[KKFA]

I remember when joe worked to help folks, me included, and joe was great while there.

I was talking about 2 hiby customer support experiences after he left. Both via email.

May I be so bold as to say perhaps Hiby does not have someone who confident enough to engage this forum due to language barrier?

I have had reasonable experience with them and find that it takes a bit of explaining to get the message through but once there the response is reasonable. Of coz reasonable to me may not be acceptable for others.

Anyway, I am enjoying my R6 and my bone to pick with Hiby now is that their support focus on firmware/software is focused more on the R3. But they promised an update for the R6 soon, so I am waiting patiently.

Cheers.

 

[Dobrescu George]

I think there are a good number of companies with good PR support, like FiiO, Cayin, Opus, iBasso, Shanling.

I haven't had much talk with Hiby after Joe left them, but they indeed have a lot of work, let's hope they get on track, R6 is such a nice overall DAP that I'd be sorry to see support for it going down....

 

[superuser1]

Most importantly i need some more moral support to get the R6 Pro

 

[tekkster]

May I be so bold as to say perhaps Hiby does not have someone who confident enough to engage this forum due to language barrier?

I have had reasonable experience with them and find that it takes a bit of explaining to get the message through but once there the response is reasonable. Of coz reasonable to me may not be acceptable for others.

Anyway, I am enjoying my R6 and my bone to pick with Hiby now is that their support focus on firmware/software is focused more on the R3. But they promised an update for the R6 soon, so I am waiting patiently.

Cheers.

Yep, exactly what i’m experiencing. My experiences via email with
Hiby’s customer service were quite reasonable. Glad to read your’s was reasonable too.

 

[KevP]

I like Hiby and was trying to help when i said people are turning away from Hiby because of lack of customer engagement, strategy or not, at least 4 people have cited that very reason to me for avoiding Hiby. I personally have had no problems with Hiby. I want to see them do better!

Yes, Hiby made some efforts with my R6 issues with WiFi and Tidal. But I think they have given up now and are hoping the bad comments will go away once the R6 Pro appears.

I’m on my second R6. The WiFi is even worse than the first one. I’ve had to buy USB Audio Player Pro to get any kind of decent Tidal performance (although still hampered by the appalling WiFi connection).

I’m also now trying Qobuz, which is even worse on the R6 than Tidal but works well on my iPhone X and sounds just as good as on the R6 when playing through a Hugo2. And it gives me a smattering of hires music that’s growing all the time. Also, like for like, it sounds superior to Tidal on the same setup, listening to the same music.

Once I move to a 512gb iPhone, so I can import from Qobuz, that may signal the end of spending a fortune on Android-based DAPs which, let’s face it, are pants in terms of user experience.

 

[Cagin]

Most importantly i need some more moral support to get the R6 Pro

I just need it released so can order the damn thing

 

[enragedlemon]

I’m on my second R6. The WiFi is even worse than the first one. I’ve had to buy USB Audio Player Pro to get any kind of decent Tidal performance (although still hampered by the appalling WiFi connection).

Would you be able to install the Speedtest.net app on your R6? I’ve set up quite a broad environment to test the demo unit I’ve got for this problem and others but have not been able to reproduce.

I’ve got mine connected to the home wifi on 5GHz at the furthest distance in the house and have selectively throttled the connection speed down to 30mbps and only get around 1-2s of buffering time in Tidal and only at the start of the song.

Although it’s possible to have two faulty devices it is unlikely so it would be good if we could identify the specific series of circumstances you’re running under. Perhaps we can find an environmental or configuration issue and point HiBy or Tidal in the right direction to fix it?

 

[KevP]

I’ve tried it in different places. At home I have upto 200mb. Typically, I’m using it in a room that has 50 - 100mb as tested with Speedtest, but the result is still dire. It drops out constantly and Tidal takes upto a minute to fully load. Half the time after that, if I scroll faster than very slowly indeed, it freezes and I get the dreaded Tidal is not responding message and have to close it down. Sometimes I have to re-boot.

 

[enragedlemon]

I’ve tried it in different places. At home I have upto 200mb. Typically, I’m using it in a room that has 50 - 100mb as tested with Speedtest, but the result is still dire. It drops out constantly and Tidal takes upto a minute to fully load. Half the time after that, if I scroll faster than very slowly indeed, it freezes and I get the dreaded Tidal is not responding message and have to close it down. Sometimes I have to re-boot.

When you’ve run a speed test what kind of device have you used?

