[Ultrainferno]

In today's article, we review this HiBy FC6 on Headfonia. An article by @Virtu Fortuna

https://www.headfonia.com/hiby-fc6-review/

 

[povidlo]

Picked up fc6 and wanted to share some early impressions.

On arrival it wasn’t recognized as mqa rendered by neither uapp or tidal and also at times produced noise. No such issues after upgrading to 1.04 firmware. Afterwards I also had an issue with my pixel phone that had microphone access blocked globally and somehow that prevented uapp getting exclusive access as well.

Love the included case and cover. Not impressed with build quality, buttons specifically. They almost get stuck and sometimes volume gets adjusted by two levels instead of one. Hopefully the clickiness of the buttons will improve with use.

Features and power aside, I think I like fc6 sq so far the most of any dongle I’ve tried, best ones up to now being w2, ru6, and m15 in that order. It’s not as organically neutral as w2, not as colored as ru6, not as dynamic as m15. Yet it has more color/special sauce than w2, more resolving than ru6, and more analog than m15.

In terms of synergy during early trial runs, best results were with sony m9 iem = crisp staging and ambience. Also sounded great with e888sp and jcally jc10 buds. Didn’t go well with wp900 headphones which are somewhat cold/bright. Listening right now with ie900, good pairing overall but slightly slow.

 

[Surdzo]

Picked up fc6 and wanted to share some early impressions.

On arrival it wasn’t recognized as mqa rendered by neither uapp or tidal and also at times produced noise. No such issues after upgrading to 1.04 firmware. Afterwards I also had an issue with my pixel phone that had microphone access blocked globally and somehow that prevented uapp getting exclusive access as well.

Love the included case and cover. Not impressed with build quality, buttons specifically. They almost get stuck and sometimes volume gets adjusted by two levels instead of one. Hopefully the clickiness of the buttons will improve with use.

Features and power aside, I think I like fc6 sq so far the most of any dongle I’ve tried, best ones up to now being w2, ru6, and m15 in that order. It’s not as organically neutral as w2, not as colored as ru6, not as dynamic as m15. Yet it has more color/special sauce than w2, more resolving than ru6, and more analog than m15.

In terms of synergy during early trial runs, best results were with sony m9 iem = crisp staging and ambience. Also sounded great with e888sp and jcally jc10 buds. Didn’t go well with wp900 headphones which are somewhat cold/bright. Listening right now with ie900, good pairing overall but slightly slow.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I also have M15 (of which I’m very satisfied) Xduoo link2 bal and others but with my Hiby FC4 I have two problems that pull me back from purchasing FC6. 1. magenta sometimes works sometimes don’t same happened to 3 different windows PC and now there is no MQA rendering on any of my PCs only on i Phone. 2. Can’t update firmware whatever I do flashtool dont work at all as well as DFU tool. So for me Hiby firmware platform is complete garbage.

Please if you know how to deal with rendering (problem) and firmware updates (problem) please share.

Thank you.

 

[povidlo]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I also have M15 (of which I’m very satisfied) Xduoo link2 bal and others but with my Hiby FC4 I have two problems that pull me back from purchasing FC6. 1. magenta sometimes works sometimes don’t same happened to 3 different windows PC and now there is no MQA rendering on any of my PCs only on i Phone. 2. Can’t update firmware whatever I do flashtool dont work at all as well as DFU tool. So for me Hiby firmware platform is complete garbage.

Please if you know how to deal with rendering (problem) and firmware updates (problem) please share.

Thank you.

firmware update instructions are confusing, especially what's mentioned on the website. i still don't know what dfu tool is lol. i was able to update the firmware on fc6 on my win11 laptop by installing hiby usb driver first; then, followed update instructions in the pdf file from the downloaded firmware update package. update was done through "flashtool". you could try to follow the pdf instructions and disregard website instructions/dfutool if same applies for fc4. hope this helps.

 

[Surdzo]

firmware update instructions are confusing, especially what's mentioned on the website. i still don't know what dfu tool is lol. i was able to update the firmware on fc6 on my win11 laptop by installing hiby usb driver first; then, followed update instructions in the pdf file from the downloaded firmware update package. update was done through "flashtool". you could try to follow the pdf instructions and disregard website instructions/dfutool if same applies for fc4. hope this helps.

