HiBy R6 2020 User Impressions

[Elvandarfist]

My R6 2020 arrived yesterday. I finally set it up today. It is a very nice form factor and is very responsive. Google Play works great. I downloaded Tidal and it works just like on my iPhone. Downloading music now.

I also received my ZMF Verite Closed yesterday as well. Someone asked me if they pair well. I am listening right now. I think the biggest problem is that even on high gain, there is very little head room with this DAP to drive the VC. And, I am connected 4.4 balanced. At lower volumes it sounds great. Clean sound. Sounds more neutral to me than my BHC which is what I was pairing them with immediately prior to hooking it up. I prefer the BHC pairing as being much warmer sounding to my preference. I haven't tested MSEB or EQ. I will do that later. Just out of the box, it can work, but I probably would not recommend this pairing due to the lack of head room.

I'll test out my IEMs later today when I have time. Then, the R6 2020 as transport with the Hugo 2.

Thank you for your feedback
I now know the Hiby R6 2020 won't do as a standalone dap with the VCs.
I think it might be the same with the R8 then, even if they provide a bit more at 300ohms.

If I'm not wrong, I read in a thread that the R6 2020 could provide 240mw at 300ohms, while the R8 could provide 320mw at 300ohms.
So there shouldn't be any major improvement in the headroom department, am I right?

I might want to pair the Denon Ah-d9200 with the R6 2020 or R8 then.
Or get a Romi BX plus to get the best of the VCs... But my initial budget would explode

Anyway thank you again!

 

[goodvibes]

Is that still single ended usage ?
My cables will not come quite yet.
Mostly on 47 - 51 on high gain.

Yah, single ended. I don't have any 4.4mm cables yet. It will be a few weeks unless I build one from cables I have around. I have a couple balanced plugs coming this week. I also have duplicates of a cheap but decent 3.5mm cable that I may install a 4.4mm end on, just to compare both outputs with the same cable.

 

[goodvibes]

I am not using iem’s but I prefer low..I do enjoy a little of the extra low end that middle gives me but I find it adds a little too much drive that effects the treble and can make them have a not as natural sound. Especially with guitar driven music

Nice to have options and I will revisit at some point. Generally gain is done with feedback and low gain can (not always) sound more damped and high less so. The rest is interfacing/voicing with what's being driven.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

There are two nice feature that I noticed and hadn't read about. The R6 2020 displays the sampling rate of the music right next to the power indicator and it also displays the volume level.

 

[Imbrie]

@Joe Bloggs - any idea when the new R6 might be available in the UK - Amazon, for example, or another UK retailer?

 

[goodvibes]

Oh and anyone have a line on a glass screen protector for these. I ordered something on ebay I thought would fit 5.5" with rounded edges and it's actually about 6.2". Cheap enough that I can LOL.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

My R6 2020 arrived yesterday. I finally set it up today. It is a very nice form factor and is very responsive. Google Play works great. I downloaded Tidal and it works just like on my iPhone. Downloading music now.

I also received my ZMF Verite Closed yesterday as well. Someone asked me if they pair well. I am listening right now. I think the biggest problem is that even on high gain, there is very little head room with this DAP to fully drive the VC. And, I am connected 4.4 balanced. At lower volumes it sounds great. I am listening right now at 50-60 and it's moderate volume. After I do my testing, I'll probably listen at 40. Clean sound. Sounds more neutral to me than my BHC which is what I was pairing them with immediately prior to hooking it up. I prefer the BHC pairing as being much warmer sounding to my preference. I haven't tested MSEB or EQ. I will do that later. Just out of the box, it can work, but I probably would not recommend this pairing if you listen to loud music due to the lack of head room. If you mostly listen at moderate or low volume levels, then it will be fine.

I'll test out my IEMs later today when I have time. Then, the R6 2020 as transport with the Hugo 2.

How is it at 100 then?

