500VAC
- Max RMS Voltage: 1000VAC
- Output: Stax Pro-Bias x1
- Vacuum Tubes: 6S4A x4
- Power Consumption: 100W
- External Dimensions: 19 cm x 34.3 cm x 24.2 cm (7.5” x 13.5” x 5.6”) – W x D x H
- Weight: 5.5 Kg (12 lbs)
- Mains AC: 115/230VAC Switchable
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The vents on top not being the same width is unnerving me
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Might end up buying that box, although I’m somewhat hesitant because I don’t really know if putting another transformer in front of the headphones will really be beneficial for most of my headphones, don’t know until I try though lol. I’d mainly be buying this for my more sensitive cans like the mysphere and the utopia though, and I don’t think it would be disappointing since it’s from air tight
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Mojo audio apparent discontinued the evo lineup and has a new ‘x’ series of dacs that are now 9x4x16" instead of full sized. Anyone know much about these yet?
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I saw that some months ago, but I’m a bit skeptical on what they are doing. They are targeting better bang for buck, but if you look at the inside it’s a bit of a downgrade as they’ve made some sacrifices to meet that new lower price point and smaller size. They say it’s almost as good as the outgoing models, but by how much I would have no idea until I hear one
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I always enjoy Thomas’ reviews… Also another thread here asked about the importance of pre-amps and Thomas hits that topic pretty clearly here.
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Didn’t realize these came out
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ZMF is releasing a new headphone! The Atrium, same price as Verite Open and Closed. I would love to hear about it once its released (in the next few weeks he said) Also apparently they found a way to have the drivers sit further (possibly increasing soundstage) while still having good impact so that’s interesting.
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Interesting, I thought they were going with the budget closed-back first…guess not.
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