[twister6]

Perhaps the 16x MQA feature is moot now, but may become relevant in the future and HiBy wanted to jump the gun. I don’t stream from Tidal or Qobuz any longer finding music discovery on both platforms not to my liking. Radio Paradise lossless works great for this because the DJ and I have very similar tastes in music.

As to hi res music, I own nearly 400GB bought mostly from HDtracks and Pono. I’m old school when it comes to my music, I’d rather own it. Music is my number one passion, so I’ve spent ungodly amounts of money on this hobby since I began when I was 17.

I’m really interested in reading more feedback on the R8 and how it compares to the other TOTL daps on the market. I’m starting to wonder whether my Odin needs a slightly warmer sounding dap to sound its best with all my music.

That's where the beauty of turbo mode switch will come into play with EE Odin. Just like with Cayin daps where you can switch between solid state and tube modes, with Odin and turbo off is like a tube mode with a more musical tonality in mids vs turbo on - like a solid state mode with more revealing brighter mids and airy treble. Now, keep in mind, this is pair up dependent, don't expect exactly the same behavior with all IEMs and headphones, but in this particular pair up it works just that way. Not as night'n'day extreme, but quite noticeable.

 

[twister6]

Ah, OK. I understand. Yes, the mids are pushed more forward with turbo mode. I think I might be missing something with the term analytical, because in my dictionary neutrality was the necessity for being analytical, so I would call MAX to be more analytical, as it is leaner and more neutral in the mids with a comparable resolution. I don't know what it is, although R8 might be brighter in the mids with turbo mode, especially for a complex recording, with MAX (maybe due to the jaw dropping stage) it is easier to hear each instrument clearer.

By the way, I saw in your other post mentioning DSD512. I converted some of my music to DSD512 using AuI ConverteR 48x44 and you gain a bit of clarity and R8 a bit comes closer to MAX.

Ok, now we are on the same page You are correct, our audio vocab terminology does vary, I do consider analytical to be more revealing, with micro retrieval of details to "analyze" the sound, thus I refer to it as analytical. While neutral is more natural and perhaps smoother. But, now I see that we are aligned in how we hear these both! But to be honest, there is never right or wrong way to describe the sound. I mean, we are all human beings with a different hearing level, different earcanal anatomy, just so many variables making sound description subjective. Even when we look at the graphs to analyze the sound with our "eyes", which I find to be a great tool for a relative comparison, that's the sound captured by some coupler or some ear emulator, it's not 1:1 model of our own ears representing how we gonna hear it exactly.

Yep, heard good things about upscaling and rendering to DSD512, which I think makes more sense with classical and instrumental music, to enhance natural timbre instruments, rather than synthesized ones. But man, the size of those files

 

[jwbrent]

That's where the beauty of turbo mode switch will come into play with EE Odin. Just like with Cayin daps where you can switch between solid state and tube modes, with Odin and turbo off is like a tube mode with a more musical tonality in mids vs turbo on - like a solid stage mode with more revealing brighter mids and airy treble. Now, keep in mind, this is pair up dependent, don't expect exactly the same behavior with all IEMs and headphones, but in this particular pair up it works just that way. Not as night'n'day extreme, but quite noticeable.

oooh, very nice to read!

 

[Facta]

Did you try that with turbo on or off? What I find fascinating, and of course could be due to a pair up synergy which affects the sound, that boost affects the sound sig of R8. With boost on, R8 mids are more forward, more open, even more dynamic and layered, and soundstage also opens up. I tried it with various IEMs (Odin, Legend X, U18t, Ely, etc) and full size (Empyrean, Beyer T5p 2nd gen, ATH-R70x) and it is very consistent. I know you use full size more demanding headphones, unfortunately I don't have access to many, thus our impressions could be a little different relative to headphones and the music we are listening to. And that is perfectly normal, the sound perception is very subjective. But with all that said, I do feel MAX sounds more revealing in comparison to R8 with turbo off, but once turbo is enabled, in some pair ups R8 becomes more revealing, forward, and even a little brighter in mids/vocals (that is what I mentioned in my MAX review). To my ears it was very apparent with Legend X and Empyrean.

Always wanted to try ATH-R70x. They seem to have tried to pull off their own HD650 and even succeeded at it. Great reviews on Thomann and from sound-mixing community. How does it sound on R8? And maybe, when compared to HD650/DT880/1990? I find most Audio Technica products to be offering great price versus performance ratio.

 

[twister6]

Always wanted to try ATH-R70x. They seem to have tried to pull off their own HD650 and even succeeded at it. Great reviews on Thomann and from sound-mixing community. How does it sound on R8? And maybe, when compared to HD650/DT880/1990? I find most Audio Technica products to be offering great price versus performance ratio.