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

How is it at 100 then?

highly distorted and too loud and shouty.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

Found another really great feature. Never saw this before with my iPhone. Not sure if it works there or not. I am listening to my ZMF VC headphones on my BHC. I was playing with the R6 2020 and I noticed that it was displaying my BHC and listed it as "Tidal Connect" I clicked on it and now it is using the Tidal app on my R6 2020 to control tidal connect on my Bluesound node 2i. That is really cool. I am pretty sure it is not streaming from the R6 2020 but it must be coming direclty from Tidal to tidal connect on the Bluesound Node 2i. I love this feature.

Wow. I tried to do the same thing with my iPhone. So, it is a standard feature of Tidal connect.

 

[HiFiHawaii808]

How is it at 100 then?

I see you work for Hiby. This is my first DAP. I can say that I really love it so far. It's fast and responsive. Mostly intuitive. Nice form factor. Sounds great. I did A/B testing with my Hugo 2 and it still sounds quite a bit better than the R6 2020, but I expected that to be true and will use the R6 2020 as a feature rich transport vehicle and controller for the Hugo 2 using the EQ features quite a bit.

 

[BadgerRivFan]

Yep, Tidal Connect works from an iPhone, iPad, etc.

 

[Currawong]

You mentioned in your review that you're finding better results with even an older gen external portable amplifier for harder to drive phones. Would you say the same for IEMs that do not need the power? If so, what portable amps with maximising IEM quality as the main goal would you suggest looking into?

First, I wouldn't class anything as "older gen" or "newer gen" -- that has nothing to do with it. The reason the Pico Power is better is that it only has one function, literally. It doesn't even have a charging circuit and you have to manually change the batteries when they get low. In any DAP, there's always a trade-off between power, size, battery life and features and sound quality, and at any price point there's going to be limit how far the available electronics can take one.

Want more power? You either have shorter battery life, or a bigger device.
What more battery life? You either have less power or a bigger device.
Want a smaller device? You lose screen size, battery life and/or output power.
Want more sound quality? You buy a Mojo/Poly, because you don't have to pay for the phone parts and Android development, but you'll need a smart phone to control it and the inconvenience of hooking up to it as a wireless hotspot every time you want to listen to music outside of home.

Get the idea?

IEMs aren't hard to drive. They only require a few mA to get loud -- less than 100, and even the relatively weaker (compared to desktop gear) amps inside a DAP will have no trouble driving them. The limitations of a DAP are going to usually be across the board -- the DAC and amp in the R6 wont be as good as in the R8 or other, $1000+ DAPs, so even if you improve the amplification, you're still limited by the DAC quality. If you're going to try and upgrade the sound with IEMs, the best thing to do is buy a better DAP, as the whole thing will be better.

Here's the whole portable music playback world in a nutshell: The Hugo2/2go is, sonically, the king, and it can drive full-sized headphones. But... size and battery life, and if you're only using IEMs, unless you're listening with top-of-the-line models, you may not really notice the difference between it and a $1000+ DAP anyway and, not to mention, for portable use the question is pointless, unless you only listen in cafes*.

From what I've experienced so far, you can get IEM listening almost to perfection under $2k in the DAP world. I thought that the M11 Pro was about as good as the old AK380, which just goes to show how far costs have dropped, and quality improved. Above $2k is for people in HK and SG and the like who live in tiny apartments, are rich students or have good-paying jobs, and the DAP is their entire system, bling and all (eg: N8, A&Ultima).

*Or your name is Rob Watts and you intentionally only fly on 787s and A350s in business or first, carry an MScaler and battery pack, and are basically crazy (in a good way). I think Rob wins for having the craziest portable rig of all time.

 

[goodvibes]

First, I wouldn't class anything as "older gen" or "newer gen" -- that has nothing to do with it. The reason the Pico Power is better is that it only has one function, literally. It doesn't even have a charging circuit and you have to manually change the batteries when they get low. In any DAP, there's always a trade-off between power, size, battery life and features and sound quality, and at any price point there's going to be limit how far the available electronics can take one.

