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The Universe on the Head of a Needle – A Review of the Cayin N3

::Disclaimer::
Cayin provided the N3 free of charge for the purpose of my honest review, for good or ill.

The N3 sells for $149.96 MSRP
www.Cayin.cn
N3 on Amazon, available in three colors


When Cayin reached out to see if I wanted to be one of the first to get my hands on the N3, I said I wasn’t really interested. At this price point, I’ve never been especially impressed by what I heard, and I didn’t fancy taking on the obligation of reviewing something I’d rather not be listening to.

In the end, I agreed to take it in for a month, see if I even wanted to review it, and then send it on to the first of the North American review tour participants. If I liked it, I’d take it back at the end of the tour and do a Pinky Review.

I apologize for the lateness of this article. It was delayed for a long, long time at the last stop of the tour. But Pinky has it back now, and indeed I liked it enough to WANT to write about it.

So let’s get into that.

I like Cayin products. A lot. Right from the aesthetics, down to their sonic traits. I hope to one day get my hands on some of the desktop amps, as I am quite impressed with their DAPs. I was a big fan of the N5, and an even bigger fan of the i5, which you see in so many of my reviews. Their latest portable player is their smallest and cheapest yet.

The Cayin N3. Let’s be honest, it’s not much to look at. It possesses none of the striking aesthetics of their other products. You could chalk this up to not having much physical real estate to work with, due to how tiny the N3 is, but I was a little disappointed, nonetheless. With the exception of the leather backing. That’s pretty cool. I don’t know if I’ve seen that before. At the very least, you cannot call the player ugly. It does have a kind of sleekness which could be described as attractive. It may not be as unique as the N5, or as dead sexy as the i5, but it’s simplistic and nice enough.

The N3 is also very, very light. Noticeably more so than even the Shanling M2s, which is quite a lot smaller.

I do not love the capacitive touch buttons on the front. They can be fiendishly finicky, resulting in wrong or accidental presses. They require a level of caution you just don’t want to maintain while casually listening to music. Fortunately, the mechanical buttons on either side of the device work perfectly.

The UI is simple and easy to navigate, with no bugs I’ve encountered, using the latest firmware.

Like with the Shanling M2s, the Cayin N3 is tiny, inexpensive, and feature rich… to an insane degree. There is only one microSD slot and no internal storage, but quite a lot of driving power exists within, as well as native DSD, Apt-X Bluetooth streaming, and the marvelous ability to receive BT input. I’ve had no trouble connecting the N3 to the B&O H9, or the Klipsch X12 BT Neckband. Likewise, my Galaxy S6 paired easily to the Cayin, allowing me to steam from Smartphone to DAP.

Of course, the M2s wins out for me, because it has a volume wheel. You all know my obsession with those.

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ABOUT AUTHOR

Pinky Powers

Pinky Powers

Pinky is an artsy twat. Illustration, graphic design, writing. Yet music escapes him, and always has. He builds his own cables, and likes to explore the craftsmanship of others. He's a stabby one, also. At the first hint of annoyance, out comes the blade. I say he's compensating for something... in a big bad way. If we all try really hard as a collective, maybe we can have him put down.

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30 Responses

  1. Hi.

    When making connection between cayin n3 and pc desktop with windows 7 (cayin as dac), cayins window display shows “44 khz 24 bits”, but flac archive from pc is 192 khz 24 bits, why?

  2. I know this is a long dead chat, but you mention the N3 with the H9’s and I was wondering what your experience was like with that configuration. Trying to find my first and probably for a long time only DAP and the N3 seems very capable.

    Thanks

  3. I think that burn in of headphones is nonsense, never mind daps. The bass sounds THE same since first hour, but after several hours your brain got used to n3’s sound signature. That’s all

  4. That’s a complicated matter. I’ll try to explain:

    The X5III (going from memory) is clearly the more capable DAP. It renders fuller, and has better depth. It feels and sounds more robust and refined.

    However, my main complaint with the X5III is still present, even in this comparison. The dynamics are very low and the soundstage is rather small, and there simply isn’t a lot of air or atmosphere.

