[milesjunkie]

Agreed. However the R6 is already on BF sale for 30% off in a number of colors with the exception of the stainless steel. It appears that the window to get a good price on any unit except perhaps the SS version is closing.

I was tempted to buy, but am going to wait for the Pro version. The impedance of the R6 makes my Noble Encores sound a little off. Yes, I can address with the in match, but why buy an older unit when I can get a newer version at roughly the same price (I want the SS version).

The ability to stream and run other Android apps is huge for me. For example one of my other daps is the QP2R. It sounds fantastic and even though I have a large number of Flac files saved to SD I would trade a bit of the performance for the ability to stream from Tidal. Quite frankly any hit to performance is likely not immediately audible in all but the most critical listening anyway and in the case of the R6 the high output impedance likely has more of a negative impact on the quality of sound. A minor hit on quality is a small price to pay for the ability to discover new artists or listen to new albums from favorite artists at work or around the home.

Yeh I just saw the big BF discount. Really excellent value at that price.

 

[emrelights1973]

so sr15 vs R6 ?

 

[Cagin]

Advancedmp3players.co.uk has 15BLACK 15% off code running across all store and they do sell the R6
I'm gonna wait the R6 Pro

 

[tkddud21]

R6 Pro features with Android 8.1, 4.4mm Headphone out instead of 2.5 mm jack, lower output impedance, and revised electronic components inside e.g. capactiors, 4 * MUSE8920 Amp chip, etc.

Do you know the output impedence value of r6 pro?

 

[enragedlemon]

Do you know the output impedence value of r6 pro?

I’m pretty sure this hasn’t been advertised yet.

 

[PunchLine]

this. How many people besides me rent their music instead of amassing a personal library ripped from CDs. Answer: a lot.

Audio streaming is the number 1 format of music consumption. Here's an industry qoute:

"Interactive streaming music services — Spotify, Apple Music, Napster, Deezer, Tidal, etc. — now account for the majority of recorded music industry revenue and are growing at better than 50% per year. We’re now in the fifth era of recorded music, after the eras of vinyl, tape (8-tracks and cassettes), CDs and music downloads."

One of the main reasons I got the R6 as a digital transport was the open Android environment. It allows me to use pretty much any streaming app.

On the other hand, the hi-fi vendors with fancy and costly music servers/streamers demonstrate incredible shortsightedness by offering only a few streaming services. They expect you to shell out a few grands and be stuck with Tidal. Nuts.

 

[KevP]

Audio streaming is the number 1 format of music consumption. Here's an industry qoute:

"Interactive streaming music services — Spotify, Apple Music, Napster, Deezer, Tidal, etc. — now account for the majority of recorded music industry revenue and are growing at better than 50% per year. We’re now in the fifth era of recorded music, after the eras of vinyl, tape (8-tracks and cassettes), CDs and music downloads."

One of the main reasons I got the R6 as a digital transport was the open Android environment. It allows me to use pretty much any streaming app.

On the other hand, the hi-fi vendors with fancy and costly music servers/streamers demonstrate incredible shortsightedness by offering only a few streaming services. They expect you to shell out a few grands and be stuck with Tidal. Nuts.

But, the bottom line is that the R6 absolutely sucks with Tidal. I’m on my second one. Returned the first because Tidal was awful on it. This one is worse with Tidal. Takes almost a minute to load. Extremely jerky scrolling. In fact if you don’t scroll at a snail-like speed, Tidal freezes and you have to load again. It’s so frustrating because Tidal is all I use. The R6 is a transport, through a Hugo2, into Sony Z1Rs.

At least with my first R6 the battery life was very good (about 8 hours just using Tidal). Now I’m lucky if I get 5. Anyone had experience using R6 with Qobuz? Need Hifi quality.

 

[PunchLine]

But, the bottom line is that the R6 absolutely sucks with Tidal. I’m on my second one. Returned the first because Tidal was awful on it. This one is worse with Tidal. Takes almost a minute to load. Extremely jerky scrolling. In fact if you don’t scroll at a snail-like speed, Tidal freezes and you have to load again. It’s so frustrating because Tidal is all I use. The R6 is a transport, through a Hugo2, into Sony Z1Rs.

At least with my first R6 the battery life was very good (about 8 hours just using Tidal). Now I’m lucky if I get 5. Anyone had experience using R6 with Qobuz? Need Hifi quality.

Fair enough and not encouraging to learn.

I use SoundCloud with stellar results

 

[superuser1]

Fair enough and not encouraging to learn.