I also run win11 but flash tool couldn’t even open on win 10 it opened but I have to plug and unplug the device to start than app says it’s complete but there is no any confirmation for the new firmware. After that when you go in hiby usb app and click on device it says that version is 1.01 which means that there is no new firmware on the device. DFU tool doesn’t even work at all on any win10 nor 11. Complete BS firmware platform. Its fuc.ing 2023 for Christ sake!!!
Half-finished product, I feel like guinea pig every time when I’m purchasing Chinese product.

 

[Pelilin]

Do you guys get EMI / Electromagnetic Interference when plugged to a phone with signal on?

 

[Anouk]

Very interested in this one or the ru6. Reason why i might buy this one instead of ru6 is that i heard in some reviews the volume on ios can when maxed turn off the audio becauseof too much power drawn. This is irritating because its recommended to turn volume on source device all the way up and use volume on amp.
I had this problem as well with a balanced earmen amp and it drove me nuts.
so hopefully since hiby draws less power it does not have this problem.
Does it come with a lightning cable or do you have to buy that separately? Does it work with any lightning cable or do you need one from hiby?
Does anyone know the weight of the hiby vs the cayin?
Thanks in advance for any info
Greetings, Anouk,

 

[lucanato]

Hi to every body, I had questyle M12 but is sold it ... Too warm , shrinked stage, and rolled highs. I have tried dc03pro, very engaging but a little false in acoustic timbres, so I returned it waiting for dc04pro. Now there is also fiio ka5, and fc6 tempted me after dongle madness review on you tube. But if you say that there are some devices incompatiblity, and rolling down highs....mmmh. the fiio ka5 ha also the spdif out! But sonically speaking any if you could compare dc04pro to ka5?

 

[nishan99]

Has anyone compared it to the Cayin RU6 yet? the price, power and size differences would suggest the FC6 is superior sonically, no?

 

[Surdzo]

Has anyone compared it to the Cayin RU6 yet? the price, power and size differences would suggest the FC6 is superior sonically, no?

Andy audio ranked fc6 1st place among 130+ dongles with 1 point difference between 2nd and 3rd place (RU6) otherwise both 5* top tier dongles. But… that’s only his opinion doesn’t mean that it’s true for everyone but obviously they are very close sonically.
In everything else RU6 wins (power, 4.4 jack, price, brand awareness…) ok fc6 have MQA if it is relevant at all since most of people will run R2R DAC in NOS mode.

 

[ClieOS]

Has anyone compared it to the Cayin RU6 yet? the price, power and size differences would suggest the FC6 is superior sonically, no?

At this point, if R-2R is what you are looking for, get the RU6 definitely.

Andy audio ranked fc6 1st place among 130+ dongles with 1 point difference between 2nd and 3rd place (RU6) otherwise both 5* top tier dongles. But… that’s only his opinion doesn’t mean that it’s true for everyone but obviously they are very close sonically.
In everything else RU6 wins (power, 4.4 jack, price, brand awareness…) ok fc6 have MQA if it is relevant at all since most of people will run R2R DAC in NOS mode.

Yep, certain not true for me. I won't rank FC6 any where as high on my personal list given all its shortcomings. Hiby has a good try on implementing R-2R on USB dongle, but FC6 still felt slightly amateurish / unpolished ATM to me.

 

[povidlo]

Has anyone noticed a bit of background static noise in OS mode?

 

[jjxaker]

Yep, certain not true for me. I won't rank FC6 any where as high on my personal list given all its shortcomings. Hiby has a good try on implementing R-2R on USB dongle, but FC6 still felt slightly amateurish / unpolished ATM to me.

Of course there are no statistics, but it seems to me that FC6 is selling very poorly.
but personally, I did not buy it just because it does not have a balanced output, and then I became even more convinced that it was not worth buying it because of poor support.

 

[Surdzo]

Of course there are no statistics, but it seems to me that FC6 is selling very poorly.
but personally, I did not buy it just because it does not have a balanced output, and then I became even more convinced that it was not worth buying it because of poor support.

It’s not such a big problem relatively new and inexperienced brand (most of Chinese “hi-fi” brands) to have poor support or/and poor firmware platform/support or even poor quality and performance. The elephant in the room is pricing of such products! 300 usd for half baked product is a crime not just unethical.
If you ask me this product shouldn’t be more expensive than 150 usd (and 150 usd only because effort to pack R2R technology in such small form, as product by it self in terms of performance it not worth more than 100 usd)

 

[lucanato]

Ehm n1 but with worst tecnhical timbric dynamic performances...