HiBy R6

Introduction: Hiby Music, a company that for years has been designing a music player app for phones and a full player platform for DAPs, one day decided that it would breach the software-hardware demarcations and build its own music player, this project is 2 years in the making and is now about done with the crowd funding campaign and is almost ready to take the world by storm. This is the Hiby R6, “The Most Advanced Android Hi-Fi Player” let’s see what Hiby has managed to bring to the table with their first offering that is served right in the "sweet spot" of the mid range market at $569 for aluminum and $649 for the Stainless Steel.


Specifications:
Dual ESS ES9028Q2M DACs
Dual OPA1612 and Dual TPA6120 Amps
32-bit/384kHz format support & Native DSD
Snapdragon 425 Processor (4x1.4gHz)
3GB RAM (DDR3) and 32GB Storage
Expandable for up to 2TB (tested on 400GB)
Dual-Band Wifi (2.4G/5G)
Bluetooth 4.0 with apt-X
Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
DTA (Direct Transport Architecture)
Bit-perfect output (bypassing Android SRC)
4.2 inch 300dpi 768X1280 Touchscreen
Arc-shaped 316L High-impact Stainless Steel CNC Body
Supports Line out and coaxial digital output
4000Mah Battery (with 12 hour battery life)
3.5mm, 2.5mm and line-out/coax outputs
USB-C with Quick Charge 3.0
USB DAC functionality and transport






Packaging: The Hiby R6 comes in a black cardboard box reminiscent of boxes for most modern mobile phones. The box is sturdy with the Hiby logo embossed on the front and the R6 specifications printed on in the back. Opening the box reveals the player packaged in soft plastic in a foam carrier, and underneath it you would find the rest of the accessories, and literature like instruction manual and warranty card. Everything is packaged nicely and most of the things are wrapped in soft plastic to avoid scuffs or scratches in transport.



Accessories: The base R6 has a few basic bundled items, a pin ejector for the Micro SD card, a USB A to USB C charging cable, the cable is black and sheathed in fabric but remains pliable and the connectors are quite sturdy, a line out cable, thicker but like the USB cable it’s sheathed in fabric and retains a nice flexibility with quality connectors. There are also 2 screen protectors one is tempered glass and the other is standard plastic, though Hiby says the R6 comes pre-applied with a screen protector at the factory, so you have 2 spares. Finally, there is a simple jelly style silicone case that while simple fits the unit well and does its job in protecting the player from scuffs and scratches; though a leather case is available as an add on option. Something to note though is that due to the curved nature of the screen borders the screen protectors will never fill the glass front completely.



Build Quality: I chose the grey aluminum variant as I preferred aluminums light weight over stainless steel. The R6 body is the familiar glass-metal-glass sandwich that has become the norm for mobile phones in the last few years, albeit a little thicker. The front houses a 4.2-inch 1280 x 768 screen, topped of with 2.5D curved glass and minimal bezels. Right underneath the screen is an aluminum chin with the Hiby logo and a Hi-Res sticker. Moving on the sides of the unit we have 3 ports on the top, a 3.5mm line out port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and a 2.5mm 4 pole balanced port. On the left-hand side, we have 2 volume buttons and the location of the lone Micro SD slot. On the right is where you will find the power button and status LED, forward backward and play-pause buttons as well. Finally, on the bottom you will find the USB C port. On the back is a full black backed glass panel with the Hiby logo and device information, much like most phones you’d see today.





Build quality of the R6 spans from good to great, where the front and back glass meet the chassis you will find close to no gaps and smooth transition and curves at the corners of the screen. The main part of the chassis sports smooth aluminum machining highlighted especially in the top and bottom areas where the aluminum body curves inward to give some relief space for the ports and the port cutouts themselves showing very smooth cutouts for both the USB and analogue ports. The buttons all feel good with nice tactile feedback though the buttons have slight wobble in their default position.





Screen: The Hiby R6’s 4.2inch screen is quite simply a delight. At its size and resolution, it hits the ~300DPI sweet spot for most handheld devices for a smooth viewing experience. Resolution however is only one part of the story, the screen boasts wonderful color response, and black levels leading it to being one of the best screens on a DAP I have seen, even more so in this price range, rivaled only by the Pioneer/Onkyo DAPs. There isn’t much backlight bleed to speak of, and while it only has average peak brightness it manages good sunlight legibility and fantastic color visuals, although it has a slight warm cast. This high-quality screen renders album art and the navigation beautifully and, in a pinch, will do perfectly fine for watching streamed video so long as the size is no issue.





UI: One of the biggest selling points of the Hiby R6 was both it’s Snapdragon 425 SoC and the 3GB of ram it has packed in. That combo and the software work Hiby has done under the hood has lead to the absolute smoothest UI I have ever used in an Android DAP. Navigation through the familiar android UI is effortless, lag and stutter free in almost all regular usage scenarios whether it is swiping through menus and screens, switching apps, or pulling down the main tray. It can also handle the bevy of day to day apps we can use from social media like Facebook and Twitter to YouTube and Spotify it handles them with relative ease even with multiple aps running multitasked. All told the Hiby boasts performance that while not on par with 2018 flagship phones which cost nearly double its price, it’s still miles ahead other DAPs and should be the benchmark for mid and high-end DAPs from here on out.




Android Implementation: Hiby decided to go with an open Android 6 implementation on the R6 this giving user the ability to access the Google Play Store and the opportunity to download each and every app under the sun without the need to sideload apps and offering that extra bit of security getting your APKs from a more trusted source entail. There are other DAPs that do this however, so what sets the R6 apart is what Hiby calls DTA or Direct Transport Audio, the reason being that Android natively has what is called SRC or Sample Rate Conversion, essentially this means that audio coming out of an Android device gets resampled to 48kHz, either resampling 44.1kHz audio or downsampling higher sample rates, so this renders open Android platforms moot right?


Well most manufacturers get around this by getting their built-in player to bypass the SRC or having dual boot functionality with pure audio modes being available. What Hiby did was something different, they managed to bypass SRC on a wider near system wide scale, meaning whatever audio you’re playing from almost all apps comes out at native sample rates. So, what does this mean for end users? Well DTA plus the open platform gives users unrivaled flexibility in using the R6 not only unlocking its use with current and possibly future Hi-Res streaming platforms, but to also give the user their pick in app, you’re not stuck with the Hiby player if it’s not your cup of tea, the HiFi player apps out there are now yours to access and make the most use of. This freedom of choice is refreshing in the DAP market, and quite surprising coming from Hiby since they pride themselves in their player.



