[Nayparm]

thank you very much for the great, rounded review! It's a shame you didn't receive a DX220MAX to compare with, because this is in many ways the obvious competition (price and release date wise).

I'm concerned that sound settings are done in the HiBy app: do you think this mean that other apps (such as Tidal) do not have access to the same audio rendering features as the HiBy app, because these features are not exposed at the system level but rather baked into the HiBy app?

and it stills feels to me that the AK4497s call out for an R8Pro with AK4499s...

It has system wide MSEB DSP, DAC filters, (Low, Medium High Gain) and Turbo mode. The Hiby app has its own MSEB/EQ as it has done for a good while as a downloadable apk for most android devices, daps and phones.
So tidal will use the system wide MSEB

 

[Whitigir]

Why can’t we have SnapDragon865 in a DAP and 12Gb RAM already ? So strange

 

[eaglesgift]

Why can’t we have SnapDragon865 in a DAP and 12Gb RAM already ? So strange

I'm sure I remember one of the DAP makers explaining that because they don't order in the same quantities as large smartphone manufacturers, they can't get the tech support they need from chip manufacturers to use the latest chips so they have to use slightly older models.

 

[Whitigir]

I'm sure I remember one of the DAP makers explaining that because they don't order in the same quantities as large smartphone manufacturers, they can't get the tech support they need from chip manufacturers to use the latest chips so they have to use slightly older models.

That makes a lot of senses, but it is sad to see that DAP are creeping up in prices as much as smartphones, but is ways behind in CPU and prowess

 

[hAbIrAbI]

Look Whitgir if you make DAPs a multi million device business then we'll see the manufacturers being able to source better (maybe not latest smartphone spec) components and prices will be much lower as well. If an R8 sold as much as any flagship smartphone it probably could cost as low as 400-500$ I'd guess. And with that kind of cashflow you can probably pay a Oneplus level dev team as well.

It's just that the economies of scale and price elasticity of the customer Base are not in our favour.

 

[DarginMahkum]

Look Whitgir if you make DAPs a multi million device business then we'll see the manufacturers being able to source better (maybe not latest smartphone spec) components and prices will be much lower as well. If an R8 sold as much as any flagship smartphone it probably could cost as low as 400-500$ I'd guess. And with that kind of cashflow you can probably pay a Oneplus level dev team as well.

It's just that the economies of scale and price elasticity of the customer Base are not in our favour.

You don't need to explain to him, he knows what he is talking about. Just likes to go around non-iBasso threads and tries to find something to bash them. He does it with Hiby, Cayin, FiiO, you name it. Then when you criticize anything about iBasso, pushes people against you. He probably has some tight relationships with iBasso, too.

 

[DarginMahkum]

thank you very much for the great, rounded review! It's a shame you didn't receive a DX220MAX to compare with, because this is in many ways the obvious competition (price and release date wise).

I'm concerned that sound settings are done in the HiBy app: do you think this mean that other apps (such as Tidal) do not have access to the same audio rendering features as the HiBy app, because these features are not exposed at the system level but rather baked into the HiBy app?

and it stills feels to me that the AK4497s call out for an R8Pro with AK4499s...

I am not sure if it is a very obvious competition (I have both). For the hardware and software, R8 is far ahead of MAX. Sound wise MAX is a bit clearer and more neutral sounding. It is in the end a tamed version of the analytical iBasso house sound. R8 has a bit more forward and smoother mids, and especially with turbo mode fuller sound with full sized headphones. With MAX it is easier to hear individual instruments with complex many instrument arrangements, due to deeper depth and mids location, but it might also be sounding lean and weak depending on the recording.

Sound-wise one can be spoiled with any of them, also depending on the recording, pairing and sound preferences.

I tried with Qobuz and system tone shaping from the Android audio settings is also applied to the Qobuz application audio output.

 

[Facta]

I'm not going to argue with you, everyone is entitled to his opinion. But there's 3 pages on sound, 2 on the rest.
Why don't you share your review here?

It's like asking someone to make a film and show, when he says he doesn't like the one you made. Sure.

What HiBy R9 Official Product Page Offers:
https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-r8
What Your Review Offers:
https://www.headfonia.com/hiby-r8-review/
I leave the rest to your loyal readers.

