HiBy R6 III 2025

Intro: Hello everyone, today I am going to review the Hiby R6 Gen III 2025 DAP, which is refresh of the Hiby R6 Gen III from 2024. Hiby has made an interesting choice here instead of upgrading the model to R6 Gen IV they made some small refinements and refreshed their earlier model, key changes being the move to quad CS43198 chips from the dual ES9038Q2M dac’s and also upgrading the back panel with a diamond-patterned glass design.

The new R6 Gen III DAP comes in black and silver colors and priced around $440. Last year’s model was priced around $500 +, although later discounted to $399 due to the release of the R4 model which was undercutting it.


Specifications: I find it extremely boring to discuss the specifications of products, especially when all of the information is available in details online. You can find out the specifications of Hiby R6 Gen III 2025 here:

https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-r6-iii-2025



Disclaimer: Hiby has sent me this unit for free of cost for review purpose. Although I have bought many Hiby products with my own money, for example the Hiby R4 Evangelion Edition, Hiby R5 Saber, Hiby R6 Gen III (2024). If you are of the opinion that getting this free sample makes my review biased or I am hyping it for personal gain, then please feel free to ignore my review and read one where the reviewer has actually paid for their unit. I honestly don’t mind.





Unboxing

You get the following items while unboxing this DAP:

• 1 x HiBy R6 III 2025 Digital Audio Player
• 1 x USB-A to USB Type-C cable (for file transfer and charging)
• 3 x PVC screen protectors (2 pre-installed on front and back)
• 1 x Protective silicone case
• 1 x User manual
• 1 x Warranty card

The TPU case isn’t as bad as last year’s, it doesn’t get scratched as easily and also fits the device better. I would also appreciate if Hiby had included a charger in the box.







Things that worked for me:

• The quad Cirrus Logic CS43198 chips produces a more natural and pleasing tonality. It has a warmer and more musical character.
• The midrange doesn’t sound veiled it maintains good clarity and transparency. Vocals come out as they should without added coloration.
• The upper-midrange is boosted though, making the vocals stand out more compared to the rest of the mix.
• The bass is slightly boosted, this dap adds some additional extension while maintain a tight and well-controlled feel.
• The treble is smooth and fatigue free, it has the ability to tame the highs of a peaky or harsh sounding IEM.
• R6 Gen III 2025 offers a more natural sounding timbre for instruments, it doesn’t have the digital sounding Sabre glare issue in it’s timbre like last year’s model.
• The OS is smooth and lag-free thanks to the Snapdragon 665 CPU inside and 4 gigs of RAM.
• With the help of plugins like Sound-filed and Convulsion you can improve the soundstage and imaging performance.
• It’s possible to further fine tune the sound as per your own liking with features like MSEB and PEQ. MSEB is Hiby’s take on EQ with a simpler approach for basic users and beginners.
• This DAP has good connectivity with fast Wi-fi speeds for streaming. It offers Bluetooth codecs like UAT, LDAC, aptX HD, aptX, AAC, and SBC. It can function both as transmitter and as receiver.
• Battery life is good with Class AB mode I can get somewhere between 11 to 12 hours of playback on a single charge. Switching to Class A reduced this to a maximum of 8 hours!
• With a large 64 storage you don’t need to buy a SD card immediately, especially if you don’t have a very huge offline playlist.

Things that didn’t work for me:

• I get that this is a refresh but honestly that same dim 720p display from last year doesn’t cut it in 2025! Hiby seriously should invest in better quality displays with higher resolutions, honestly, I wouldn’t mind paying a little bit extra for it.
• While I love the new back panel with a diamond-patterned glass design, the fornt of the device feels very dated. Hiby has been using this same front panel with thick-ass bezels for a while now and it’s getting annoying.
• The technicalities of this DAP isn’t very great, the soundstage is on the narrower side and the resolution is just about average. It doesn’t extract a lot of information or details from tracks.
• Class A amplification still barely makes any noticeable difference, the sound seems a bit more organic and warmer when you switch to Class A and that’s about it.
• 405mW power output from a quad Cirrus Logic CS43198 chip setup is pretty poor. Even Hiby’s own entry level R4 DAP has 500+ mW power.
• The small volume wheel on the top is pretty inaccessible, I wish Hiby could come up wih a newer design with slimmer bezels and a volume wheel on the side rather than on top.

Comparisons

Vs the Hiby R4 Evangelion Edition:

The R6 Gen 3 2025 editions definitely feels like the more premium design when it comes to design and build quality. The R4 is made out of aluminum while the R6 is a mixture of glass and aluminum, the R4 has more refreshing cyberpunk design while the R6 maintains a more industrial look. The R4 has smaller display with even thicker bezels. Quality wise both display’s feel the same with a 720 display and both are on the dimmer side. To be honest, battery life, OS, CPU, RAM, battery life Storage sound quality everything is similar between these two devices. The only notable difference is sound quality is that the R6 gen 3 2025 has more forward upper-midrange, slightly better resolution and a more spacious soundstage.



Vs Shanling M5 Ultra:

The major differences between these two devices is that the Shanling M5 Ultra is mostly an offline device with a non-android OS with only support for Tidal. The R6 Gen III 2025 on the other hand is a full-fledged Androlid device with support for all streaming apps. The M5 Ultra has a smaller but much brighter display compared to the R6, resolution is the same on both but the M5 Ultra produces sharper texts. Sound wise the M5 Ultra is warmer with a thicker sounding and more emotional vocals. M5 Ultra has bigger and bolder bass compared to the R6. Treble is more rolled off on the M5 Ultra, both have a narrow soundstage though. Although the M5 Ultra has better resolution and detail retrieval. The M5 Ultra has a vastly superior 1.1-watt power output from its 4.4mm balanced port and 315 mW from it’s 3.5 mm port. The M5 Ultra doesn’t have any built-in storage like the R6 Gen III 2025, rather it solely relies on a micro-sd card for storage. Battery life backup is about the same between these two.

The M5 Ultra is clearly the superior DAP is terms of sound quality, design, display and power output but if streaming is your main priority especially from apps other than Tidal than Hiby R6 Gen III 2025 might be better suited to your needs.







Conclusion

One of the major contradictions of the Hiby R6 Gen III is its Class A amplification. In order to fully experience the benefits of Class-A you will need to pair with a headphone and not an IEM and yet the R6 Gen III doesn’t have enough output power to drive majority of headphones to their full potential. I think Hiby should have spent that extra budget of Class-A amp on the R6 Gen III 2025’s display and design. Or alternatively they should have provided better output power.

That being said, I think this a perfect all-rounder device especially if you are mainly an IEM user like me. I am pretty happy the sound quality I am getting from my R6 DAP and that’s the main thing I look for in my daily driver anyway. And the price to performance ratio of the Hiby R6 Gen III 2025 is pretty good as well considering other brands mid-fi DAP’s cost $500+.