Hiby Music App: The stock audio player pre-installed with the R6 is feature rich, with some features being unique to the R6, while suffering from certain bugs that while not something rendering the app unusable is present enough to take note of. First let’s talk about the basic features, the Hiby Music app has the usual selection of sorting via song title, memory folder, album, artist, as well as genre, these are all about as expected though when using the artist tab, it’s noteworthy that you always default to alphabetical list of all the songs, an option to default to the album selection within the artist would be nice. Once you’re playing music you get a nice screen with the album art, the forward and back, play pause, and the Hiby special circular progress bar. Aside from that the song info is displayed, shuffle and repeat options shown and an option to pull a quick tab for the rest of the songs in the playlist. Swiping to the right once brings you a lyric pane and twice a full file info pane, there is also a 10-band equalizer with the usual presets.


Now for the interesting bit, what Hiby calls Mage Sound Eight Ball or MSEB and its really interesting software tweak that instead of an EQ that classifies by frequencies classifies items into sounds you want to accentuate or attenuate, dark vs bright tonality, bass extension, texture, sibilance, etc. that really provides a different way to fine tune the sound and for those who are into EQ and other DSP tweaks, this is a cool idea with a great implementation. As for the downsides of the app, the software in charge of obtaining lyrics and album art online is unreliable at best, sometimes getting me art where I can’t seem to find any real connection to the album or artist in question. And another album art problem is that the app can fail to pick up on album art that is already stored in the folder. A firmware update has mitigated but not totally eliminated this issue.



Sound: The sound of the Hiby R6 has a duality in it. I’ll discuss more about on it below, but a short version is that due to the relatively high output impedance the R6 has, devices sensitive to this will have an altered sound, usually a reduction in the bass region making the overall signature of IEMs seem brighter.
To get the best idea of the sound I tested the R6 with multiple IEMs ranging from the iBasso IT01 to the Campfire Audio Andromeda and HiFiMan HE-400i among others. The testing was done volume matched to within as close as tolerances allow. The base tonality of the R6 skews slightly on the warm sound, but nothing drastic, a slight boost in low end at most.



The slight warmth lends to a full sounding bass response with impressive extension and a texture that tends to bring out “emotion” in music all the while not losing out in resolution as some players do. This full-bodied approach is carried over into the mids, again with a little emphasis so that vocals in particular won’t sound anemic or dry. Again, seemingly recurring theme with the R6. The tonality is bookended by what is by and large neutral treble that doesn’t accentuate harshness in what you’re listening to. Staging on the R6 is impressive providing good width that has a little more edge in depth, though not disproportionately so, and neither having an artificial feeling, giving a natural and accurate perception with regards to imaging when listening to music.
Technical aspects are good with the R6 showing quite capable of proper detail retrieval and not having any frequency range losing resolution. Amplification wise the R6 packs in 120mW and 300mW of power on unbalanced and balanced respectively, more than enough to run IEMs and proving capable of powering headphones that are moderately power hungry. The background is very dark, providing no hiss on almost every test situation especially when Wifi was turned off, so even sensitive gear is right at home noise wise.




Now let’s talk output impedance shall we. The R6 packs 10 ohms, that’s a pretty high number especially these days. So why does it matter? It’s because of the interaction between the input impedance (IEMs/headphones) and output impedance (amp/DAP), because frequency response changes occur when the output impedance is close to the input impedance. So naturally we’d want higher impedance gear to pair with the R6 so that the attenuation of bass doesn’t happen, so why then does other gear not seem to be impacted the same way? Because the impedance of earphones is not actually fixed but varies throughout the frequency curve and because, and especially with multi driver the impedance curve is different for every IEM.
Single drivers, dynamics in particular usually have more linear impedance responses therefore is more uniformly affected by the R6, and if they’re all affected the same it balances it out. But once you add more drivers, the more sensitive multi-BA style it gets tricky because every driver could have different impedance ratings and now a change in one drivers output can greatly affect how you hear the signature. So, it’s a lot of uncertainty out of the box. A simple, but not free solution is to buy an IEMatch from ifi it’s a dongle that works well and essentially eliminates all the issues related to the output impedance of the R6. Generally, it will bring back the signature of whatever affected gear you are listening to, and if you are one of those who have many multi BA IEMs it will be your best buddy.



Conclusion: The Hiby R6 has a lot going for it. It has a great price, great form factor, great screen, great UI and usability, great sound, even some great secret sauce with the DTA and the MSEB. It has a lot of great things working for it but is marred by some software issues within the app, that with proper support will be patched sooner rather than later, and a hardware design choice that adds an extra step than you need to for it to be fully flexible, something that no amount of software updates will fix. However overall, it’s a device that checks a lot of boxes and falls short in others.


But at the price it was offered up for on Indiegogo at somewhere between $400 to $500 depending on the variant and how early of a backer you were it really is hard to beat. But with the $569 and $649 at retail, you understand that you aren’t getting a top of the line device, yet it has a combined feature set and sound that can go toe-to-toe or even beat some of the pricier options in the market and essentially beats everything else around or below it as an overall package. So is the Hiby R6 perfect? A world beater? No. But it sure is a winner, and other DAP manufacturers could learn a thing or two from the R6. It's definitely worth the money and I can't wait for the next thing Hiby has brewing.

Hiby R6 - True Android Power

Hiby R6 is the first DAP (Digital Audio Player) from Hiby. It comes with a smartphone-grade CPU, and a lot of processing power for a smoother overall GUI and system. We're going to look into the other aspects of it, including its sonic abilities and ergonomics, along with how much this improved CPU affects music listening.






Introduction

Hiby has been the company behind FiiO DAPs (they used to make the firmware for FiiO in the days of the early FiiO X5, X5ii, X3, X3ii), and Hiby still is the company behind some amazing devices, like Cayin N5ii, which we reviewed recently, and a lot of other Chinese DAPs. What makes them so capable as a firmware developer is their experience, they have been doing this for many years and gained great experience in it, and nowadays they also make an app for Android based on their expertise, app which we will study as well in this review. Besides their excellent overall firmware and informational support, Hiby is supported by Joe Bloggs who takes care of service and customer interaction, a well-known music enthusiast who always offered a great amount of help to this growing community.

It should be noted that I have absolutely no affiliation with Hiby, I am not receiving any incentive for this review or to sweeten things out. This review is not sponsored nor has been paid for by Hiby or anyone else. I'd like to thank Hiby for providing the sample for the review. The sample was provided along with Hiby's request for an honest and unbiased review. This review will be as objective as it is humanly possible, and it reflects my personal experience with Hiby R6. Every opinion expressed is mine and I stand by it, the purpose of this review is to help those interested in Hiby R6 find their next music companion.