R70x is 470ohm open back and need extra power to drive them hard, with R8 they really scale up once turbo is on. Super lightweight and very comfortable after you mentally adjust to their 3D wings since headband is not adjustable otherwise.

I'm ashamed to say that I never tried HD650, might get a pair one of these days just for test purpose since many ask me after DAP reviews if these 300ohm cans pair up OK with a source under test. I had DT880 on loan for review many years ago, don't remember the sound at all, have my review somewhere on head-fi (link doesn't work now after the site was changed twice and link formats no longer the same), but I'm pretty sure back when I reviewed it I didn't have a powerful enough source to drive it properly. Also, not familiar with DT1990, or "Thomann" unless you meant Thummim? Thummim was reviewed by Erik/Wyville on Tw6, I only had it on loan for a week from Musicteck, it's a warm and bassy tuned IEM.

 

[Doctortre2481]

I personally use Qobuz, and some off-line MQA flacs (for testing only). But the whole thing with Tidal and MQA unfolding, it is just a math. Again, don't want to sound like know-it-all expert, I'm still reading and learning about it, and if anybody has more info, don't hesitate to correct me, please. I thought that MQA 16x will be able to unfold up to 768kHz originally encoded files. Does Tidal even carries such high res sampling rate files? If it does, than you can have the full unfolding/decoding. Otherwise, I was under impression that majority of available high res MQA stuff is up to 192kHz (equivalent of MQA 4x). MQA unfolding will not upsample the original file, it just unfolds compressed file to its original sampling rate.

Sound difference of these MQA files is the whole other topic. But with sampling and encoding, it's similar to some people wanting to make sure their DAP supports DSD512 while they don't have access to or will ever intend to play any DSD512 file

Ok, now, let me open a can of worms DX160 is ibasso entry/mid-fi level DAP, typically people don't ask me to compare entry level to flagship models It's a little tricky because you can find some IEM that going to sound great with either one, and will vary in some technical performance (soundstage, dynamics, etc.). Than, how do you draw a conclusion? The sound with this particular iem has a little wider soundstage and more bass and less treble sparkle, so does that make $1.9k flagship just a little bit better than $399 entry level? It is tricky because there is so much that goes into the comparison and analysis, the design, the build quality, the ability to drive demanding headphones and sensitive iems, etc. And of course, the question of a budget. Does MAX sounds 5x better than DX160? Or does R8 sounds 6x better than R5? That's where I'm having a problem with comparison, thus trying to stick to compare DAPs of the same tier level or maybe closer in price. I mean, most of my readers I talk to, they set the budget and ask for what is the best DAP for their specific use in that particular budget bracket. I don't usually get asked if someone should buy $299 R5 or $1,900 R8. Do you know what I mean?

Do you ever use UAPP with tidal mqa ?

 

[twister6]

Do you ever use UAPP with tidal mqa ?

Sorry, never tried. Since I don't have Tidal, never found the need for UAPP. I'm so used to HibyMusic, just stick with it, even so I also have Neutron which is even more advanced.

 

[twister6]

OK, so been doing a few charge/discharge battery cycles and run my first official battery test to see how long it will last on a full charge. This is what I call "best case scenario", using average sensitivity efficient IEMs (Odin), BAL 4.4mm output, med gain, Wifi/BT off, display mostly off, just periodically checking battery status while playing a mix of mp3/flac files in a loop. Turbo mode was ON, and battery lasted 11hr 40min before R8 shutdown. Once it is recharged, I will run the same test under exactly same conditions with Turbo mode off. Again, this is a best case scenario, and obviously if you are playing at high volume, gain, driving more demanding headphones, playing DSD files, or streaming with Wifi on, and using display more often, the time will scale down.

 

[DarginMahkum]

Do you ever use UAPP with tidal mqa ?

By the way, UAPP on R8 is currently non-conclusive. I had an R8 build with some glitches (like while switching between DSD and FLAC files) and sent some more logs including for MQA, and UAPP developer said that official R8 support won't be very soon - probably he needs to make too many changes and not many people currently have R8, so it is not a top priority at the moment. I was able to play MQA from Tidal with it but I am not sure if MQA was working properly.

 

[Doctortre2481]

By the way, UAPP on R8 is currently non-conclusive. I had an R8 build with some glitches (like while switching between DSD and FLAC files) and sent some more logs including for MQA, and UAPP developer said that official R8 support won't be very soon - probably he needs to make too many changes and not many people currently have R8, so it is not a top priority at the moment. I was able to play MQA from Tidal with it but I am not sure if MQA was working properly.