Ran into the latest news on the prototype of the AI-powered writing machine that chews up millions of published articles and outputs very intelligible but fake news articles on any topic one selects, and readers would have a hard time suspecting the authenticity of the writer. The idea this AI prototype must've modeled on very well could be some human beings amongst us.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...musk-backed-ai-writes-convincing-news-fiction

You are a professional reviewer who makes a living through a well-read and successful website that specializes in audiophile gear reviews with literally hundreds of articles to your credit - as many as 10-12 product reviews per month from just you, perhaps - and all these from your auditory experiences. And there are thousands of readers who rely on your reviews for truth. I can only offer you my sincere and heartfelt wishes for a long and successful career that I am quite sure you are going to have, although it's not something I would wish to have for myself, if I were to write the way you do. Do what you must. Try not doing what you think is not truly felt within. I love your website's product photography. I love getting to know the names of latest products on which I could do further research before taking purchase decisions like most readers do. But I know if and when I should buy into what I am reading and when I shouldn't. I am very much interested in R8 and I have done some research and I am most likely going to place an order for a unit too. But I think reading your review is like the fluffy packaging material and marketing pamphlets any product comes with that I just have to throw away into trash before taking out the product I know I will enjoy playing with. There are writers. And then there are make-up artists. Both are equally respectable jobs and I respect them both. It's just that one runs into some who are so good at something but are doing jobs that are not... them. I wish you all the best.

 

[Nayparm]

Managed to get R8 all the way up to 768khz in Neutron (only with deep buffer mode) Still no joy with PCM to DSD though. @dmitrykos let me know if you want any logs

 

[Whitigir]

Managed to get R8 all the way up to 768khz in Neutron (only with deep buffer mode) Still no joy with PCM to DSD though. @dmitrykos let me know if you want any logs

Lovely!!! Now we just need optional digital filters while upscaling too lol..
How is the heat
Also, what USB and digital interfaces are being used inside R8 ?

 

[Doctortre2481]

To be honest headfonia reviews reads alot better than most other reviews sites .I've been looking at se200 and the hiby R8 .100% of se200 reviews read like advertisements as opposed actual reviews. I don't feel that way with headfonia .While there's some repeating from the company in his article I think its important to state what the manufacturers was going for vs how it sounds .

 

[Liberatus]

It's like asking someone to make a film and show, when he says he doesn't like the one you made. Sure.

What HiBy R9 Official Product Page Offers:
https://store.hiby.com/products/hiby-r8
What Your Review Offers:
https://www.headfonia.com/hiby-r8-review/
I leave the rest to your loyal readers.

Ran into the latest news on the prototype of the AI-powered writing machine that chews up millions of published articles and outputs very intelligible but fake news articles on any topic one selects, and readers would have a hard time suspecting the authenticity of the writer. The idea this AI prototype must've modeled on very well could be some human beings amongst us.
https://www.theguardian.com/technol...musk-backed-ai-writes-convincing-news-fiction

You are a professional reviewer who makes a living through a well-read and successful website that specializes in audiophile gear reviews with literally hundreds of articles to your credit - as many as 10-12 product reviews per month from just you, perhaps - and all these from your auditory experiences. And there are thousands of readers who rely on your reviews for truth. I can only offer you my sincere and heartfelt wishes for a long and successful career that I am quite sure you are going to have, although it's not something I would wish to have for myself, if I were to write the way you do. Do what you must. Try not doing what you think is not truly felt within. I love your website's product photography. I love getting to know the names of latest products on which I could do further research before taking purchase decisions like most readers do. But I know if and when I should buy into what I am reading and when I shouldn't. I am very much interested in R8 and I have done some research and I am most likely going to place an order for a unit too. But I think reading your review is like the fluffy packaging material and marketing pamphlets any product comes with that I just have to throw away into trash before taking out the product I know I will enjoy playing with. There are writers. And then there are make-up artists. Both are equally respectable jobs and I respect them both. It's just that one runs into some who are so good at something but are doing jobs that are not... them. I wish you all the best.

I don't spread hate online, but I will agree with the sentiment I think you're trying to get at here.

I stopped reading headfonia awhile ago because of similar issues but checked out this R8 post. It's like copy pasted script from a low rate online marketing department. "Keep reading to find out!"

And I know because I had many dealings with online marketing teams. Scripted, churn and burn. Make sure you put this type of phrasing, with this stile and this many keywords to get more 'hits'. While not really offering anything unique, creative or valuable.

No disrespect to the author or website, people do what they do and if it provides benefit to some, then I'm not one to hate.

But I do have an opinion of my own and as a person who loves art and creativity and people with passion for their creativity things, the articles just ooze of someone with no interest. Churning out material and isn't very interested/excited and using basic marketing to keep people reading. As you are suggesting, I would hope all people get to do what they love, and if you don't love what you do and have passion for it, it can show through in your work. And this article and many others just speak to that lack of interest very much.

There's no authors voice, no authenticity. It's very white labeled and bland. I would say to the author that I hope you find your actual passion in work and are able to fulfill that, or if this was your passion, that you're able to rekindle it at some point.

Cheers and all the best

 

[TheNameIsGerald]

I am not sure if it is a very obvious competition (I have both).

there aren't many that have heard both and publish the comparison, so thank you for that.