About me

https://audiophile-heaven.blogspot.ro/p/about.html



Packaging

First things first, let's get the packaging out of the way:













On the packaging side, Hiby R6 looks modest. The package is very complete and includes all the accessories you could need to enjoy it, but the package itself is not very flashy, a typical black cardboard box which seems similar to those used with 100$ Chinese IEMs. It is fairly sturdy though, and will offer great protection to R6 while it is in shipping. This might actually be for the better as it might help you have an easier time with the customs process when receiving R6, and having to pay less customs, so we like Hiby's choice of including a basic yet very practical package.

Once you open the package, though, you are met with the true greatness that Hoby R6 is. The DAP comes with high quality screen protectors applied on both its front and back, the front being a large display, while the back is made of glass and looks quite good in person. There is a high-quality USB Type-C cable, and a few other accessories that will surely come in handy to users, like the Coax cable which is also of a very good quality, although we have to be honest and accept that we haven't used it quite that much, as it is too long for a portable usage.

There is a rubber case included with Hiby R6 and it is pretty nice, and there is an extra screen protector as well.

Hiby also makes a high quality leather case that you can buy, but we didn't feel very enthusiastic about its color, as it is blue. While it will surely work well for some, and while it is of very high quality and it protects very well from any kind of shock, blue isn't exactly the most sleek or easy color.

All in all, the package content of R6 is quite good, you get most things you will ever need with a DAP, you get high quality accessories, a spare screen protector, and there just isn't anything we could have asked for or we felt would have been welcome with R6.



What to look in when purchasing a high-end DAP

https://audiophile-heaven.blogspot.ro/p/what-to-lookl.html



Technical Specifications

(Taken from Hiby Official)












Build Quality/Aesthetics/UI/Firmware

In buld quality, it is actually one of the most solid DAPs we had the honor to hold in our hands to date. It is made from one piece of metal, with a thick glass screen that ensures excellent amounts of protection, there is no bending, no twisting, it is solid as a rock.















Aesthetically, we have the black version, and it is a sleek device with slightly rounded corners, and with a very ergonomic overall fit in hand. The weight is okay for a portable, not too heavy, not too light, the size is good, although we'd prefer having a device with an ever larger display. While we can totally see the cover art and explore our favorite music with R6, we feel that actually using it for typing when searching for music is not quite that comfortable, but then again, our reference is a 6.44" Xiaomi Mi Max 2, so maybe the whole point is unfair.

The UI is where things are really interesting, basically, Hiby made themselves a DAP that has the backbone of an upper midrange smartphone. By this, we mean all the power, from Streaming to Youtube to playing games. The CPU behind this magic is the Snapdragon 425, which we knew from having used smartphones rocking it. Considering how much of the base Android is stripped from R6, the 425 from Snapdragon is actually more than enough for a Digital Audio Player, and we generally didn't find ourselves complaining about speed with any device, R6 is really nice to use.

We had no issues with the Wifi signal, we were able to use R6 and stream Masa Works Design Youtube videos while on the Subway, and we even could play games on the mighty little R6. It is possible to see a new horizon of possibilities that you never knew existed when using R6, but we'd like to note that when it comes to a DAP, the most important aspect of it still remains the sonic ability.

The firmware provided by Hiby, is, as expected, rock solid. There have been no issues, no hangups, and no overall problems with the usage of R6, although we should note that our test consists of Redbook FLAC files only, no DSD, but we tested its ability to act as a transport, and to provide all other kids of usage scenarios, and it passed all our tests with flying colors.

What we found out that you can do with R6:

Listen to music
Enjoying the said music
Browsing music
Watching Youtube Videos
Streaming Music
Using it as a transport for an external DAC/AMP like FiiO Q5
Playing mobile games
Having a fluid experience through and through
Changing the volume while the display is turned off
Using most apps for listening to music to listen to music
Browse between apps as it has those 3GB of RAM
Read your mails

You can always expand this list with your usage scenario, but unless Masa Works Design or Utsu-P will have DSD versions of their music, we feel that we can't speak of R6's DSD abilities yet, although, Hiby sports them in the specs, so R6 will clearly play them just well.

Other things we noticed during our time with it are connected to its battery life, which is amazingly good. At a certain moment, I only had R6 on me, and had to take a trip to a 3 KM distance and back. It was around 30% battery when I left. It simply lasted me until the moment I was climbing the stairs back to my room, so it is really good in this aspect, down to the last % of battery.

The screen is bright and readable in full sunlight, and we did test this in depth, with the coming of summer in Romania. The device doesn't get extremely hot even in full summer here, and we're happy to report that the overall experience with R6 is quite excellent.

There is a Magesound 8-Ball thingy in the menu, which helps you EQ faster, with an excellent quality to it, and instead of showing the EQ bands, which can be hard to understand at first, it explains how you can make the sound, for example crispier, or airier, and it gives you both sliders and a way to tune the sliders to add more or less with each click.

In all honesty, Hiby made the build quality and the firmware of R6 absolutely bulletproof. They mixed excellent hardware, like 3 GB of RAM, with excellent firmware support, with a nice build quality, and it all sums up to an awesome device.



Sound Quality

Hiby R6 is a little interesting to describe, because it will change its signature with certain IEMs, but first, let's talk about its base signature. It is a beefy sound, with a slightly thick note presentation, a beefy low end with an impactful presentation, with a smoother midrange and top end that remind us of DX200 while it has AMP1 attached. IF you're coming from a FiiO X7mkii, it will come off as thicker and more relaxed, compared to the very clean and energetic sound of X7mkii. The top end isn't very smooth, so nowhere near DX150+AMP6 or FiiO X5-3 levels of smoothness, but it isn't as energetic as FiiO X7mkii either, leading to a slightly smoother top end.





Now, the tricky part, Hiby R6 can both have hiss with some low impedance IEMs due to its extremely high output impedance of 10 OHM, and it will change its sonic signature with certain IEMs, if they are not linear in their impedance response. Those two things are inherent to R6's very beeft and high quality AMP stage, which tries to cover everything from end to end, but which has this little issue with certain IEMs. We noticed very little hissing with certain IEMs, but we haven't noticed many changes of its base signature with IEMs with different impedances. We didn't look for it especially, but we didn't notice it as a glaring issue either, it might sound a bit brighter or a bit darker with certain IEMs, but we feel that the differences will be within what most people won't notice in typical usage. The hiss will be noticed by most people though, and we should warn against it. It isn't audible while listening to music (no hiss ever is), only a very muted hiss when there is nothing playing.

Now that everything's out of the way, let's study its signature in-depth.

