[crashtest33]

Keep an eye on advancedmp3 players as they now stock hiby in the uk. Had a box opened one for ages at £183 or something like that. None on site atm but a new one using code 10stay at check out brings it down to £197 if that's any use?

Cheers dude. I’ll probably go for Hiby themselves for $199US tho. Especially if you ask the right questions regarding shipping.

 

[MVVp]

Fiio FH1 for me.
I thought the Hiby Seeds were a close match at first, but now that I'm mostly listening to McCartney's Egypt Station, the FH1 sounds so much better.

I have to correct this earlier post of mine. The Hiby Seeds are in fact the better choice compared to the Fiio FH1.
Although the FH1 has stronger bass, it suffers from heavy sibilance when listening to soprano voices (treble). So much so that I have to lower the volume to a level which is not really enjoyable. The Seeds are clean and crisp at a high level and with a proper seal and positioning of the pods in my ears, the bass is better than I first thought.

 

[1000ROUNDZ]

Hey guys,

I've been eyeing the R3 ever since I found out about it a few days ago. Can I ask how's the Tidal streaming going? Can we stream Masters (MQA) quality? Also can we download offline on the SD card?

I'll mostly use it for Tidal and connected to my Mojo.


Thanks!

 

[Ken G]

Hey guys,

I've been eyeing the R3 ever since I found out about it a few days ago. Can I ask how's the Tidal streaming going? Can we stream Masters (MQA) quality? Also can we download offline on the SD card?

I'll mostly use it for Tidal and connected to my Mojo.


Thanks!

Tidal is hit or miss on the R3. It’s pretty easy to use on the R3 as far as accessing favorites and explore New Tracks, Albums and Playlists however the search functionality sucks. You have to cycle through the alphabet like a 1st generation cell phone in the 90’s to type text. It’s awful and time consuming. Better of saving to favorites on another device to access on the R3.

No offline Tidal access and I understand it will not be coming via future update. You can access MQA however there are still limitations with that. Most times the R3 will default to a non-MQA track even if you select an MQA track or playlist. I (and others) have confirmed though that some MQA do play as MQA however I don’t think you can tell the bit rate.

Hope that helps.

 

[phucvm8x]

Is iBasso T01 balanced is good pair with R3?

 

[TheRH]

Hello all,

I am interested in buying the R3, as I'd like to avoid the AP80 mess. I will be suing the player to power IEM's, and have some questions. Is the R3 at a point that is is stable enough in firmware to buy? And also how easy is it to to navigate the UI?

 

[HiFlight]

I have found the latest firmware to be quite stable, never had a freeze or other issue. The UI is quite easy to navigate as well. Pretty intuitive after a couple of uses. I most use mine for streaming Tidal and have had no issues. Only thing is that searching Tidal is tedious as the letters are displayed on a phone type keyboard which requires multiple keystrokes.

 

[chupacabra314]

Hello all,

I am interested in buying the R3, as I'd like to avoid the AP80 mess. I will be suing the player to power IEM's, and have some questions. Is the R3 at a point that is is stable enough in firmware to buy? And also how easy is it to to navigate the UI?

If you intend to listen to music from an SD card, the R3 is great value. UI is very stable and the player is very simple and intuitive to use, although people are having trouble with album art displaying properly (has been ok for me). I've had it for ~6 months and it hasn't crashed once.

It has lots of power, especially for a device of this size and output impedance. Bluetooth connectivity in both directions has been good for me, though there is occasional lag when using it as a receiver, so not reliable for gaming or video. Same in DAC mode via USB-C.

If you need it for remote media like Tidal and DLNA, I would look elsewhere (likely something with android OS). It's just too unreliable.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

Has anyone seen or heard anything back on "Native" MQA through the Tidal app? Like many of you, I can now see the MQA recordings in Tidal however the R3 identifies them as FLAC whereas when I stream them via DLNA to the R3 they are identified as MQA and light up as 88kHz or 96kHz on my Chord Mojo.

I wonder if R3 MQA support includes everything but Tidal at least at this point. Also, does MQA support only include the first fold of MQA - meaning if the song is natively192 kHz, the R3 will only do the first fold and play it at 96 kHz? Do other devices that support MQA like the Dragonfly, Onkyo/Pioneer DAPs, iFi iDSD Nano and others support full MQA (ie, second fold and 192 kHz)?

Is Joe Blogs or someone from Hiby on these forums to answer any questions?

The R3 does not yet receive the MQA versions of the tracks from TIDAL. HiBy is still pinging TIDAL on the issue.

As far as I know, the unfolding is "complete" when listening via analog outputs (headphones, line out) but "first unfold" when outputting digitally (USB, coax).

Disclaimer: above opinions are not necessarily official HiBy info (since I don't work for HiBy anymore)

 

[Ken G]

The R3 does not yet receive the MQA versions of the tracks from TIDAL. HiBy is still pinging TIDAL on the issue.

As far as I know, the unfolding is "complete" when listening via analog outputs (headphones, line out) but "first unfold" when outputting digitally (USB, coax).

Disclaimer: above opinions are not necessarily official HiBy info (since I don't work for HiBy anymore)

Hi Joe, welcome back and thanks for the responses. It seems that some of the MQA tracks from Tidal are available on the R3 however for most, they default to the non-MQA version even if you are playing the MQA album or playlist. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for this other than what you said that Hiby is still negotiating with Tidal on this.

 

[TheRH]

I plan on using it mainly to play files off SD. Sounds like it is to the point of buying without any problems for what i want to do, FLAC and the occasional 320 mp3.

 

[HungryPanda]

SD card for me and this little dap gives me no problems

 

[ponpon]

Hello all,

I am interested in buying the R3, as I'd like to avoid the AP80 mess. I will be suing the player to power IEM's, and have some questions. Is the R3 at a point that is is stable enough in firmware to buy? And also how easy is it to to navigate the UI?

UI is easy to navigate, but it's laggy, album covers show up for most, not all songs, it's impossible to import playlists from a Mac and lately, it's been crashing and/or glitching while scrolling through songs. And while Hiby has been really responsive to my questions so far, they've been lacking in follow-through.

Really, I could have gotten a new ipod for $30 more or stuck with my heavy, rinky dink Pioneer and avoided the frustration.

 

[TheRH]

Well, I am on PC. I have not really heard others saying anything about crashing, that is a bit odd.

 

[chupacabra314]

I plan on using it mainly to play files off SD. Sounds like it is to the point of buying without any problems for what i want to do, FLAC and the occasional 320 mp3.

It's exactly what I use it for - FLAC and 320 mp3s and can't really fault it at this price point. The only minor gripe I have with the UI is it gets a little laggy when doing an alphabetic search on my ~5000 tracks, and the lackluster shuffle logic. But I will gladly take that and enjoy the 10-sec boot time vs up to a minute for Android.