[Franatic]

I think that article is somewhat misleading. From my understanding, the main issue with standard bluetooth audio is that it was never intended to carry music. When creating a lossy codec, designers consider psychoacoustics to determine what information can be discarded during the compression without causing a noticeable drop in audio quality. The SBC codec was designed around making human voices intelligible, because it was initially intended only for phone calls, so it is badly designed to carry deep bass shimmering highs. At least, thats where I notice the most distortion.
By contrast, AAC, AptX and LDAC are designed to be as transparent as possible at a given bitrate for the whole frequency range. I don't know about AptX or LDAC, but AAC 256kbps is generally considered as good as MP3 320kbps. Bitrate is not the whole story. Codec design matters a lot.
I would reckon that AAC, AptX or LDAC if implemented well will be transparent enough for portable. Dac/amp quality in your bluetooth headphones is probably a bigger factor at that point. I wouldn't get too zoomed in on LDAC, AptX and AAC are pretty good and much more widely supported.

I'm new at implementing wireless/bluetooth audio. The only thing that really counts is how it sounds to the listener. Obviously there is a movement in the industry to improve the sound quality of wireless devices. LDAC is a problem because of it proprietary nature, but at this stage I need to listen to several types of wireless formats and decide for myself. I'll try the LDAC experience.........and yes I read there is some "reconstruction" of the audio here. I'm interested to hear how it sounds, especially compared to the wired option you have with Sony headphones. They also have noise cancelling, which adds another layer of processing. I'm not sure if that can be turned On/Off.

I will also use the R3 as a transport to an iFi iDSD micro to use as a DAC/headphone amp with a pair of Shure SRH1540s.
There will be lots of interesting combos to try with this amazing little R3!

 

[turkayguner]

I do not understand why you guys give a fk about receiving bluetooth quality. Airplay and DLNA are way better, more stable and practical over bluetooth. We also are getting hibylink which is superior over any wireless options. We get wireless file transfer. We get Tidal!

For a side note I read it somewhere while they were still running the KS campaign that apt-X applies only when sending signal. I do not think they lied to us. Yes they could be more clear about it but I'm sure when receiving even standard BT, audio quality won't be that bad.

Nothing is perfect in life, and nothing will be.

 

[Vimtoman]

I do not understand why you guys give a fk about receiving bluetooth quality. Airplay and DLNA are way better, more stable and practical over bluetooth. We also are getting hibylink which is superior over any wireless options. We get wireless file transfer. We get Tidal!

For a side note I read it somewhere while they were still running the KS campaign that apt-X applies only when sending signal. I do not think they lied to us. Yes they could be more clear about it but I'm sure when receiving even standard BT, audio quality won't be that bad.

Nothing is perfect in life, and nothing will be.

Can you get Airplay and DLNA on a set of headphones?

 

[khyaris]

I do not understand why you guys give a fk about receiving bluetooth quality. Airplay and DLNA are way better, more stable and practical over bluetooth. We also are getting hibylink which is superior over any wireless options. We get wireless file transfer. We get Tidal!

For a side note I read it somewhere while they were still running the KS campaign that apt-X applies only when sending signal. I do not think they lied to us. Yes they could be more clear about it but I'm sure when receiving even standard BT, audio quality won't be that bad.

Nothing is perfect in life, and nothing will be.

Airplay requires both devices to be on the same wifi network.
Airplay requires an apple device, I've got a galaxy s7.
DLNA is for local files, it doesn't work with streaming apps : soundcloud, spotify ...

Standard BT, as it's been said earlier, was not created for audio files. It's just bad.

It's very shady they didn't state apt-x is only working in sending mode, since on the product description it's written "bi-direction BT connectivity with apt-x".
Apt-x in receiving mode is fantastic on the FiiO Q5. They delayed the release of the Q5 to get the BT signal to go through their DAC, I guess it's not that easy to get it working, but still Hiby should have been more transparent.

 

[khojberg]

Airplay requires both devices to be on the same wifi network.
Airplay requires an apple device, I've got a galaxy s7.
DLNA is for local files, it doesn't work with streaming apps : soundcloud, spotify ...

Standard BT, as it's been said earlier, was not created for audio files. It's just bad.

It's very shady they didn't state apt-x is only working in sending mode, since on the product description it's written "bi-direction BT connectivity with apt-x".
Apt-x in receiving mode is fantastic on the FiiO Q5. They delayed the release of the Q5 to get the BT signal to go through their DAC, I guess it's not that easy to get it working, but still Hiby should have been more transparent.

Before all these theories go too far, suggest we wait a couple of weeks, then probably the first have got their players and can tell about them.

 

[ForgottenSpy]

We get Tidal!

Ahem...
New firmware 1.07 has just been released.
No any visible tracks of Tidal so far.
Waiting for the next one.

 

[gemmoglock]

Can you get Airplay and DLNA on a set of headphones?

I think the OP was taken out of context. Airplay and DLNA was suggested since the R3 cannot receive APTX as a wireless DAC. So the suggestion is to use Airplay/DLNA to transmit to the R3, before R3 uses AptX to transmit to your headphones.

Ahem...
New firmware 1.07 just have been released.
No any visible tracks of Tidal so far.
Waiting for the next one.

Hope the sound is still good!

Hiby just posted a comment on Kickstarter that they will start shipping this week, no news on LDAC or whether the leather cases are ready to ship... @Joe Bloggs any information you can share with us?

 

[cagas]

Ahem...
New firmware 1.07 has just been released.
No any visible tracks of Tidal so far.
Waiting for the next one.

There's no tidal ? I bought mainly to have tidal streaming.

 

[greenkiwi]

And I don't believe that dlna requires local files. I've used JRiver Media Center to stream non local streams to DLNA renderers.

 

[khyaris]

And I don't believe that dlna requires local files. I've used JRiver Media Center to stream non local streams to DLNA renderers.

I meant DLNA needs files.
A streaming app like Spotify is not gonna work through DLNA.

edit : actually there's an app that could do the trick for android users, it's called AirSpot.
It's been unpublished on the play store though, so it's weird ...
Still, you need to be on the same network.

 

[ForgottenSpy]

There's no tidal ? I bought mainly to have tidal streaming.

It is still in the process apparently.
Someone assures me that Tidal is already implemented in 1.03 and 1.07 firmware, it is just hidden.
So being just a regular user i do not see it.

 

[idkk408]

It is still in the process apparently.
Someone assures me that Tidal is already implemented in 1.03 and 1.07 firmware, it is just hidden.
So being just a regular user i do not see it.

HBB has Tidal on his unit (it was also available in the Headfonia and Headfonics review units):



Don't you have the Chinese version? Tidal isn't available there, so it seems there is different firmware.

 

[qsk78]

The Kickstarter version should have Tidal.

 

[RuiPP]

The Kickstarter version should have Tidal.

With offline mode?

 

[Tanelorn]

With offline mode?

Unfortunatels it wioll not have Tidal offline from the start as this was not licensed now.
And as Tidals future is unclear, i won't put too much on tidal at the moment.

HiBy said they are planning to include the Tidal offline feature later.. but there will be reasons, why they did not..