The bass is very deep and drops as low as one could ever desire, while the speed of the bass is on the normal side of things. This means that it will sound natural and relaxed, it won't be the fastest bass there is, but neither the slowest, just a natural and impactful, with a deep presentation and with enough detail to impress even the most avid bassheads. The upper bass is clean, there is nothing colored there, while the midrange is on the meatier side of things, with a slightly thick presentation, and again with a natural presentation to things. The tonal balance is good, even spot-on for the most part, although we insist that you should try the Magesound 8-Ball thingy as it really can change the tonality of R6 and for the better.

The upper midrange has excellent overall emotional emphasis, and it brings a good tone to female vocals and to violins. The lower treble is also very good, it doesn't have a grainy texture, thing which is awesome because it lets the IEM or headphone apply its own kind of texture and it acts basically as a transparent window to music.

The upper treble has a good amount of air, leading to a pretty good soundstage and instrument separation for Hiby R6. The extension is very good, the treble is not smoothed out, thing which we appreciate, because it lets brighter IEMs and headphones be bright, while smoother IEMs and Headphones sound smooth.

All in all, we're very happy with the sonic performance of Hiby R6, it is a champ at being transparent, and with the magic infused by hiby in their 8-Ball, you can actually alter the signature and performance of R6 in any way you like, be it a brighter and more analytical signature, or towards a smoother and leaner one, Hiby has you covered.



Soundstage

The soundstage of Hiby R6 is fairly good, well expanded on all axis, and with the right headphones, it can give a very holographic experience to the listener (for example with Audeze LCD-MX4). The soundstage depends more on the headphones, and especially on how airy their sound is, but with the treble area of R6 being rather natural, if a headphone is airy by its nature, R6 will have a larger soundstage with it, while if a headphone is toned down in the treble area, especially if it has less air, R6 will paint it smoother.

The instrument separation is excellent, and it goes hand in hand with a headphone or IEM with good instrument separation. It is easy to distinguish multiple layers of music, and it is very easy to notice certain background elements, while the foreground elements don't lose strength and sound as forward as they should.



ADSR/PRaT

The ADSR and PRaT (Attack, Decay, Sustain, Release, and Pace Rhythm and Timing) characteristics of Hiby R6 are on the natural side of things, with a natural sounding texture, making a good combination with IEMs or headphones that have either natural or enhanced texture, while the headphones and IEMs with a relaxed or smooth texture might sound too smooth. With something that is also natural, the textures in the music of Masa Works Design or Mindless Self Indulgence bear excellent overall response, are textured where they need to be, and they are smoother where they need to be. With something very ADSR/PRaT happy, like Etymotic IEMs, like ER3XR, the sound is very well textured and every fine texture can be distinguished.



Portable Usage

Here's where Hiby R6 shines really well. It is a lightweight DAP, with a large, bright and clear screen, with a fluid UI, and with an excellent sound. It has all the ingredients to be an excellent DAP for portability, and with only one mention, it actually is.













That mention is its compatibility with IEMs, basically, since it has a high output impedance, you should consider either getting an iFi tool for alleviating that, or making sure that you like the synergy between your IEMs and R6. We couldn't detect any abnormalities in our tests, or anything that is truly remarkable, but we're sure that some people might, so we need to mention this and to warn you about it.

When it comes to its battery life, it is pretty excellent, around ten hours or so of music playback, with some screen activity and with some loud listening, so we're pretty happy with it. We didn't test it with Wifi and BT turned on, as we consider that on-the-go most people won't have access to either of those services.

The screen is easily readable in full sunlight, and the Bucharest sunlight is something one needs to see with their own eyes to believe, we get really bright daylight, so we're sure that the display will be readable anywhere in the world in full sunlight, and one can easily operate R6 in this kind of environment.

The device (surprisingly) does not get very warm during playback at loud volumes, and we have some really warm days in Bucharest, but we noticed that it gets warmer if music is being played at much lower volumes.

The ergonomics are excellent, one handed usage is possible and even fun, you can lower the main volume by 1-click steps while the screen is turned off, you can click on forward, backward, play/stop, and all with one hand, even while it is in a pocket. Because the two sides of R6 have a different number of buttons, it is easy to tell what you're going to press, and the buttons on the right side, where there are 4 buttons, are all different sizes, so you get a really good feeling of what you're going to press after you get used to it.

The power it has, is pretty much awesome for a portable device. FiiO X7mkii and iBasso DX200 both have more power for your power hungry headphones, but both are more expensive than R6, and R6 has a somewhat faster CPU than both, for a fluid system UI.

It takes almost any microSD card, but we'd like to warn about this, you need to wait around one minute after it has been turned on, before you can start using it, otherwise it can act strangely, this is something we noticed after using it for a while, but it is possible to repeat it. This behavior might be changed by a different caching algorithm in future firmwares, but on the current, latest firmware, this is something we should take into account. Most devices are similar in this aspect though.



Select Pairings

Please note that for any pairing, the IEM has more impact on the final result than the DAP, the best DAP being one that is as transparent as possible - #1s being quite good at this.







Hiby R6 + ClearTune VS4 - Once again we bring up the good old mighty VS4 from ClearTune. What left us with an interesting impression is how well it manages to hold its title in "vintage" and how good it plays music, especially vintage rock and metal, with an excellent warmth and depth. R6 is able to make them play with in a very vivid way, with excellent dynamics and textures, along with their really intriguing signature, including the spicy and interesting top end. As a pairing, we feel like one would be quite happy with this one, and would probably find their rock experience to be one heck-of-a-kind.

Hiby R6 + Sennheiser IE800 - We'll do a larger article on IE800 sometime in the future, as with time, we have a better understanding of what made IE800 so special in the first place, and after using them for so long, we also understand their shortcomings much better. IE800 is a very colored IEM, with an extremely deep and impactful bass, to the point where it is hard to find anything like it. The midbass is then recessed, and the midrange is further recessed, until the upper midrange, where the violins and emotion is, where Ie800 takes a slope back up, with the treble being once again extremely enhanced, like its sub-bass. This results in a very specific signature that will either make your music perfect, or break it entirely. We're saying this because when we tried this exact combination, IE800 and R6, we stumbled upon a very interesting result. We never heard Death Metal, Thrash Metal, some Post-Hardcore and most Black Metal and Punk bands sound so good. It is something one has to hear to understand. Then, when we tried some Fall Out Boy, the sound was pretty forward, a bit more than we'd have liked it to be. What IE800 does there, is that it brings up a lot of treble and bass, so music that was mastered with less bass and treble, like most black or death metal, and even some older rock, will sound excellent, to the point where one is blindly in love with IE800. When one listens to something that already has a good amount of treble and bass in the mix, like, say, most electronic music, IE800, although extremely textured, has too much treble. All in all, we feel that this requires an article of its own, as the initial review on Ie800 we made years ago didn't reflect this aspect, as, at that time, our testing samples were made mostly out of music that IE800 complimented. Now, about the pairing, Ie800 is very sensitive to the DAC quality and much less to the AMP stage, and here it reveals R6 to have one of the best DACs we heard lately, with one of the most enticing presentations ever seen, the levels of textures and instrument separation are outstanding, and we have nothing to complain about, if you're considering this pairing, and if you're a metal music / rock / punk fan, then this will surely make your days sweet and enjoyable.

