Cayin Announces Firmware 3.0 For N8

Cayin’s pretty crazy-lookin’ N8 was the first (and possibly still is) portable player to feature built-in Nutube technology from Korg. However, the device still lacked MQA compatibility, which is what firmware 3.0 addresses, amongst other features.

According to Cayin, firmware 3.0 features the following new features an optomizations:

1. MQA audio playback capability
2. Top status bar of Now Playing screen to display ‘MQA’ or ‘MQA Studio’ to indicate that the product is decoding and playing an MQA file, and denotes provenance to ensure that the sound is identical to that of the source material. ‘MQA Studio’ indicates it is playing an MQA Studio file, which has either been approved in the studio by the artist/producer or has been verified by the copyright owner.
3. The multi-color smart LED glows blue to indicate that the unit is decoding and playing an MQA file (sample rates from 44.1 to 352.8kHz).
4. Modify volume control setting to ensure the player will remain silent at 4.4 balanced phone out when volume is set to zero.
5. Other Bug fix and optimizations

The update can be installed manually or over-the-air. For the OTA update, simply follow these steps:

1. Connect N8 to an Internet ready WiFi connection
2. Make sure your N8 internal memory has at least 100MB available storage
3. Select System upgrade from System Setup menu, when prompted by the system, select “OTA upgrade”.  The player will detect if there is a new firmware available.
4. If a new firmware is available, the player will display “Found new firmware XXX” at the top of the screen, select Download to proceed.
5. At the end of the download process, the system will prompt you to confirm “Update firmware now?” Selecting “OK ” to proceed.
6. The system will start the firmware upgrade immediately, you can monitor the process through the firmware upgrade screen.
7. The player will reboot into main menu when the firmware upgrade is completed. Please verify the firmware version number which is displayed under “About” option of pull down menu.

PS. OTA firmware upgrade is only available if your N8 has installed v2.5 firmware already. If you are using a different firmware right now, you need to upgrade through local upgrade procedure.

For the manual/local update, follow these steps:

1. Download the latest firmware upgrade package.
2. Decompress the zip file and extract the N8 firmware file (n8.upt)
3. Copy N8 firmware file into the root directory of N8 internal memory or TF card, insert the TF card into N8 before you proceed to next step.
4. Select System upgrade from System Setup menu, when prompted by the system, select “update via micro SD card”.  You will be asked to confirm your selection, select OK to proceed.
5. The system will start the firmware upgrade immediately, you can monitor the process through the Updater progress bar.
6. The player will reboot into main menu when the firmware upgrade is completed. Please verify the firmware version number which is displayed under “About” option of pull down menu.