[nabuhodonozor]

Not possible either with the $500 Cayin N3Pro DAP. It’s irritating but from what I gather it’s not that simple and has to be planned around when laying out the power circuitry.

Wow. Did you stop using it as USB DAC ? Any battery deterioration?

 

[monsieurfromag3]

Wow. Did you stop using it as USB DAC ? Any battery deterioration?

It’s OK for me because I often use it when I’m out as a BT receiver, in which case it’s running off its own battery. That depletes the battery enough for me to then tolerate the mandatory charge in USB mode.
It was also draining my phone battery like mad so I set things up like so:



Not quite the tiny, elegant footprint of a BT receiver used as USB dongle!

 

[DeJaVu]

I just bought W3 Saber from Ali for $39 .Mostly because I didn't want to wait for next BTR3K sale .Hope I won't regret it...
Plus for saved $ I can buy some AptxHD transceiver from Ali for my PC. Didn't know you can't turn off charging W3 while in DAC mode. Kinda bummer tbh -seems like obvious thing to include

If you use it mainly as bluetooth receiver and rare times usb dac it shouldnt matter much, but if other way around then its good thing to have the ability to disable charging. My impression is that they didnt care much about battery longevity in general, charging current for the hiby is 300ma (judging by btr3k charging time from the spec sheet, its same there too), which is bit more than ideal.Should have gone for 0.5c(150 ma current), but then charging time would be 2.5 hours and might look bad for them on the spec sheets, probably why both choose 1c charging rate. Qudelix is the only small portable receiver that im aware of that does battery care right.

Congrats on your purchase, now pray that they actually update the firmware making use of the potential the updated bt chip has . Curious to know about your impression about the mic on it when you receive it. BTW, how did you manage to get it for $39?

Let me save you few $ for a transmiter for PC. Install Voicemeeter on PC(you need vban component from it) and VBAN Receptor on Android. That combo can stream uncompressed PCM up to 96/24 to your phone via network. Just connect hiby to your phone and you get audio from your pc to hiby, you even get LDAC if your phone supports it(most Android 8+ do). Phone can be connected to either 5GHz wifi or usb tethered to pc, 2.4Ghz wont work. If you have an old phone that youre not using, you can dedicate it to that role. I have dedicated 8 years old Nexus 4 with android 9(custom rom from xda) for that role, even had the ability to install dolby atmos on it for movies . Combined it with ACC app(advanced charging controller), so i can control how and when it is charged while being usb tethered all the time, so i dont quickly kill the already not that good battery.
Edit: Newer phones can have the ability to bypass battery when set level of charge with ACC reached, and use power from usb. Depends if kernel supports that feature, tried with nexus 5 and that one supports it with Lineage 17.1 rom.

Theres another option with using Linux Virtual machine in Virtualbox , and a cheap bt adapter(im using Orico BTA-403 with csr 8510 chip). You can add AAC, aptx, aptx HD, LDAC support to linux bt stack, and then route the audio through the same chain as on mobile.Vban on linux and Voicemeeter on pc. Can be automated with a bat file and it takes around 20 seconds before you can connect the receiver, uses less than 100mb ram. With this solution you also get sink ability(send audio from phone or other transmitter to pc), but you cant get atmos(not sure if the $15 atmos win10 store sells can be made to work in this chain).

 

[nabuhodonozor]

If you use it mainly as bluetooth receiver and rare times usb dac it shouldnt matter much, but if other way around then its good thing to have the ability to disable charging. My impression is that they didnt care much about battery longevity in general, charging current for the hiby is 300ma (judging by btr3k charging time from the spec sheet, its same there too), which is bit more than ideal.Should have gone for 0.5c(150 ma current), but then charging time would be 2.5 hours and might look bad for them on the spec sheets, probably why both choose 1c charging rate. Qudelix is the only small portable receiver that im aware of that does battery care right.

Congrats on your purchase, now pray that they actually update the firmware making use of the potential the updated bt chip has . Curious to know about your impression about the mic on it when you receive it. BTW, how did you manage to get it for $39?