Hiby R6 + HIFIMAN RE2000 - HIFIMAN RE2000 has been one of the best IEMs we tested to date, but it is also one of the most expensive IEMs we tested to date. Whether HIFIMAN's pricing is correct or not, they do sound unique and have a level of texture and vividness that we simply haven't really heard in the sub-1000 USD price range, so they surely created something unique with their RE2000. We'd love to see a version that's maybe a little more accessible, even if it won't be electroplated with gold, and such. The pairing with R6 is once again very good, with enough depth and impact to make all music sound real, with a good extension both ways, and with the visceral and impressive bass of RE200 being vivid throughout all music.

Hiby R6 + Audeze LCD-MX4 - One of the last pairings we're going to write about in our R6 review, LCD-MX4 is a love for a life, and for a good reason. The main reason we fell so much in love with them is that they are not only sounding extremely sweet, but are also extremely comfortable, being a headphone you don't want to take off once you place on your head. Just now, while writing this review, my girl has been wearing them for almost 6 hours straight, so you get the point of how amazing they are. Combined with R6, the question that's going to be on everyone's mind is about their power, are they driven well? The only answer that we can place here, is yes. We are using some EQ tricks with R6, and we're happy that Hiby supports such a good EQ implementation, because LCD-MX4 sounds out-of-this world driven by R6. From our collection, only very few setups are able to drive LCD-MX4 well, and R6 is probably the most affordable one, along with being almost at the same level as the best one. The Magic Ball feature Hiby has also helps make the sound a little crisper, in case anyone is looking for a less leaner experience than LCD-MX4 provides by default. The impact is as good as it gets, and with LCD-MX4 and Audeze planars in general, that means a speaker-like kind of impact, a deep and thunderous bass that's always clear and which goes through things like a knife through butter. The midrange is clean and clear (most less expensive DAPs will most probably struggle in the midrange as well, which resulted in some of the early negative impressions over LCD-MX4, from them not being well driven, as we've noticed with some less expensive DAPs, where they got loud enough, but didn't have the clarity that R6 can give them), and the treble is smooth, yet clear and well expressed. Of course, when we click in some metal music, we also click in some EQ to bring that treble more into foreground and to give it more of a lively experience. All in all, we really couldn't ask for more from this pairing, at this price, R6 is able to drive a fully-fledged 3000 USD Audeze Headphone, so we can call it a day.



Comparisons

Please keep in mind that the source is supposed to try to reproduce the signal as colorless as possible, to leave any kind of tilting for the DSP (EQ) or transducer (Headphone, IEM, Earphone).









Hiby R6 vs FiiO X7mkii - We need to start testing R6 against more expensive and more complex devices, because testing it against something like N5ii, which is both more affordable, and which also relies on Hiby's own firmware wouldn't feel very fair. Of course, even N5ii can be an interesting choice for some, because it has two microSD slots, just like Opus #1s, but we feel that once one has reached this price point, the main direct competitor of R6 will be FiiO X7mkii. Starting with the build quality, both are really solid devices, the main difference here being that R6 is a one-piece device, while X7mkii is a modular device, with modular AMPs, which can change both the driving power, battery life, and sonic signature of the device. There's a lot going on for X7mkii, with Streaming abilities, a really nice and bright display, and with a very nice user interface. The main differences between X7mkii and R6 are that X7mkii has two microSD slots, which will surely come in handy to those with very large music libraries, X7mkii has a volume wheel, which is nice to play with and for blind controlling your device, and X7mkii also has a modular AMP stage, so you can change AMP modules for different sonic characteristics, and battery life. Hiby R6 is a one-piece device, and for the most part, X7mkii is more detailed, a bit more dynamic and has a wider and deeper soundstage, but R6 really has something in their pocket when it comes to their software support. Hiby R6 is one of the very few devices which comes with a strong firmware support made by Hiby, along with one of the strongest CPUs among the audiophile DAPs, Snapdragon 425. Keeping in mind that I had that CPU in a smartphone for a long time, and lived pretty happily with that smartphone, R6 is clearly more than adequate for music listening, and more, Streaming, Youtube, and other music related activities. Here, X7mkii was really good in my personal experience, but certain users asked for certain features, and complained about its overall UI speed, or speed for specific operations, which R6 should handle better. Especially third party app support should be better in R6, where in X7mkii, I mainly played with its default FiiO Music App, which was excellent in my book, but I didn't really test how good it handles third party apps, while with R6, I can guarantee that it handles Youtube and my (light) streaming experience fairly well. When X7mkii is sporting its default AMP module, it sounds more neutral than R6, wider, more energetic, with a sparklier top end, and with less bass impact than R6. R6 sounds, by comparison, warmer and more forward, more personal, and has more of a low end presence than X7mkii. R6 is slightly thicker as well. Both are excellent devices, X7mkii is more versatile in its sonic ability, while R6 is quite versatile in its software and Android-Third Party APP support. X7mkii has a low overall output impedance and should work well with all IEMs out there, on all its modules, while R6 has a high output impedance, thing which should be taken into account.

Hiby R6 vs iBasso DX150 - Here, the prices are closer to each other. Both devices have a large and bright display, although DX150 has both a brighter and a larger display, making for a better experience in the UI. DX150 has a very good hardware support, along with Lurker's mod excellent UI support, but it doesn't have a Snapdragon 425 CPU, although third party apps work just fine, once you install Lurker's firmware, or download the APK and install the app. Both devices have one microSD slot, and both devices have a good build quality. Both are slightly more rigid than X7mkii actually, but this won't be important unless you drop or apply really heavy amounts of pressure on them, point by which all will probably be similar since all have something that probably shouldn't be subjected to too much pressure, R6 has a glass back, DX150 a volume wheel, and X7mkii feels a tiny bit less rigid. By definition, they are all very similar. When it comes to their sonic signatures, R6 and DX150 are pretty different. DX150 is considerably thicker in its sonic presentation, has more depth to its bass, and more impact, sounds smoother in the top end, and meatier, and has probably a less analytical overall presentation than R6, although R6 never crossed me as an analytical device. DX150 has modular AMP modules, just like X7mkii, so it really makes a compelling choice, since you can always slap on an AMP5 or even an AMP4S from iBasso for one of the best sonic experiences possible on a portable Player, but that costs another 200USD, and R6 still has its really good software and third party app support to show for. In all honesty, DX150 feels like a very slightly cut down DX200, while R6 feels more like an Android smartphone with an actually audiophile sonic output, so they are rather different devices for different publics. DX150 has a low output impedance, while R6 has a high output impedance, especially important for low impedance and multi-driver in-ears.