 

[Facta]

I don't spread hate online, but I will agree with the sentiment I think you're trying to get at here.

I stopped reading headfonia awhile ago because of similar issues but checked out this R8 post. It's like copy pasted script from a low rate online marketing department. "Keep reading to find out!"

And I know because I had many dealings with online marketing teams. Scripted, churn and burn. Make sure you put this type of phrasing, with this stile and this many keywords to get more 'hits'. While not really offering anything unique, creative or valuable.

No disrespect to the author or website, people do what they do and if it provides benefit to some, then I'm not one to hate.

But I do have an opinion of my own and as a person who loves art and creativity and people with passion for their creativity things, the articles just ooze of someone with no interest. Churning out material and isn't very interested/excited and using basic marketing to keep people reading. As you are suggesting, I would hope all people get to do what they love, and if you don't love what you do and have passion for it, it can show through in your work. And this article and many others just speak to that lack of interest very much.

There's no authors voice, no authenticity. It's very white labeled and bland. I would say to the author that I hope you find your actual passion in work and are able to fulfill that, or if this was your passion, that you're able to rekindle it at some point.

Cheers and all the best

Thank you for noticing that I had no hatred for the reviewer but only deep disappointment that the writer in him was seemingly unexcited and unconvincing about what he was writing about. It often happens to most reviewers - they all start with great passion for and commitment to only truth and only love for audio but the need to do so many reviews per month as part of job with only two human ears and one short term human memory at one's disposal and the need to maintain good terms with most clients can turn them into creatures of habit that regurgitate and churn out and eventually burn out. What makes most reviewers' lives even harder is the fact that, as technologies advance, it's harder and rarer for any half-decent manufacturer to even come up with a really bad product - how long can one possibly write only great reviews on only good products without leading readers into suspecting something amiss? But the case in here is not the product - R8 is, just like most current products, a good offering. It's just that the reviewer might have had too many products to review in the recent past and was expected to make sure his R8 review coincide with its USA product launch on 20th August and, unfortunately, he had had a long enough experience with great many portable audio products that allowed him to simply go through the exercise of writing yet another review of yet another good product. Signature style, contrary to the general belief, can be a disadvantage to a real writer. And political correctness, a true enemy. One should simply pause and take a long break the moment one realizes one is simply repeating himself with no great personal connect with what one is writing about. Quite a few great fiction writers started their careers in advertising writing about products. It's exciting to use one's talent for wordplay and wit to create thrilling copy and headlines. But they did stop doing so one day when they realized they were actually building an unreal image around a product they themselves didn't believe in buying, and chose to move to full-time fiction writing where concocting unreal images is more honest for the line of work and even a basic requirement. I am sure most reviewers of audiophile products we follow simply need a long enough break from work every other month and maybe they need to limit the total number of devices they can review per year to 10 or 12 in order to stay anatomically truthful and also passionate for work for a long time into future. We all have only two ears per head, after all. But the commerce side of life and the abundance of reviewers available online might not let any one to go lean and mean. And we just want to say we are with you, if you choose to brave the road less travelled by. You all have great photography skills, good writing prowess, enough empathy for readers and decent enough income to run an honest website and also put food on table. And you all can be a lot better reviewers than what you are allowing yourselves to be, if only you reviewed fewer number of products, with more personal and honest experience with each one and not care so much about how many people you disappointed in the process. You, as writers, can disappoint anybody but not your readers. We are with you and we wish you all the best.

 

[TheUnknow]

Look Whitgir if you make DAPs a multi million device business then we'll see the manufacturers being able to source better (maybe not latest smartphone spec) components and prices will be much lower as well. If an R8 sold as much as any flagship smartphone it probably could cost as low as 400-500$ I'd guess. And with that kind of cashflow you can probably pay a Oneplus level dev team as well.

It's just that the economies of scale and price elasticity of the customer Base are not in our favour.

It doesn't make any sense : " If DAP manufacturers sells millions of units , then DAP would have better components and cheaper price ".
In France , there is this saying : " Mettre la charrue devant les boeufs ", which can be translate as " to put the cart before the horse ".
DAP would have better hardware if they sell by millions ? What do they have to offer to do that ?
To sell millions of units , you need to provide something that isn't subjective , and can be easily see as defective or " not good ".
Audio isn't that " something ".

First and foremost , a device that provide Streaming services must have cellular network access.
Regarding this , DAP are complete industrial non sense to me because they depend entirely of another device ( phone or Wifi spot).

Even if you put a selling argument in a DAP (a TOTL camera system) , it would suffer from other things compared to phone : design, hardware , software , UI ...

So the perfect DAP would be very close to a smartphone.

Which means , the perfect DAP is a smarpthone.