Cayin RU6 USB DAC Headphone Amplifier

Product Information

I cannot give description how the RU-6 matches the 100s of iems from my collection but I will do short descriptions with some favorite of mine iems from the last 15 years: The RU6 always sounds full bodied but it’s not overly heavy. At the same time, I would not recommend using it with overly warm and bassy IEMs. The low end is already very present, and it doesn’t need an extra boost. Soundstage-wise the RU6 scores well in both width and depth and especially the mid layering here is remarkable. Blon-03 - RU-6 enhances the natural replay of the iem and shows that it deserves a better iem wink:

Cayin has equipped the RU7 with a fully-balanced resistors network discrete 1-bit DAC for pure DSD decoding support on the go. It’s the first dongle to feature a 1-bit resistor network resistor network. The RU7 also has an All-to-DSD function upscaling your music to the DSD level. The RU7 supports PCM up to 384kHz and native DSD from DSD64 to DSD256.Wanting to dislike it, I started with Goldfinger. Unfortunately what I heard was good! First, it feels solid in hand. I’m sure we are not talking about the difference between a Gungnir and a Yggdrasil, where the internal parts contribute to weight of the product. But it feels more desktop stable than the other dongles. Second, there was a subtle but audible difference between it and the other iFi. It had less of the etch, this-is-mobile sound. More of the original recorded sound comes through with less penalty, the bad audible crud that makes me turn-it-down and lessens my immersion into the music. Truth be told, I did not have time during my trip to listen - so all listening was done in just a few hours before and the weekend after travel. But the point at the end of long work days on travel is to forget the work and chill, and to recover for the next day. This one hit the mark. Voices and acoustic instruments are heard organic with natural overtones and plenty of harmonic wealth, a wonderful combination which leads to an engaging and authentic listening experience. I'm not an IEM guy, so I basically ran through the headphone stands against all four units at least for a few minutes before settling into evaluation mode. Obviously throwing every headphone I had into a detailed accounting would have taken way longer than my allotment, but all four units seemed to manage everything I threw at them: HD280, HD558, HD650, HE5XX, OG Clear, even Atrium. Eventually I landed on the HD280 (v2016) for testing, as it's probably the most flat headphone in my kit right now. The imaging on the RU7 is more dynamic in its arrangement, especially with the Ronin which really welcomes anything that can fill its superlative width and generally intricate staging quality. 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):

I bought and received Cayin's RU6 shortly after I got the FiiO M11 Plus LTD. Compared to the M11 Plus LTD, the RU6 set in NOS breathes a bit more, has a bigger soundstage and is overall more organic and effortless. The RU-6 also pairs very well with the Burson Soloist 3X and the TEAC HA-501 enhancing the natural replay of the first and the musicality of the second and paired with these two gives me same but also a bit different enjoyment vs the Mytek Liberty DAC.I only used the Moondrop Kato DD IEM for impressions from an iPhone 13. I didn't use any other IEM or any other sources. 3.5mm output only. Sony XBA-A2 - a great pair, RU-6 controls the XBA-A2's bass very well, increases sound staging and vocals enjoyment; The percentage scored by RU6 is truly mind blowing. Comparing this against Luxury & Precision W2, that W2 only managed to score 70% (with Fostex T40RP MK3) at the very best. Clearly RU6 is a much better device for hard to drive partners.