Hiby R6 vs Opus #3 - Now here is a more interesting comparison. Opus #3 is actually cheaper than R6 at this point, but it still is a premium device with a lot going on for it. All devices compared to R6 have a volume wheel, while R6 does not, this starting to feel like something Hiby really wanted to be unique in. We can't complain, we actually feel confident that some folks will prefer a unibody device without a wheel, but if the other products are a good indicator of what most people want, then people like volume wheels. When it comes to their bodies, both are really well-made devices, the biggest difference being that R6 is smooth all around, while #3 has corners that can be sharp. Not a big issue in any way, but you should keep an eye open in case you want to place it in a pocket. The other things one has to take into account are that #3 has a marginally brighter display, which can come in handy for outdoors usage, but R6 is fairly good as well. Both devices have a good battery life, both can do third party apps and Streaming, but the underlying Operating Systems are pretty different, with R6 offering a pretty vanilla Android experience, while #3 has Opus's custom version on top of Android, a very refined experience that focuses on music. The sonic signatures are different, #3 being brighter, more energetic, wider, clearer, and with more air in its sound than R6, while R6 feels deeper, meatier, leaner, and more focused than #3, although both are really excellent devices. #3 feels more like a punk-rock device, while R6 feels more like a Jazz and Classical music device. R6 has a pretty high output impedance, note important for low-impedance and multi-driver In-ears, while #3 doesn't have any output impedance issues.



Value and Conclusion

We're talking about a pretty expensive Player when we're talking about Hiby R6, so we need to have some expectations from it. It's price isn't quite as high as FiiO X7mkii or iBasso DX200, but it isn't quite that inexpensive either, so we're taking every detail with utmost care into account when judging its value. +



Starting with the overall package, you get a lot in the package with your R6. The cables that come with it feel good, they are pretty reliable, and the fact that it has glass screen protectors applied from the factory is pretty nice. For a tradition started by FiiO with their X-series of players many years ago, we are really happy to see it being kept to this date. There's nothing we would have liked included in the package, given the amount of accessories already there, maybe the leather case would have been nice to have been part of the original package, but we actually have used R6 almost exclusively without a case, so no harm done there.

The build quality of R6 is rock solid and more. It has a large, bright and colorful display, that surely serves well for both browsing your collection, and for creating playlists, and even for enjoying Youtube videos, with a metallic body that feels hard as a rock.

The sonic qualities of R6 are not to be taken lightly, but before that, the firmware support, along with the hardware, especially its CPU, is something rare in the audiophile world. It has a very strong CPU that will allow you to install and use some of the most intricate third party apps, and complex streaming apps, without a hiccup, along with watching Youtube Videos and other fun activities enabled by a Snapdragon 425. It even is possible to play some games using R6, thing which surely comes in useful and fun.

The music coming out of R6 is as fun and lovely as you can imagine it to be, ever so slightly warm and full, with a slightly lean and smooth approach, but only a smidgen so, just perfect to compliment almost any IEM or headphone thrown at it. The high output impedance might be relevant to some listeners, but in our honest experience we couldn't notice any serious downsides, besides a slight hiss that surely goes away while music is playing. From Ie800 all the way to Audeze LCD-MX4, for a one-piece device, its driving power is also pretty insane, something music lovers from a few years ago probably wouldn't imagine being possible, and at this rather friendly price point.

Priced at 570USD from MusicTeck, Hiby R6 is no joking matter, and we are honestly impressed by what the guys at Hiby managed to pull for their first DAP, surely a device many are going to remember and hold in high regards.



If you're looking for a very versatile device, with a lot of driving power, a slightly lean and smooth, yet full and dynamic sound, with a fast and powerful snapdragon processor, a good battery life, and an even better build quality, then Hiby R6 might be the right Player for you, and we feel you should consider it in your list of future DAPs, as it actually feels like a DAP of the future.


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Purchase link (MusicTeck): https://shop.musicteck.com/products/hiby-r6-src-free-hi-res-android-dap

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I hope my review is helpful to you!

Stay safe and remember to always have fun while listening to music!



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The Hiby R6 has more than a few reviews out there already so I won't bother you, too much with some repeated information. But an intro recap of sorts: The R6 in Indiegogo is Hiby's first step into the Digital Audio Player hardware arena though they have operated with audio software for over 10 years and collaborated in more than a few popular DAPs. The R6 is also a competitively priced DAP ($509 on IGG and $569 at retail) for the hardware specs and audio capabilities it promises, and with all the buzz going around it, lets see what the Hiby R6 has to offer.

Please note that at the time of this writing, the R6 is no longer available for purchase on Indiegogo and impressively ended up being funded 582%.

Disclaimer:
This Hiby R6 was purchased as a backer on Indiegogo for the purpose of a review, and thus there is no monetary incentive for providing a positive review. My model is the Black Aluminum, has over 250 hours of clocked usage and it's pictures may not look exactly like others due to sample variance (and maybe lighting). More information on the how I arrived at my findings are at the very end.



Specs (the skinny version no pics):
Dual ESS ES9028Q2M DACs
Dual OPA1612 and Dual TPA6120 Amps
32-bit/384kHz format support & Native DSD
Snapdragon 425 Processor (4x1.4gHz)
3GB RAM (DDR3) and 32GB Storage
Expandable for up to 2TB (tested on 400GB)
Dual-Band Wifi (2.4G/5G)
Bluetooth 4.0 with apt-X
Android 6.0 (Marshmallow)
DTA (Direct Transport Architecture)
Bit-perfect output (bypassing Android SRC)
4.2 inch 300dpi 768X1280 Touchscreen
Arc-shaped 316L High-impact Stainless Steel CNC Body
Supports Line out and coaxial digital output
4000Mah Battery (with 12 hour battery life)
3.5mm, 2.5mm and line-out/coax outputs
USB-C with Quick Charge 3.0
USB DAC functionality and transport



Box/Contents/Precious:
The Hiby R6 came in a sealed hard cardboard box where the DAP sits on top of the other contents (from top left to right): Black thin cardboard separator with the micro SD card ejector pin clipped on it, a Quality Control pass card, (bonus) tempered glass cover, plastic screen protector, manual, warranty booklet. (Bottom, left to right) DAP foam Tray, 3 extra Hi-Res audio stickers, the branded Hiby charging cable, 3.5mm to COAX cable and (bonus) silicone case.