Let me save you few $ for a transmiter for PC. Install Voicemeeter on PC(you need vban component from it) and VBAN Receptor on Android. That combo can stream uncompressed PCM up to 96/24 to your phone via network. Just connect hiby to your phone and you get audio from your pc to hiby, you even get LDAC if your phone supports it(most Android 8+ do). Phone can be connected to either 5GHz wifi or usb tethered to pc, 2.4Ghz wont work. If you have an old phone that youre not using, you can dedicate it to that role. I have dedicated 8 years old Nexus 4 with android 9(custom rom from xda) for that role, even had the ability to install dolby atmos on it for movies . Combined it with ACC app(advanced charging controller), so i can control how and when it is charged while being usb tethered all the time, so i dont quickly kill the already not that good battery.
Edit: Newer phones can have the ability to bypass battery when set level of charge with ACC reached, and use power from usb. Depends if kernel supports that feature, tried with nexus 5 and that one supports it with Lineage 17.1 rom.

Theres another option with using Linux Virtual machine in Virtualbox , and a cheap bt adapter(im using Orico BTA-403 with csr 8510 chip). You can add AAC, aptx, aptx HD, LDAC support to linux bt stack, and then route the audio through the same chain as on mobile.Vban on linux and Voicemeeter on pc. Can be automated with a bat file and it takes around 20 seconds before you can connect the receiver, uses less than 100mb ram. With this solution you also get sink ability(send audio from phone or other transmitter to pc), but you cant get atmos(not sure if the $15 atmos win10 store sells can be made to work in this chain).

Yeah I wanted light headphone amp that I could use wirelessly when watching movie or something .So mainly it would be PC dac- so damn. Guess I'll be selling that thing....
What features can that new chip bring with firmware update?
That phone solution seems like too much pain in the A tbh and potential latency . Those transceivers are pretty cheap -like $20 so I'd rather opt for that.

Hiby just had another sale and I combined their discount with my coupon and additional discount from Ali coins .

 

[DeJaVu]

Yeah I wanted light headphone amp that I could use wirelessly when watching movie or something .So mainly it would be PC dac- so damn. Guess I'll be selling that thing....
What features can that new chip bring with firmware update?
That phone solution seems like too much pain in the A tbh and potential latency . Those transceivers are pretty cheap -like $20 so I'd rather opt for that.

Hiby just had another sale and I combined their discount with my coupon and additional discount from Ali coins .

Theres info in 2 previous messages, one from me and one from clieos what the new chip can potentially bring.

Not a pain in the ass at all with the phone, just setup Voicemeeter and vban receptor(you dont need to do all the things i did if you dont want to or deem unnecesary), once you spent the time to make it working its pretty easy afterwards. VBAN doesnt add too much latency, around 30ms(judged by eye using some latency tests), which is just a fraction of what you would naturally get with the BT codec.Many video players have audio shifting, so you can compensate for that if it bothers you. And you wont have to have your hiby plugged in all the time so you wont have to worry about the battery .
The thing with the $20 transceivers is that they dont support LDAC(only one that i know of and it does is Fiio BTA30 which is $90) and plenty require for you to have optical or coax output on your soundcard.

 

[nabuhodonozor]

@ClieOS
Hey- you have updated Saber version of Hiby W3 ,right? Is it still not turning off charging after being fully charged?

@DeJaVu Yeah lack of LDAC is a problem. I'll try your method

 

[nabuhodonozor]

wth I clicked EDIT and it quoted my reply ?
can someone delete this?

Why I can't delete my own post btw?

 

[ClieOS]

@ClieOS
Hey- you have updated Saber version of Hiby W3 ,right? Is it still not turning off charging after being fully charged?

As far as I notice, there doesn't seem to be any difference between W3 and W3s charging behavior.

 

[nabuhodonozor]

As far as I notice, there doesn't seem to be any difference between W3 and W3s charging behavior.

Well that sucks then. Is there any BT AMP that supports 24bit in DAC mode btw?

