[Nellie75]

I can confirm that downloaded Ultra HD songs in the Amazon App will play and display as they should at 24bit/192. The same song streamed off Amazon does not.

HD and Standard songs play and display as they should whether downloaded or streamed. However, the R5 notification bar will show 192.

So, if you want to listen to HiRes music on Amazon Music (24bit/192) you must download it to the R5.

 

[leo5111]

how is the sound vs say m11?

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Just press the "HD" text box on the now playing screen. I believe it is yellow text. Of course it says "UltraHD" if it's a high-res track, "Standard", "Atmos" etc...

No such text of any sort appeared for me. Are there preconditions to satisfy?

 

[rlw6534]

No such text of any sort appeared for me. Are there preconditions to satisfy?

Borrowed picture... Just press the yellow text box that says "STANDARD". It changes depending on the format. You may have to have "Best Available" selected in the settings, streaming quality... Settings are on the Home Screen, upper right corner, gear icon.

 

[Snoopy112]

Is it possible to downgrade firmware on R5? Where can I find full update file for R5?

 

[Nellie75]

IMHO, Amazon's app has been buggy for a while. I had lots of random issues with it on the R5. Thankfully when Apple rolled out HD music, I was able to stop paying for Amazon. Between that, my Synology player and UAPP, I'm all set.

Do you stream from your NAS to a portable device like an iPhone? How is the SQ? Are you still using a DAP for portable play?

 

[928GTS]

Spotify is the only way I've been using my R5 since I received it, ages ago.
This works excellently, barring the occasional hiccup that new Spotify updates seem to cause in any device.
I had some issues where Spotify would just stop by itself randomly, and this lasted for....I want to say a week, or two...but this was ages ago and hasn't re-occured.
Sometimes, when the player has been left on overnight, and I wake it up by bringing it back into wifi range, or pressing the power button, I find that the automatic updating of offline playlists and tracks stalls, and requires me to restart the player to resume downloading properly.
It works as it should once restarted though, so it's only a minor inconvenience for me.

I still absolutely love my R5, and have been finding that even when limited by the sound quality ceiling imposed by Spotify it can take advantage of better and better iems and headphones and the differences between all my different 'phones are clearly audible, and I can enjoy the best of them without feeling the need to go back to Tidal (which I do find sounds slightly better than Spotify).
The recent price drop to £9.99 for Tidal has me curious though, especially as the plans Spotify had for lossless this year seem to have been abandoned.
I've just been too lazy to check how many of my Spotify tracks are available on Tidal now (I think I lost about 10% last time I migrated from S to T).
The only DAP that's remotely interested me since I got the R5 has been the R5S. I really hope that Hiby are working on a successor to the R5 that's the same physical size. It wouldn't even have to be better sounding to get a purchase from me, just a rotary volume knob, and maybe slightly faster startup of apps and speedier responses to commands that a newer processor might bring. Maybe a bit more battery life?
No one else makes a comparable DAP in this size with these features and sound quality.
I'm not in a hurry to 'upgrade' to newer version of the R5, but I'm hoping Hiby has one in the works as eventually apps will stop receiving updates which will work on this version of Android (hopefully that's a long way off yet anyway).
@Joe Bloggs, any chance you could ask Hiby if there's likely to be another DAP at this size/price sometime in the future?

Thank you very much for your insight! I greatly appreciate it. I tried searching through the thread and was not able to find much information and so your information is very helpful. I primarily use Spotify because of the size of its library. I know that it's lossy in terms of encoding but there are a fair few number of smaller artists that are on Spotify that aren't on Deezer or Tidal. I felt that having access to a wider range of music was very important to me as I would rather listen to a band at a lower encoding quality than not being able to listen to them at all. I do very much hope that Spotify rolls out its Hi-Fi tier as I would be very interested in that. However, I should take a look again at the libraries of Tidal and Deezer to see if they've improved in terms of breadth.

 

[originalsnuffy]

I can confirm that downloaded Ultra HD songs in the Amazon App will play and display as they should at 24bit/192. The same song streamed off Amazon does not.

HD and Standard songs play and display as they should whether downloaded or streamed. However, the R5 notification bar will show 192.