I use SoundCloud with stellar results

I was/ am planning on using bandcamp along with local flac files .. i just hope this works! Anyone tried DLNA with good results? Spotify would be good if it works flawlessly.

 

[PunchLine]

Here's another strike against HiBy R6, at least as a digital transport:

The pinout on the coax port is reversed. that is, the signal/data is carried by the shield and the ground is connected to the core. A bizarre analomy.

The implication is a cable that is prone to picking up interferences. The longer the cable and the nearer to power line, the more sensative. In my case, with a 2.5m cable, the signal drops every time I turn on the lights. It takes a long second before it's re-locked. Annoying and unhealthy for the equipment.

 

[buonassi]

One of the main reasons I got the R6 as a digital transport was the open Android environment. It allows me to use pretty much any streaming app.

And to do so without resampling the original data. That's the R6's differentiating factor: the DTA architecture that prevents the android OS from taking over the bitstream and resampling it to it's native 48khz rate. Android resamples all audio to 48khz (or some integer multiple thereof - 96, 192) so that it can mix android system sounds in along with whatever is playing - a song/video, etc. When converting from 44.1 (CD format) to 48 (android) only 1 in 160 original samples are preserved, the rest are "interpolated" or approximated. So the amplitude plotting of each sample will not be precisely what it was when recorded - it will be the best approximation the re-sampler algorithm can manage. This is known as quantization error.

I've done sighted testing (so take it FWIW) and am convinced resampling detracts slightly from the quality. Mainly, how deeply into a musical piece you can "see". Low level detail is lost. Sometimes, the highs can become a bit more sibilant or splashy than original bitstream would produce. This is only really evident on very good recordings. At least with my ears and my gear.

Now for the life of me I can't think of why android would choose to operate this way. Why not resample whatever is not the primary source bitstream? IE, resample the system sounds and mix them in at 44.1 if you're listening to a 44.1 file. You'd think by now they'd have a dynamic resampler. It's easier to have a fixed core audio system vs an intelligent one.

 

[PunchLine]

And to do so without resampling the original data. That's the R6's differentiating factor: the DTA architecture that prevents the android OS from taking over the bitstream and resampling it to it's native 48khz rate. Android resamples all audio to 48khz (or some integer multiple thereof - 96, 192) so that it can mix android system sounds in along with whatever is playing - a song/video, etc. When converting from 44.1 (CD format) to 48 (android) only 1 in 160 original samples are preserved, the rest are "interpolated" or approximated. So the amplitude plotting of each sample will not be precisely what it was when recorded - it will be the best approximation the re-sampler algorithm can manage. This is known as quantization error.

I've done sighted testing (so take it FWIW) and am convinced resampling detracts slightly from the quality. Mainly, how deeply into a musical piece you can "see". Low level detail is lost. Sometimes, the highs can become a bit more sibilant or splashy than original bitstream would produce. This is only really evident on very good recordings. At least with my ears and my gear.

Now for the life of me I can't think of why android would choose to operate this way. Why not resample whatever is not the primary source bitstream? IE, resample the system sounds and mix them in at 44.1 if you're listening to a 44.1 file. You'd think by now they'd have a dynamic resampler. It's easier to have a fixed core audio system vs an intelligent one.

Is the Android resampling / DTA solution applicable when the output is digital?
Internally, as far as I know, the data stream is processed by a USB/SPIDF chip, clock information is slapped on, and off the port the it goes.

 

[buonassi]

Is the Android resampling / DTA solution applicable when the output is digital?

geesh, I wish I knew the answer to that. The DTA solution in my very limited opinion is fancy way of saying they customized the HAL and "audio policy" of android:

https://source.android.com/devices/audio/implement
https://source.android.com/devices/audio/implement-policy

this is just a guess, but maybe there's a dev that could jump in and let us know for sure?

 

[bbfoto]

FWIW, the Android music player app "USB Audio Player Pro" completely replaces the stock Android audio kernel to bypass the SRC issue and provide bit-perfect output.

 

[buonassi]

FWIW, the Android music player app "USB Audio Player Pro" completely replaces the stock Android audio kernel to bypass the SRC issue and provide bit-perfect output.

yes, it works well on R6 - I have owned it for 2 years. Great if you want GEG, PEQ or crossfeed without SRC. However, the SQ is just fine using the tidal app on Hiby R6, and to me, doesn't appear to be performing SRC. I can't say the same for my LG V30... there, UAPP must be used unless you want your hifi files to sound like MP3s.