Want more power? You either have shorter battery life, or a bigger device.
What more battery life? You either have less power or a bigger device.
Want a smaller device? You lose screen size, battery life and/or output power.
Want more sound quality? You buy a Mojo/Poly, because you don't have to pay for the phone parts and Android development, but you'll need a smart phone to control it and the inconvenience of hooking up to it as a wireless hotspot every time you want to listen to music outside of home.

Get the idea?

IEMs aren't hard to drive. They only require a few mA to get loud -- less than 100, and even the relatively weaker (compared to desktop gear) amps inside a DAP will have no trouble driving them. The limitations of a DAP are going to usually be across the board -- the DAC and amp in the R6 wont be as good as in the R8 or other, $1000+ DAPs, so even if you improve the amplification, you're still limited by the DAC quality. If you're going to try and upgrade the sound with IEMs, the best thing to do is buy a better DAP, as the whole thing will be better.

Here's the whole portable music playback world in a nutshell: The Hugo2/2go is, sonically, the king, and it can drive full-sized headphones. But... size and battery life, and if you're only using IEMs, unless you're listening with top-of-the-line models, you may not really notice the difference between it and a $1000+ DAP anyway and, not to mention, for portable use the question is pointless, unless you only listen in cafes*.

From what I've experienced so far, you can get IEM listening almost to perfection under $2k in the DAP world. I thought that the M11 Pro was about as good as the old AK380, which just goes to show how far costs have dropped, and quality improved. Above $2k is for people in HK and SG and the like who live in tiny apartments, are rich students or have good-paying jobs, and the DAP is their entire system, bling and all (eg: N8, A&Ultima).

*Or your name is Rob Watts and you intentionally only fly on 787s and A350s in business or first, carry an MScaler and battery pack, and are basically crazy (in a good way). I think Rob wins for having the craziest portable rig of all time.

I'd like this twice if I could. What I like about this Hiby is that it's leading edge in terms of function, speed and receivers etc, is actually portable and easily tweakable, and plenty informative enough where the right pairing has you in very elevated company. I just couldn't accept something larger or heavier for strictly portable use.

Props for mentioning Poly/Mojo. It's a really good portable player with a viable ( a little big) size to it. That synergy is better than it's respective halves. I just can't be bothered with how it functions or lack of other features for a portable source.

I once owned an LPG and this does some things better and others not as well. Size and weight was an issue for me.

 

[davidmolliere]

So I have received R6 2020 that was lightning fast thanks to @MusicTeck

I must say I am pretty happy with the purchase, it's a baby R8 of sorts

So glad @twister6 warned me of the reverse ports on the R6 2020 vs R8 as I would have made the mistake for sure

I haven't clocked enough time with it but I must say I like what I hear so far and value for money is very strong...
I wouldn't have figured the R6 2020 was almost as small as my DX160, very cool form factor!

 

[goodvibes]

So for now, Hiby player or Uapp, Medium gain, minimum phase slow roll-off filter. I turned off 'Pause when headphones unplugged' and set track transitions to insert silence instead of gapless. The last couple are extremely subtle to be sure and I suspect the great majority won't notice but they remove a gnat's hair of softness and/or make for a blacker background kinda thing. Not a flaw as I've found this to be common and It's a less noticeable here than on others DAPs I've had. Likely processes and buffers. If you don't notice or prefer another way, you're not crazy, nor am I. Only 3.5mm so far but I doubt balanced will change those.

I personally have little use for EQ or MSEB but I have to admit that they are well implemented in the design. Same for MQA and DSD. I haven't asked it to make me eggs yet but I wouldn't be surprised.

Stuff like the initial paragraph and bulk is why I now shy away from megabuck players. They can be better but still suffer a bit from the format and a player like this can get a great result when you get a good synergy going. This unit is great for IEMs. I can see something stronger and perhaps more tangible (and expensive, larger) being preferred for headphones (though I haven't tried) and a bit better on IEMs but as a truly portable player, I think the new R6 excels. I've always felt ear/headphones a bit of an unnatural experience anyway but they can bring home the message and some goosebumps when right enough. This is a player that can aid in that.