So, if you want to listen to HiRes music on Amazon Music (24bit/192) you must download it to the R5.

I am curious what settings you are using within the Amazon App and the external system settings. As noted I only download my music not stream but this bug almost seems like a user setting issue. I know on the iphone you can separately choose what quality for downloads vs streams and I wonder if something like that is going on here. I definitely don't like the standard setting; that is just mp3 quality.

 

[Nellie75]

I am curious what settings you are using within the Amazon App and the external system settings. As noted I only download my music not stream but this bug almost seems like a user setting issue. I know on the iphone you can separately choose what quality for downloads vs streams and I wonder if something like that is going on here. I definitely don't like the standard setting; that is just mp3 quality.

I had the highest SQ for streamed and download. They are all the same.

All that said, I gave up. I cancelled Amazon Music and also sent back the R5.

I signed up to Apple Music and am loving it. Im using just my iPhone 12 and I am getting 24bit 192khz through my Schiit Modi DAC. With my FiiO FD5 IEMs straight into my iPhone with lightning adapter, it is 24bit/48khz. Sounds no different to me.

 

[originalsnuffy]

I had the highest SQ for streamed and download. They are all the same.

All that said, I gave up. I cancelled Amazon Music and also sent back the R5.

I signed up to Apple Music and am loving it. Im using just my iPhone 12 and I am getting 24bit 192khz through my Schiit Modi DAC. With my FiiO FD5 IEMs straight into my iPhone with lightning adapter, it is 24bit/48khz. Sounds no different to me.

Lately I have been suggesting to a number of people that the phone / DAC is worth considering. The price of ios compatible DAC units has gone down while the quality has gone up.

The only issue that I see is that the iphone batteries drain faster. And iphones with good memory capabilities (like 512gb or 1tb) are pricey. My iphone already has 512gb and when its time I will probably go 1tb or more if available.

But my R5 may be my last DAC unit.

I have a dongle for my iphone (ztelllo or something like that). It is cheaply made and will surely fall apart soon but it sure sounds good. Better than the apple dongle in my opinion. I am sure the Schiit sounds very good and would be surprised that it sounds the same the Apple dongle.

 

[Mouseman]

Do you stream from your NAS to a portable device like an iPhone? How is the SQ? Are you still using a DAP for portable play?

There's an app for Synology music that lets me stream. SQ is very good and I have remote access to my entire FLAC library. A year ago I went back through all my CDs and re-ripped them all to FLAC so I had the best quality possible. I can use the app from my iPhone and Android, and it can down sample when I'm on the go.

It depends on where I'm at for portable play. I bring my R5 on vacation and sometimes to work. Otherwise it's my iPhone.

 

[almarti]

That's a well known problem here on russian forum. Many ppl had that. So they just ordered new bat from aliexpress and replaced in the nextdoor cellphone workshop.
I didn't have that, but what I'm doing it's charging player while it's powered off, so it's not gonna heat that much. I'm still using qc, but i recommend 2.4A charging.

Mine got this same problem; as it was under 1st year of guarantee, I sent it to HiBy and they replaced it for free. They advised me not to charge with more than USBA-USBC 2-4A, not QC, not PD.

 

[originalsnuffy]

There's an app for Synology music that lets me stream. SQ is very good and I have remote access to my entire FLAC library. A year ago I went back through all my CDs and re-ripped them all to FLAC so I had the best quality possible. I can use the app from my iPhone and Android, and it can down sample when I'm on the go.

It depends on where I'm at for portable play. I bring my R5 on vacation and sometimes to work. Otherwise it's my iPhone.

I presume you are referring to DS audio? I am experimenting with that now. I had to move all my files to "Homes" under music for the app to work.

 

[originalsnuffy]

I think this question has been asked before, but here goes nothing.

I think the battery in the R5 is diminishing. It needs to be replaced. Can Musictek do that on site in the US? The price of sending things to China is pretty high.

Otherwise, can the battery be user replaced? If so, what do the parts cost, where are they ordered, and how hard is it to do?

 

[rlw6534]

I presume you are referring to DS audio? I am experimenting with that now. I had to move all my files to "Homes" under music for the app to work.

You can add folders for music under DSM "Control Panel - Indexing Service - Indexed Folder".