The Hiby R6 itself is a solid piece of milled aluminum with no jagged or sharp edges that feels good in hand with enough heft and weight to be significant but not a burden when carried. When you first get it, there's a matte protective sticker on the screen with printed guides for the R6 parts. Note that a screen protector should have been factory installed on the R6 but mine did not have one, this is fine since I would have removed it anyway in deference to the tempered glass installed above (I like the smoother glide on glass than plastic).



So on the right side from top to bottom:
Power - For turning the unit and screen on or off, it has a little LED indicator that shows the status of the R6 (Red blinking is charging, solid white is DSD audio playing, green is 24bit, blue is 16bit and lower) and this light can be turned off if you wish.

Previous - With the screen on, holding it down pauses playing and "rewinds" the time bar till it is released. If pressed once with the time bar at 10 seconds or more, it will go to the start of the song, otherwise it will go to the previous track. With the screen off, pressing it once does the same thing as when the screen is on, but holding it down (no matter how long) will move the time bar around 3 seconds back, you can repeat this to be able to go back through a song.

Play/Pause - is self explanatory and does as advertised with screen open or closed.

Next - With the screen on, holding it down pauses playing and moves the song "fast forward" till you release it. Pressing it once will skip to the next song whether the screen is off or on. When the screen is off, holding it down will move the time bar forward by 3 seconds while the song continues playing. You can repeat this quickly several times to move the time bar forward.

USB C port - For charging, USB output (transport) and DAC (usb input).



From (bottom) left to right:
2.5mm Balanced Output - Plastic rubber ring around the plug is not so pretty but it works.

3.5mm Single Output - Gold ring makes it look sturdy and pretty.

3.5mm Line-Out/COAX - By default the software is at Line-Out mode for this identical gold ringed plug, which means max ear busting volume, be careful!

Volume Up - Turns the volume up once per press, holding it down moves the volume continuously up but only when the screen is on.

Volume Down - Just the reverse of Volume Up.



The glass back is covered by a plastic screen with 2 stickers, (white sticker) barcode with model number & date of production, (black) is the same info found in English printed under the glass. As much as I like the feel of a glass screen over plastic, I just took the 2 stickers off and kept the plastic to help protect the beautiful glass back as there is no included back protector. The front and back glass panels are 2.5D curved glass, which may make fitting a generic, cut to fit protector fiddly as there is no defined edge and that it may look like a floating square panel (you'll see it here and in subsequent pictures.)



The first thing you'll see is the Hiby logo till boot up is finished, and if you've inserted a micro SD card, a setup screen appears. Choosing "Internal Storage" will make card the default storage and encrypt the whole card so that it isn't readable outside the DAP, good for security and if you want a bigger internal storage. "Portable Storage" is simply making the micro SD card a removable, storage space usable/readable by any device, so unless you have security needs, I would suggest to use this option.



Once the screen guide/protector is taken off, you'll be exposed to a truly awesome display, nice saturated colors and resolution that compared to a lot of DAPs in the market, pale in comparison to the R6's display. Sunlight legibility with the tempered glass installed is nice (it was kinda cloudy when I shot this) though it can look washed out with distance and certain angles. Since the screen is of high resolution, old album art with smaller resolutions can look unpretty, this may mean you'll need to update them. The (free) tempered glass isn't exactly the same size as the available area on the screen, but does cover the LCD's viewable areas enough for protection.



The micro SD card tray is similar to some mobile phones and is a very secure design (it can never accidentally fall out) though changing cards will be hard as you need the pin (or a paperclip/push pin/etc) to eject the tray.



Wireless:
Bluetooth is very good with pairing and is stable with the devices I've used it with, audio quality is great with apt-X feeding more bits into the headset and speaker. Unlike my experience with mobile phones though, my Bluetooth devices (Sony WH-1000xMkII and SRS-XB20) do not fully sync with the R6's volume (sync, meaning the volume changes are the same whether it's done on the phone or Bluetooth device) so you may need to max out the volume on your device and control the volume from the R6 to get maximum control on one device.



With it's Wi-Fi antenna using dual bands, the speed and reliability is at par with most modern mobile phones though strength over distance is a bit less in comparison, this was likely done to reduce power consumption. Overall, the R6 allows you to stream and download music and apps at really good speeds reliably.



UI & User Experience:
If you've ever used a mid to high end Android phone in the last year or so, you'll feel at home with the R6 and it's impressive system. The R6's Android 6.0 operating system is stable and bloat free with only a handful of stock apps and the 2 Hiby apps: Hiby Music and Wireless Update. The user interface is very smooth, fast and responsive (Note that adding a screen protector/tempered glass may reduce screen sensitivity and responsiveness) with most of the options and menu system streamlined for DAP use and only one part (that I know now) needs to be removed since it doesn't work, is the Snapdragon sound adjustment menu that shows up when using the EQ or sound adjustment on 3rd party apps like Deezer and Spotify. There are some vestiges of mobile phone stuff that have yet to be removed, like Wi-Fi hotspot, but I won't mention them beyond this as it does not add nor detract from the experience unless you intentionally go down that rabbit hole. Hopefully in the next update (that Hiby makes easy to do with Wireless Update,) the above little things will have been addressed.

Quick charge 3.0 actually works, which is a welcome feature when you need it powered up fast or need a bit of a top-up before a trip. This feature works in tandem with the battery life of the R6 where various files from dsd, mqa, flac being played continuously on single end lasted 11 hours and 18 minutes with 7% power left. On balanced, it lasted a modest 7 hours and 46 minutes with 8% power left though to be fair, I did open the screen a lot while on balanced and fiddled with different songs while doing this review.



DAC/Transport/Line-Out:
As a transport, the R6 does well and provides a clean and seamless stream of data for an external DAC/Amp to process. Compatibility seems good as my Sony PHA-1a and XDuuo XD-05 had no issues receiving the sound data provided by the R6, I'd safely bet the popular Mojo and other current DAC/Amps would have no issues as well.

As a DAC/Amp for other devices like my Lenovo IdeaPad 100 laptop, Huawei P9 and a few Sony Xperia phones like the XZ Premium, the R6 did exceptionally well in processing the sound data it was provided and made it seem like it was played in the R6 natively.