Yea they usually need to do an update for each device before it can work properly .I've been without a Dap for a year been using my dc01 until my r8 comes in.Use to have dx208 .The thing is on my dc01 UAPP sounds way better than tidal ( besides volume increases) was just wondering if its the same on daps as I've never been able to try it on one .But I know some people swear by it and I've joined the bandwagon .

 

[DarginMahkum]

Yea they usually need to do an update for each device before it can work properly .I've been without a Dap for a year been using my dc01 until my r8 comes in.Use to have dx208 .The thing is on my dc01 UAPP sounds way better than tidal ( besides volume increases) was just wondering if its the same on daps as I've never been able to try it on one .But I know some people swear by it and I've joined the bandwagon .

There is a misunderstanding that UAPP has its own driver, which is actually not true. Also, any impression that "it plays better than the built-in player" cannot be true for a lossless compressed file, as it is doing exactly what the built-in player is doing. There is absolutely no way around it. One possibility of hearing a difference could be if it is doing a software decoding of a lossy compressed file and uses a different DSP algorithm while decoding it, or the audio is being resampled, and maybe that particular DSP algorithm filters out more noise or has an influence on the audio, as it uses some audio filters which modifies a particular part of the audio (like accentuate the highs). Then one might hear a difference, but that is only if the audio is not directly streamed to the DAC and passes through some preprocessing.

Playing natively a lossless compressed file (like FLAC) without processing and sounding different is not a possibility.

 

[Doctortre2481]

There is a misunderstanding that UAPP has its own driver, which is actually not true. Also, any impression that "it plays better than the built-in player" cannot be true for a lossless compressed file, as it is doing exactly what the built-in player is doing. There is absolutely no way around it. One possibility of hearing a difference could be if it is doing a software decoding of a lossy compressed file and uses a different DSP algorithm while decoding it, or the audio is being resampled, and maybe that particular DSP algorithm filters out more noise or has an influence on the audio, as it uses some audio filters which modifies a particular part of the audio (like accentuate the highs). Then one might hear a difference, but that is only if the audio is not directly streamed to the DAC and passes through some preprocessing.

Playing natively a lossless compressed file (like FLAC) without processing and sounding different is not a possibility.

Well it could come down to android re sampling ?? Only thing I could think of .Dc01 suppose to keep it bit perfect mayb UAPP just does a better job ? But I'm no audiophile or audio engineer so I have no idea .

 

[DarginMahkum]

Well it could come down to android re sampling ?? Only thing I could think of .Dc01 suppose to keep it bit perfect mayb UAPP just does a better job ? But I'm no audiophile or audio engineer so I have no idea .

That is a possibility - that because UAPP bypasses the Android re-sampler and directly accesses the USB DAC, it sounds better.

 

[Nayparm]

Looks good for full UK 4G coverage using B1 B3 B7 and B20

Hiby R8 4G/LTE Compatibility Bands/Frequencies for China, Softbank and Docomo in Japan, Optus, Telstra and Vodafone in Australia

Softbank	Docomo	China Telecom	China Unicom	China Mobile	Optus	Telstra	Vodafone
B1 (2100 MHz)	B1 (2100 MHz)	B1 (2100 MHz)	B3 (1800 MHz)	B39 (1900 MHz)	B1 (2100 MHz)	B1 (2100 MHz)	B1 (2100 MHz)
B3 (1800 MHz)	B3 (1800 MHz)	B3 (1800 MHz)	B8 (900 MHz)	B40 (2300 MHz)	B3 (1800 MHz)	B3 (1800 MHz)	B3 (1800 MHz)
B8 (900 MHz)	B19 (850 MHz)	B5 (850 MHz)	B40 (2300 MHz)	B41 (2500 MHz)	B7 (2600 MHz)	B7 (2600 MHz)	B5 (850 MHz)
B11 (1500 MHz)	B21 (1500 MHz)	B40 (2300 MHz)	B41 (2500 MHz)		B8 (900 MHz)	B8 (900 MHz)	B8 (900 MHz)
B20 (800 MHz)	B28 (700 MHz)	B41 (2500 MHz)			B28 (700 MHz)	B28 (700 MHz)
B28 (700 MHz)	B42 (3500 MHz)				B40 (2300 MHz)
B41 (2500 MHz)					B42 (3500 MHz)
B42 (3500 MHz)

 

[newworld666]

Looks good for full UK 4G coverage using B1 B3 B7 and B20

Hiby R8 4G/LTE Compatibility Bands/Frequencies for China, Softbank and Docomo in Japan, Optus, Telstra and Vodafone in Australia

You must also count antennas available for each frequency.
In France frequencies available like in China have rather few antennas... The chance that 4G to be working properly should be rather limited in many areas.