[Joe Bloggs]

I recently received the R5 Saber. Which is cool, because I ordered the R5 and may have gotten this by mistake, or, the Ali Express seller ran out of the color I ordered in the OG and had to send the R5S? Can't complain though. One thing that I thought was very cool, was that the R5S comes with the leather case (brown). I haven't seen that advertised anywhere, or maybe I didn't read the fine print. Nice little bonus as well.
I am wondering about the hardware buttons with 3rd party apps - for ex. I use Plexamp, and they don't work with it. I'm sure this topic has been covered, but, who is on point for programming this? Is it Hiby, or the app dev?
@Joe Bloggs would you happen to know anything about this?

The buttons send out Android-standard commands that are to be listened for by the app. If the app is really big and doesn't play by the usual playbook we may have to bend over backwards to send what it is after somehow.

 

[CrystalGipsy]

So with iems who's using high gain?

 

[abitdeef]

It's similar to the Dignis case. How do you like the sound so far?

Nice case! Oh the sound, its really nice to my ears. The 2 very things that kind of bothered me on the r5- narrower more intimate presentation, and the slightly bloated bass are fixed. It sounds more open and a bit more neutral, thus it seems to be easier to pick little details out of the mix. Similar to lotoo paw 6000, or Sony wm1a, as the bass is more tightened up and more in line.

Which some might not like, they might like the more denser sounding vanilla r5. This is just using the balanced out.

Not night and day but noticible. And after about 50 - 60 hours the highs do sound brighter to me, maybe more extended?

I might have to break down and get that case, I'd rather the bottom be open than the top.

 

[noobandroid]

So with iems who's using high gain?

i don't think that's necessary

 

[Interceptor69]

So with iems who's using high gain?

The only IEMs I've ever had to use on high gain are the Tin P1s.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

The only IEMs I've ever had to use on high gain are the Tin P1s.

Is it true that they are 20ohms and yet less sensitive *to the volume knob* than e.g. Sennheiser HD600?

 

[noobandroid]

The only IEMs I've ever had to use on high gain are the Tin P1s.

p2 is even tougher

 

[dharmasteve]

So with iems who's using high gain?

I use high gain on the balanced for many IEMs. Is there a context to this?

 

[CrystalGipsy]

I use high gain on the balanced for many IEMs. Is there a context to this?

Just trying to weigh up the advantages of it, mine load enough without it.

 

[abitdeef]

Normally I always use high gain and lower the volume to compensate. But on this the highs become too etched, so I've been using low gain and turning it up.

I find that usually by using hi gain on my iems at comparable volume it 'seems' that things are a bit more up front and a touch more dynamic. But like I said with this dap - r5s it's just too much, it sounds more natural using low gain. Could be the combination of the dap and the hiby beans which are hotter in treble than my normal akti8ii.

 

[dharmasteve]

Just trying to weigh up the advantages of it, mine load enough without it.

I found that for usual IEMs I use about 30/100 high gain, eg, LZ A7, but I could easily run them lo-gain. But for KBear Believe they do need juice, up to 50 high gain. I do think sub bass improves on high gain though. Test it out with Why so Serious, Hans Zimmer 3.20 onwards. My old ears though have probably lost the extremes that you hear.

 

[CrystalGipsy]

I have Meze Rai Solo, they are not hard to drive. It does sound a bit more dynamic on high gain but pushes into distortion quickly. So back to low gain and higher volume.

 

[abitdeef]

I have Meze Rai Solo, they are not hard to drive. It does sound a bit more dynamic on high gain but pushes into distortion quickly. So back to low gain and higher volume.

That's kind of what I experience. I think the low gain sounds fuller at the desired volume and more natural. Hey at least all that powers on tap if you need it. I think the r5 is the most powerful dap for it's size.

 

[abitdeef]

I'm sure my hearings worse now than I was young, but I seem to be bothered more by peaky, etched, metallic treble more than when I was younger. I can't handle brass percussion if the timbres and decay isn't right.

Listening to an old favorite right now, and it sounds fantastic. These are mastered very good and have that spacious 3d sound going on with some unusual instruments and tons of high percussion instruments going on. Just beautiful, detailed and open and very dynamic. But still towards the organic side.

Plus it's near Christmas I highly recommend a listen if you can.

 

[katatonicone1]

I have this problem too, so I'm glad (in a way) that I'm not alone. It occurs about once a minute - it's like the DAC drops a little bit of data, and instead of playing silence in place of the missing audio data, it plays whatever the next data is immediately instead. Like if the data is received 1-2-3-4 and the audio is played back 1-2-3-4, in the instance of the missing packet (or whatever it is) the data is received 1-2-<missing>-4 and instead of me hearing 1-2-<silence>-4 I hear 1-2-4.

It basically makes listening to music in USB DAC mode a paranoia-inducing exercise, because you're constantly waiting for the next instance where a drum beat will come in slightly too soon and break the rhythm.

I use Foobar with my R5 for my USB DAC playback, and I've tried every combination of buffer settings in both Foobar and the TUSB DAC driver (which is unsigned and dated 2012, can Hiby not afford to get a newer version of this driver?) and nothing seems to remedy the problem. I've tried this with FLACs of almost every sample rate and bit depth (16 and 24 bit, 192, 96, 88.2, 48 and 44.1khz sampling rates) and the problem occurs with all of them, but seems to be more noticeable the lower the bitrate. The problem also doesn't seem to be tied to anything happening in the tracks themselves, because if I rewind the track and play the "problem area" again, the 'skip' doesn't occur in the same place. The problem also occurs when I'm just using the R5 in USB DAC mode as my default Windows output device, ie for playing music from YouTube for example.

This is still happening half a year later I think two updates have been released without fixing this issue.
@Joe Bloggs Can anything be done about this? Multiple users have confirmed this issue. It really makes it almost impossible to use R5 as a USB DAC device.