In both cases, you do not need to do anything on the R6, once you plug it into a source or into a DAC/Amp, it will automatically shift to provide the sound data through USB or process the data it receives.

Note that unlike the AP200, there is no visual indication of the R6 being used as a DAC or as a transport. Hopefully some form of indication on the R6 can be implemented on the next update.

Line-Out just works when I tried it on my home system, there was no noise and the music just flowed lovingly into the system and out of the speakers. Unfortunately, I don't have a device that could use COAXial input so I couldn't test that part of the R6.



Output Technicalities:
So let me address the best known specification of the Hiby R6, it's 10Ω output impedance and the reason there's an IFI IEMatch between the R6 and the Andromeda by giving you a link to Output Impedance (Explained) which is easier to understand then most I've seen online. TLDR, R6's 10Ω output impedance will affect the Frequency Response of ear gear depending on it's own impedance, its impedance at different frequencies and whether it is prone to large impedance swings like Balanced Armatures. In the case of the CA Andromeda with 5 BAs and 12.8Ω impedance, it shifts the frequency forward, significantly reducing the bass, raising the mids forward and the highs to near sibilance, tonally making it brighter and shifts the positioning a bit higher spatially. Now this is why an IFI IEMatch comes in handy as it reduces the impedance to 1-2Ω (and the volume output by 11 steps on high sensitivity) and in effect, returns the old Andromeda sound to my ears.



Now some may hate this shift and some may like it and it all depends on how it may affect your gear or not at all and if yes, are you willing to buy an impedance reducer like the IEMatch for the R6. As it stands, sensitive IEMs (from what I've read, 17Ω and below is affected, where the lower the sensitivity the more the of an FR shift you'll notice) with BAs may need an IEMatch to return it to it's original FR. On the other hand, low impedance IEMs using dynamic drivers like the CA Dorado (15Ω) and hybrids like the FLC8 (11Ω) that I tried with the R6, didn't exhibit any great tonal changes (there is likely some but I didn't go deep into them since I don't own them) and other ear gear higher than 17Ω don't seem to shift much (if any) with the higher output impedance.



Sound:
I've heard the word reference tossed around among DAPs for a long time and (confession time) I don't enjoy them as much as other people. Which is why after trying the R6 with different IEMs, headphones and even earbuds, I can happily say that this baby, though close, is definitely NOT reference, there is a an emotion, body in the music it plays that makes it enjoyable to listen even while using the most flat sounding headphones I have. Voices are adequately filled in but not meaty, resolution is presented with clarity and detail, bass is not enhanced but there is a touch of warmth that lends the bass with impact and life while the highs are expanded though it feels a bit more neutrally placed than the rest of the frequency. So if I'd put a label on it, it's a neutral signature with a hint of warmth and musicality.



The way the R6 processes sound, it provides a very quiet and black background, it's so silent that the IEMatch which helps reduce noise doesn't improve anything in that aspect. Sound is expanded and does not sound congested or compressed which allows ear gear like the Andromeda to stretch out it's wide soundstage as well as provide a soundscape that is clear and revealing, with a reach of the highs that sound natural, clean but not very airy.

Given the base signature of the R6 and the fact that any Android app (thanks to DTA) have full access to every bit and power provided by the R6 architecture, there's still something it can offer to change and/or improve tonality with MageSound 8-Ball which currently only appears with the Hiby Music app (which hopefully, may change and be extended to other apps like Spotify, Deezer and Tidal among other players). I'd like to think of it as an advance but EQ noob friendly sound modifier. You want more warmth? More bass impact? More sparkly notes? MageSound can do it without mystery (effects are easily understandable) and easily with just a few swipes and taps.



Summary:
Even if the R6 is the first ever DAP Hiby has made, it's definitely an amazing DAP with well thought out features and hardware that ticks a lot of boxes on the get go. It looks good, is solidly built, sounds great especially if you like the more neutral or near reference level of sound, it can easily be a transport for your music as well as be the DAC/Amp for other sound devices, is well priced, provides a very enjoyable musical experience on and offline, it's an amazing value compared to the currently available Android DAPs out there and something I'll keep and use for a very very long time.

Pros: Great build quality, ergonomic buttons and placement, multiple outputs, USB-C/QuickCharge, beautiful and functional screen, neutral tuning, Direct Transport Audio technology, amazing sound and user experience.

Cons: Output impedance could have been lower

Personal nitpicks/wish list: DAC/Transport indication, 2.5mm plug could have been made of metal for durability, Line-out/COAX could have been made/marked differently (like it having the black rubber ring instead of the 2.5mm) or moved further away to avoid plug confusion, distance between volume up/down could be smaller (for faster location and easy volume adjustment), single micro SD card slot on a 32GB DAP - dual slots would've made the R6 more expansion friendly and a hand strap slot (but that's just me is seems.)



Gears Used:
To arrive at my own assessment of how the R6 sounds, I have at my disposal, gear used as benchmarks, points of comparison and reference (note some are not shown in the pictures above). A Sony WM1a, Hidizs AP200, Xduoo XD-05, Sony PHA-1a, CA Andromeda, Hifi Boy OS V3, Kinera Seed, Kinera Earbud, Kinera BD005, Tennmak Trio, Hifiman HE400i, AKG K553 Pro, Sony WH-1000xMkII, An SPL meter, several adapters including an IFI IEMatch 2.5mm, cables and a myriad of tips.



Tracks Used:
A Different Way - Lauv
A Foggy Day - Van Morrison
A Question of Lust - Depeche Mode (Live 1988)
Alive - Pearl Jam
Billie Jean - Michael Jackson
Cheap Thrills - Sia
Come Away With Me - Norah Jones
Come Round Soon - Sara Bareilles
Country Road - James Taylor
Deeply Disturbed - Infected Mushroom
Discover Tokyo - Shuta Hasunuma
Do what you have to do - Sarah McLachlan
Dream a Little Dream of Me - Ella Fitzgerald
Get Lucky - Daft Punk
Hail to the King - Avenged Sevenfold
Ignorance - Paramore
Is This Love - Bob Marley
It's a Long Way To the Top - AC/DC
Lithium - Nirvana
Marian Hill - Breathe Into Me
My Curse - Killswitch Engage
One Day - Matishyahu
Photograph - Ed Sheeran
Pull Me Under - Dream Factory
Send My Love - Adele
September - Earth Wind and Fire
So Far Away - Martin Garrix
Staying Alive - Bee Gees
Sugar - Maroon 5
Sunday Morning - No Doubt
The Day The World Went Away - Nine Inch Nails
Way Down Deep - Jennifer Warnes