Would you be able to post a screenshot of the speed test (on the R6)? It shows more information than just raw speed, including ping times (how long a packet of data takes to make a round trip) and packet loss. Either one of those could be the issue here. It also might be worth seeing if you can force your R6 to use a different WiFi frequency (ie change to 2.4GHz if using 5GHz or vice versa).

One thing I have noticed when using Tidal on the R6 is that the interface is incredibly laggy but this is more likely to be an optimisation issue with the app itself.

 

[KevP]

When you’ve run a speed test what kind of device have you used?

Would you be able to post a screenshot of the speed test (on the R6)? It shows more information than just raw speed, including ping times (how long a packet of data takes to make a round trip) and packet loss. Either one of those could be the issue here. It also might be worth seeing if you can force your R6 to use a different WiFi frequency (ie change to 2.4GHz if using 5GHz or vice versa).

One thing I have noticed when using Tidal on the R6 is that the interface is incredibly laggy but this is more likely to be an optimisation issue with the app itself.

Many thanks for your reply. I’ve used Tidal on Pioneer and Onkyo Android DAPs. Although it’s been a little slow on these, it’s much, much worse on the R6. Also, yes I have tried forcing it onto 5Ghz or 2.4Ghz.

 

[buonassi]

have abandoned active customer *engagement* on head-fi as a strategy, preferring to wait for people to seek them out via the official channels

just doesn't seem like a good biz strategy for this industry. Clearly, we, on these forums are a pretty outspoken bunch who can either help or hurt their sales. I can't seem to wrap my brain around this decision. Perhaps cultural differences explain it?

 

[zhubajie]

I sent Hiby this today.

> With Express I would already have the product but it hasn't even moved yet.
> Handling in The Netherlands takes one day so nobody needs DHL for that. So save me the stories.
> Express is, if DHL handles it completely. Then shipping from door to door takes max 3 days.

> This is NO Express shipment so I demand my $20 back.

It was shipped monday morning with 4PX and is still at their facilities in Dongguan.
I don't even mind about the $20 but I hate being cheated.
Before this I ordered the R3 and that too was a shipping drama.

Their products are fine but expect problems and longer waiting with shipping.

 

[Olivier Schmidt]

I sent Hiby this today.

> With Express I would already have the product but it hasn't even moved yet.
> Handling in The Netherlands takes one day so nobody needs DHL for that. So save me the stories.
> Express is, if DHL handles it completely. Then shipping from door to door takes max 3 days.

> This is NO Express shipment so I demand my $20 back.

It was shipped monday morning with 4PX and is still at their facilities in Dongguan.
I don't even mind about the $20 but I hate being cheated.
Before this I ordered the R3 and that too was a shipping drama.

Their products are fine but expect problems and longer waiting with shipping.

hello everybody.
I ordered the r6 and paid the express dhl shipping, and mine hasn't yet been picked up in Bahrain (What???) after one week.
I just wrote them to keep this damn dap and to get me my money back. A little tough, but first time i contacted them they said it was on the move, probably delayed by customs.
I don't like being lied to.
Maybe they will work a little bit more on the customer relation in the future.

 

[davidcotton]

Most importantly i need some more fund support to get the R6 Pro

Fixed.

Got mixed feelings on the R6 if I'm honest. Nice enough player, crap wifi which in 2018 simply isn't acceptable 2nd unit (again Joe was a great help facilitating a returns for me) so it isn't that. It's a good job that I don't use it for streaming or I really would be p***ed. First and last crowdfunding effort as well, so at least there's that.

 

[milesjunkie]

just doesn't seem like a good biz strategy for this industry. Clearly, we, on these forums are a pretty outspoken bunch who can either help or hurt their sales. I can't seem to wrap my brain around this decision. Perhaps cultural differences explain it?

The fact is, their customer engagement strategy WAS @Joe Bloggs and as such WAS very successful because he is a very high caliber guy...I was one of the first backers based on his abilities and HBB’s photos. Now he is gone, so is the proactive customer engagement strategy. It is what it is, it unfortunately also fits with what I see to be a short sighted product cycle strategy.

I see Shanling has dropped Hiby’s software on their latest players. I’m sure if others follow it will force Hiby to decide once and for all between hardware and software. I think I know which way they will eventually go.

Oh and 4PX unfortunately is the one constant in an ever-changing Hiby world...”express” hahahahaha. You know the old saying...you can’t polish a turd. (But you CAN roll it in glitter!)