 

[ClieOS]

Well that sucks then. Is there any BT AMP that supports 24bit in DAC mode btw?

BTR5 and 5K

 

[nabuhodonozor]

BTR5 and 5K

For a sec thought Fiio released BTR5K

 

[DeJaVu]

@ClieOS
Hey- you have updated Saber version of Hiby W3 ,right? Is it still not turning off charging after being fully charged?

Youre misunderstanding the issue a bit. Its not that it doesnt stop charging the battery when full. It does. I have it measured with a usb tester and a wall adapter, and even after full there still is some current drawn by the device. If that current is a trickle charge that would be bad, but it might be only the current needed for the charging IC standby(looks like it from what ive figured so far), but i have no way of telling 100% as i didnt see any documentation how the charging on hiby is implemented.

Hiby connected to usb is drawing 110ma current, which is better for the battery than charging with the 300ma from the wall adapter. But CV Charging stage is longer than usual compared to wall adapter which is not that good, so you win some you loose some, cant say which one is worse/better in the long run. Longer CV stage makes me think that it actually does draw some power from the battery even when idle in USB mode, but still need to do few more tests when i have the time(or never ) to come to a definite conclusion about this.
After fully charged, it will automatically resume charging when battery gets down to around 85% .The problem for lithium batteries is being kept for prolonged periods of time at Full or near Full state, which being connected to usb most of the time will do. In case of Hiby W3 it will keep it between 85-100% , + the longer than usual CV stage. Not as bad as keeping it at 100% all the time though, as you presumed it does.

 

[nabuhodonozor]

Youre misunderstanding the issue a bit. Its not that it doesnt stop charging the battery when full. It does. I have it measured with a usb tester and a wall adapter, and even after full there still is some current drawn by the device. If that current is a trickle charge that would be bad, but it might be only the current needed for the charging IC standby(looks like it from what ive figured so far), but i have no way of telling 100% as i didnt see any documentation how the charging on hiby is implemented.

Hiby connected to usb is drawing 110ma current, which is better for the battery than charging with the 300ma from the wall adapter. But CV Charging stage is longer than usual compared to wall adapter which is not that good, so you win some you loose some, cant say which one is worse/better in the long run. Longer CV stage makes me think that it actually does draw some power from the battery even when idle in USB mode, but still need to do few more tests when i have the time(or never ) to come to a definite conclusion about this.
After fully charged, it will automatically resume charging when battery gets down to around 85% .The problem for lithium batteries is being kept for prolonged periods of time at Full or near Full state, which being connected to usb most of the time will do. In case of Hiby W3 it will keep it between 85-100% , + the longer than usual CV stage. Not as bad as keeping it at 100% all the time though, as you presumed it does.

So would it be better for the battery just to use it wirelessly and when on like 10% power plug it in to slowly charge back vias USB? That would make it charge and discharge like 2 times per day..

 

[laevi]

Can anyone comment on the sound quality of the Hiby W3 relative to the Fiio BTR3K? I tried out a Fiio BTR3K and the Qudelix with my UERM IEMs and found that the BTR3K sounded too warm, congested, and muffled for my liking (using 3.5mm single ended connection). I didn't like that sound signature. The Qudelix sounded more to my liking, but it was too expensive for me. I am wondering if the Hiby W3S might suit me better?

Thanks.

 

[ClieOS]

Can anyone comment on the sound quality of the Hiby W3 relative to the Fiio BTR3K? I tried out a Fiio BTR3K and the Qudelix with my UERM IEMs and found that the BTR3K sounded too warm, congested, and muffled for my liking (using 3.5mm single ended connection). I didn't like that sound signature. The Qudelix sounded more to my liking, but it was too expensive for me. I am wondering if the Hiby W3S might suit me better?

Thanks.

Both BTR3K and W3 use AKM chips with very similar SQ (AK4377A vs. AK4377), so don't expect any major difference in overall sound.

However, if you haven't done so - try change the digital filter in BTR3K via app. It will affect the SQ in subtle way.