Cayin RU6 USB DAC Headphone Amplifier

Product Information

R-2R DAC circuit is very demanding on incoming data integrity, the digital volume The DAC itself is power efficient so you don't have to worry about draining the host device battery. The RU6 is the first portable USB DAC/Amp from Cayin. The reason why they got into the dongle market – according to Cayin – is because they were not satisfied with the highly integrated off-the-shelf solutions available out there. By the time Cayin completed the R01 Audio Motherboard for the N6ii DAP, they noticed that the R-2R resistor ladder network could be implemented as a low power consumption DAC circuit that offers outstanding audio performance. Most USB DAC/Amps will rely on the volume control of your mobile phone to control the volume of the headphone output. As for the presentation of the three major sound frequencies, Mids, Treble and Bass. I would say that being natural RU6 does not color the sound spectrum. A great source should always strive to be transparent and natural. What this means, when I use a specific listening device I expect it to sound as it is. With sound extensions, resolution, textures and details presented in the most truthful way. That being said, I am assuredly happy with the quality of RU6 dynamic range handling. Treble sounded realistic as it is naturally vibrant, Mids as rich as the listening device capable of emitting, Bass having visceral density which is real and engaging. Details and textures present as how they should be.

It’s a huge contrast also to the discrete resistor network array or 1-BIT DAC inside the RU7 with all digital audio signals being upsampled via an SRC multibit converter before being decoded into an analog signal. One secret behind making the RU6 so small and light, without, according to the manufacturer, sacrificing sound quality, is the principle of digital conversion. Called R-2R, the principle converts the digital signal using small resistors in the circuit: one pair of resistors for each bit of dynamic range in the signal, for a total of 24 pairs.In the end, there was no free lunch - just gratefulness to be immersed in some unique sound for a few hours. Hopefully highlighting some deltas is all I can try here. I know for myself, Goldfinger had me reaching for the next song on play (and having been gone a week as I first wrote this, was a sound I would miss): There can be arguments for the RU6’s different approach and I would say the RU7 should not be seen as a direct replacement or even an ‘upgrade’ such are the differences in their tonal emphasis. However, if you are aiming to buy just one of the Cayin dongles to do it all then the RU7 would get my vote.

I rather enjoyed the Gold from an overall listening experience, although after seeing pricing I'm not sure it is above and beyond better enough to justify its price being 50% more than the Go, and the metal stamping bit pretty much seals the deal for me. This was one instance I was glad I took notes prior to seeing the dollar amounts though. At the same time, technicalities are good and close enough to D/S performance but not in the same ballpark as top D/S performers like the FiiO KA3. Digital filter-less, no post-processing, optimised in time domain, low phase distortion and jitter, no ringing artefact. However, it’s not as tight sounding or as revealing so, once you move through the mids and highs, the RU7 is the more resolving of the two dongles.

Cayin RU6

Using a USB-driver-controlled volume adjustment relies a lot on the capability of the OS on any paired platform and in some cases the results are very uneven in terms of being able to control volume on the M15. The RU7’s volume control, on the other hand, is excellent with 99 steps giving you ample headroom for micro-adjustments. Lately Cayin has strongly been focusing on the portable market as well with successful units such as t he N5ii, the N3, the N6II, the C9 and the reference N8. If you’re still interested in finding out more about the Chinese company, then you can do so here. There is a different emphasis in the design approach regarding temperature and precision tolerance being much more exacting for R-2R compared to 1-BIT which switches its focus more on noise shaping and achieving a clean power supply.

The Ronin has a warmer character but also a flatter bass response. The RU7’s beefier sub-bass tuning gave this pairing a bit more heft and a solid bass fundamental compared to the RU6. Serial to Parallel Shift Register: convert serial data signal to parallel data signal and transmit to DAC circuit The details design is incurred from the R01 Audio Motherboard including the R and 2R value (5.1kΩ and 10.2kΩrespectively). Unfortunately, Cayin can’t afford to use the same high precision resistors, so they went down one step and adopted high precision low TCR Thin Film Resistors rated at ±0.1% (or ±0.001 or ±1/1,000).

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But we should point out a few things that the FC6 leads with. The most important of which is that its discrete circuit is a single-ended design as opposed to the RU7’s balanced circuit. I will be editing, but this is what I have thus far... sorry for the literal cut-and-paste from my "edit" space. In contrast the KA3 is more extended, faster, with increased clarity and more detailed presentation but it sounds somewhat leaner while it can't touch the naturalness and physicality of the RU6. The RU6 is a scaled-down implementation of the R-2R resistor ladder network DAC from R01 Audio Motherboards. I don't have a lot of information at this stage but I'll update the thread and the first post regularly until we have the complete product announcement clarify all the details to our users. This is what I can share at this moment: The RU7 seems to have the edge here in SE mode but has a much larger advantage going balanced at up to 400mW into the same load. Of the two, the RU7 is going to offer more headroom for less efficient gear.

The Questyle M15 was launched by the company in mid-2022 and is a continuation of the technology on a grander scale first seen in the smaller M12. You can read our full review of the M15 here. Technical When in non-oversampling mode (NOS), the RU6 maintains the original sample rate of the source bitstream, so there’s no post-processing. According to Cayin, this reduces jitter, low phase distortion and ringing artefacts. This is RU6 in its most musical and analogue form, much akin to traditional tube amplifiers. Certainly the more “pasticy” sounding out of the bunch. More closed off and all the instruments seem to be made out of plastic with this kind of low end puch going on. It is also the hazyiest of all 4 of these. Unfortunately the possible hissing due to EMI interference would not allow for the full rating and is forcing a half star deduction. Shanling UA5: Out of the four dongles, the UA5 is my least favorite sounding wise, but my favorite on I/O and smart features. I really like the knob for volume control and to control different settings on the UA5. It is smart to have a battery setting (since UA5 has a built in battery) where you can have the UA5 run only via its battery (and not taking power from your iPhone. If you had other Shanling devices you can control DAC output to Single/Dual, Gain, SPDIF out and screen settings.Resistor Array volume control is not a new technology, it has been around for a very long time. They are very high-quality volume control designs, extremely transparent when implemented correctly and you can find them in a lot of high-end preamps and integrated amplifiers. Each segment of the resistor array can only provide ~10 steps of volume control, this is not enough in real-life applications, so you need to "hop" to another set of resistor arrays for another 10 steps, and so on, and so on. Resistor Array volume control features a very high-quality volume control design, extremely transparent when implemented correctly and it is found in a lot of high-end preamps and integrated amplifiers. It was also the only one out of the four that responded to the volume control on the iPhone. For whatever that is worth. The other three, it did not matter.