    The Cayin N3 also doesn’t have a great soundstage, or very much air. But it does seem to be more dynamic, which goes a long way in my book.

    The reason I’m impressed by the N3 and disappointing by the X5III is because of price:performance ratio. The N3 sounds pretty damn good for the price, whereas the X5III does not.

  5. In your estimate is the N3 better than X5III sonically? I am asking because x5iii costs much more and is a dual dac

  6. Interesting review, I use the N3 with the Dorado. I use the eq to lower the 100 -200 range as well as a slight boost in the upper midrange and it seems to make a huge difference with these IEM’s

  7. Haha! Thats nice! Awesome! Now I really know what to buy but, …
    ” Good things happen for those who wait”

    Oriveti will be releasing their new product in December, same price as the sage for $600.

    I will be waiting your review of that new product of theirs. Please do a comparison as well 🙂

    Thanks!

  8. Your comment got me curious, and I just tried Sage with M3s. And now, I can’t quit listening. Sage sounds oh so sweet on this player.

    M3s>EA Ares II>Sage is remarkably good.

  9. Awesome! I will just really wait for the m3s based on the statements in headfi. Very smooth you say? Fit for my liking as I will be pairing it with the noble Sage to it.

    Thanks for your help!

  10. Awesome! I will just really wait for the m3s based on the statements in headfi. Very smooth you say? Fit for my liking as I will be pairing it with the noble Sage to it.

    Thanks!

  11. The M3s is kind of laid-back and very smooth, but not all that warm-sounding. It’s much closer to neutral than the N3 or X5iii. Still a ways away from what I’d call bright, though. In fact, it it may indeed contain just a hint of warmth. But I haven’t analyzed it that thoroughly yet.

    I don’t know what the Hindizs sounds like, so I can’t say which would suit you better.

    If you are worried the M3s is not warm enough, I can suggest the M2s or N3 easily.

  12. Hi Pinky!

    I am currently in a dilemma at the moment.

    I am planning to get the Hidizs AP200 but because of the Shanling M3s, I do not know what to get.

    I like warm sounding, laid back experience.
    just a question since the m3s has been mentioned here.

    THANKS! 🙂

  13. Hi, thanks for the reply. The M3s is almost double the price of the N3, so it is out of my budget but if N3 can compete with X5iii, I think in $150 price point nothing can beat this little beast atm.

  14. I have not heard the X5 2nd Gen. But I owned the 1st Gen, and reviewed the 3rd Gen. I like the N3 over both of those.

    But I have the Shanling M3s in for review now, and I like that sound even over the Cayin N3. It has that something special that really pleases my ears.

  15. In total it was around 16 to 20 hours. It improved the dynamics, extension and power of the bass. Now if I consider myself a believer of burn in.

  16. Ok, now I’m listening to a great dynamics. The bass now hits hard and spreads much more. Definitely the burn in on this device yes it is necessary. Thanks!

  17. Thanks for sharing your experience. I think it sounds very clean and detailed but it makes me anxious that the bass is so soft. The iphone 5s feel like it hits harder. And the headphones I have are Urbanite and Oriveti Basic (Bass monsters). We will see what happens in the next few days.

  18. I can’t say. When mine was burning it, I just left it on, running pink noise through some IEMs for a week or so straight. I didn’t stop it, and listen every day to check. So you may not need to run it that long, but I can’t say for sure.

    If I were you, I’d just use it normally during the day, and at night, put it on the charger, playing your music. Then start using it again the next day. Repeat as necessary. Should start to sound better before too long.

    As you can imagine, there’s plenty of debate over the validity of burn-in. All I can do is share my own experiences, and hope it helps.

  19. Got to love Mr Powers..
    2 years ago didn’t know what a DAC was, now he writes fluent “audiophile” with all the flowery prose that one comes to expect. ????????
    All complete bollocks of course, these DAPs all sound pretty much the same, everything else is expectation bias and placebo, but Pinky manages to extract his opinion based on price as so often happens, and keeps audiophiles entertained with his seemingly educated waffling.
    Good stuff!

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