Hi all, I meant to post this sooner but due to my poor work/life balance and some health issue I had (nothing serious), I wasn't able to. Anyway, it's been close to 1 month since I got the R6 Pro II and I wanted to share my user experience here. Hopefully, someone finds this information useful when making a purchase decision.
Initially, I was not immediately impressed by this DAP, I could immediately tell that it's resolution/detail, clarity was easily better than some of my pervious DACs (Gryphon, RS2, Mojo 2...) but I was a bit disappointed by the Bass which did not hit as hard as some of my other DACs and there was also a certain unrefined quality in the higher frequencies which I was not fond of.
After ~70 Hrs of Burn-In, that slightly unrefined sharpness went away and the Bass also became more punchy, still close to Neutral but more Dynamic than before. The soundstage is pretty good and there is a decent amount of depth here compared to some DS DACs but it does not quite have the grand scale to the soundstage that some R2R DACs have nor is it's stage depth as good as Chord FPGA DACs like Mojo 2. Still, I have no complaints with what's offered here with the R6 Pro II.
For the first few hours of my time with the DAP, I figured the lack of Bass impact was maybe because of a weak Amp section (just like the RS2) but now that the DAP has settled in a bit, I can hear that it's powering all my IEMs well. For fun, I even paired my Edition XS via 4.4 Out and while the overall sound was alright, I've certainly heard the Edition XS sing better from more powerful sources and it is also capable of projecting a wider stage with better sources. Easier to drive Headphones like the Meze 99's should have no issues with being driven by the R6 Pro II.
I have mostly been using Class A mode, there's not a big difference in sound between Class A & AB but I do like the slightly better Image and more denser sound of the Class A mode. With the AB mode, I sometimes noticed that the centre Image is just a tiny bit diffuse (compared to Class A), It's not bad sounding but there's just a different quality to the sound with AB mode. The battery life for my use case is pretty good, I listen for ~1 hour every day and because of the good standby drain, I only have to charge the DAP every 4-5 days. With my charger, it usually charges from ~20% to ~80% in under 1 hour 40 mins and that's fine for me.
Overall, I really like the sound quality of the DAP, it's Dynamic, does not sound analytical but at the same time isn't too warm or colored enough to effect the overall tone and timbre too much. The only thing that's a bit "off" for me would be the slight upper mid forwardness that I'm sometimes hearing, this rarely happens but when it does, vocals can sound a bit forward/shouty, I mostly noticed this when I'm listening to music at somewhat higher volume levels but it can also happend on some rare occations at normal volume levels.
In terms of usability, this is an area that I have a lot to complain about. Let's start with the button placement. I have big hands and it's awkward to adjust volume when the DAP is in my right hand, I would have preferred it if the volume buttons were closer to the top rather than middle of the device. On the left side of the DAP, I kept accidentally pressing the Play/Pause button initially and while I did get used to it, I would have liked either 3 individual buttons for Next, Previous, Play/Pause or to have one long button with Next & Previous controls and a separate button for Play/Pause. Other than this, I don't have any other complains about the physical aspects of the DAP. It's a good looking DAP IMO and the large display is nice to look at. There's already enough said about the case and it's issues so I will skip this part. Overall, compared to when I first got the DAP, I have somewhat gotten used to the controls but I would have preferred better layout here.
On to software side of things where again, I have some issues, nothing that would effect daily use but still, I thought I would mention them and hope HiBy will fix them in the next update.
*When adjusting volume, a volume indicator pops up and covers the whole display for ~3 seconds. I would have liked an option to remove this and get a normal volume dialogue instead (like in most phones) as I sometimes accidentally swiped up or down wanting to browse my Library and accidentally adjusting the volume too much.
*When I'm listening to Music and set a timer on the DAP to remind me of something (turn off stove, Coffee brew time...) when the time is up, the Music stops and I get a notification which is expected but then, there is no sound from the DAP, Play/Pause does nothing, the DAP shows that Music is playing but there is no sound untill I restart the DAP.
*Changing the Bluetooth Codec in any combination (LDAC to AAC, AAC to LDAC...) will result in stuttery playback with pauses inbetween every 1-2 seconds which requires re-pairing the Bluetooth device to work. It will work fine as long as you don't switch codecs after pairing the devices.
*There's a 1-2 sec delay in Audio when playing Video files. It does not matter if I'm playing the files locally or on YouTube. This is a shame considering that I can't fully utilize the large display by exploring for new Music Videos on YouTube.
Thankfully, most of the above problems don't really effect normal music listening so I guess that's good. Apart from the above issues the general UI is pretty good with decently fluid animations and there's not much clutter (extra Apps, options...) so... Yeah. I have tried EQ (MSEB & Plugins) and while they were fun to play around with initially, I mostly turned off all DSP as this is how I liked it best. The implementation of said DSP is better this time around compared to RS2, maybe it's cause of the extra processing power but with the RS2 there was some noticeable distortion when using MSEB.
Well, that's all I can think of at the moment, I'll update this post if something else comes to mind but untill then
