Picture Sunday – Cayin N8

Disclaimer: The star of this weeks’ picture Sunday is the  Cayin N8 portable player. This post is a part of our Picture Sunday series.

Only a week or two ago, Cayin launched a brand new top of the line portable player – called the N8 – at the high-End show in Munich. Find the report here.

Taking into account that Cayin’s latest players, the little N3 and the sublime N5ii, were so good, everyone’s hopes for the new N8 are very high. The N8 is brand new and designed from scratch, and with it’s specs, design and price, the N8 aims to join the Sony WM1Z, Astell&Kern SP1000, Lotoo Paw Gold (Touch) and Luxury & Pprecision L6 – just to name a few – as ultimate DAP.

The Cayin N8 DAP comes with a with a Balanced Solid Stated output stage as well as a single ended Triode Vacuum Tube Output (Nutube). It features two AKM AK4497EQ DAC chipsets and can natively decode up to DSD512 and 64 Bit/ 768kHz. The Cayin N8 offers six input and output options so that you can integrate the DAP into your home audio system flexibly.

Design wise it of course if very personal if you like the N8 design or not. I have to say it looked very impressive in real and it at least is very unique. The main N8 chassis is CNC out of a single piece of stainless steel and the rear panel is a specially molded 3D toughened Gorilla glass with AF and DLC coating.

Specifications

We should be getting a unit as the first production units are available. Till then we’ll have to do with these pictures of this uniquely designed portable player.

But looking at all the specs and after playing it a little bit at the show, the N8 seems to have everything to joining the select group of TOTL – price no object – DAPs. Even the set of accessories is impressive.

Full review on Headfonia as soon as samples are available!