[antdroid]

My Hiby R3 II order came in today. Love the size and form factor of this device!

 

[Smirk 24]

My Hiby R3 II order came in today. Love the size and form factor of this device!

The form factor is really nice. Can it drive Storm?

 

[antdroid]

The form factor is really nice. Can it drive Storm?

With balanced 4.4mm, low gain, it gets to my normal listening levels at around 50/100 on the volume bar. I don't hear any signs of dynamics lost here. I wouldn't say its as good sounding as the DX320 MAX or DX240 DAPs I normally run Storm with, but its quite fine for this really nice form-factor. I havent tried with 3.5mm unbalanced yet, nor messed around with MSEB, which I've had to on other HibyOS DAPs that make it sound how I like. If anything, this is perhaps a tad warmer than I like (as with most Hiby DAPs I've owned/listened to are), so I may try to bring that down a touch with MSEB.

Qobuz works out of the box. Easy enough to use, but very feature limited. It doesnt seem to even show my playlists, at least on Qobuz. I haven't logged into the Tidal app yet.

 

[Smirk 24]

With balanced 4.4mm, low gain, it gets to my normal listening levels at around 50/100 on the volume bar. I don't hear any signs of dynamics lost here. I wouldn't say its as good sounding as the DX320 MAX or DX240 DAPs I normally run Storm with, but its quite fine for this really nice form-factor. I havent tried with 3.5mm unbalanced yet, nor messed around with MSEB, which I've had to on other HibyOS DAPs that make it sound how I like. If anything, this is perhaps a tad warmer than I like (as with most Hiby DAPs I've owned/listened to are), so I may try to bring that down a touch with MSEB.

Qobuz works out of the box. Easy enough to use, but very feature limited. It doesnt seem to even show my playlists, at least on Qobuz. I haven't logged into the Tidal app yet.

Thanks man. Pretty impressive for such a small form factor. The feature limitations make sense given its size as well.

 

[sicnesse]

I hope the next firmware update allows reversing the next/previous tracks buttons. The way it is now is feels too anti-ergonomic to my hands.
Also I'm noticing many album arts missing, what are the supported formats/sizes?

 

[Ashpex]

My Hiby R3 II order came in today. Love the size and form factor of this device!

Hi, how does it compare to the Shanling M1S? Is the screen's resolution too low that you can notice it?

 

[antdroid]

Hi, how does it compare to the Shanling M1S? Is the screen's solution too low that you can notice it?

I havent tried the Shanling M1S yet, so I cant really give much opinion to it. For another small form-factor DAP comparison, I did recently have the Hidizs AP80 Pro-X. The Hiby R3-2 is more capable than that one is for the most part, but I do like that the album art display on the AP80 series is full screen vs it being small on the R3-2 UI. In terms of sound between those two, the R3-2 is warmer and less incisive, while the AP80 Pro-X is more neutral. I may prefer the sound quality of the AP80 Pro-X, off the top of my head, than the R3-2 as of right now, but I'll have to listen and tweak around the R3-2 a bit more before I really get a good handle on it.

My other DAPs are the iBasso DX320 Max Ti and DX240.

 

[Photoman]

I havent tried the Shanling M1S yet, so I cant really give much opinion to it. For another small form-factor DAP comparison, I did recently have the Hidizs AP80 Pro-X. The Hiby R3-2 is more capable than that one is for the most part, but I do like that the album art display on the AP80 series is full screen vs it being small on the R3-2 UI. In terms of sound between those two, the R3-2 is warmer and less incisive, while the AP80 Pro-X is more neutral. I may prefer the sound quality of the AP80 Pro-X, off the top of my head, than the R3-2 as of right now, but I'll have to listen and tweak around the R3-2 a bit more before I really get a good handle on it.

My other DAPs are the iBasso DX320 Max Ti and DX240.

I messed with the MSEB and tweak my sound. Good stuff. As far as album art 🖼I agree with you. I ask @HiByMusic if they can make album art bigger See what happens. @Joe Bloggs

 

[Ashpex]

I havent tried the Shanling M1S yet, so I cant really give much opinion to it. For another small form-factor DAP comparison, I did recently have the Hidizs AP80 Pro-X. The Hiby R3-2 is more capable than that one is for the most part, but I do like that the album art display on the AP80 series is full screen vs it being small on the R3-2 UI. In terms of sound between those two, the R3-2 is warmer and less incisive, while the AP80 Pro-X is more neutral. I may prefer the sound quality of the AP80 Pro-X, off the top of my head, than the R3-2 as of right now, but I'll have to listen and tweak around the R3-2 a bit more before I really get a good handle on it.

My other DAPs are the iBasso DX320 Max Ti and DX240.

Thank you! What about the screen resolution though? I've heard that the resolution is not high enough for its screen so the text appear to be bad (glitchy)?

 

[Aramaki]

My Hiby R3 II order came in today. Love the size and form factor of this device!

I have the older version (Saber) and along with my iBasso DC-04 Pro were my transport and dongle at CanJam SoCal 2023, drove everything well including the Storm and lasted all day!

 

[Photoman]

Thank you! What about the screen resolution though? I've heard that the resolution is not high enough for its screen so the text appear to be bad (glitchy)?

The text is good enough for this small screen no problem there. Just wanted the Album art a little bigger

 

[Ashpex]

The text is good enough for this small screen no problem there. Just wanted the Album art a little bigger

Good to hear that!

 

[HuoYuanJia]

German user here. I pre-ordered on Sep. 9th. The order was shipped on 19th and arrived 11 days later (30th). I paid 159 € and so far I wasn‘t charged for import tax. I would estimate these to be around 35 € from experience, but sometimes the invoice doesn‘t come, so here‘s hoping.

Either way, the Hiby R3 II is a fairly inexpensive DAP. But the main question is: Why would one need a PMP in 2023? For me, the reason would be to fight streaming and „own“ / collect digital music and maintain a superior library. For me, that also means that I analyze all my files and if I see there‘s nothing but noise in my 96 kHz file, I will downsample it. Conversions are always adjusted to TPL. There is no crap in my library, all files tagged with album artist, proper artist names (instead of „feat.“ on a song title), album cover, ratings, album info in the lyrics, and so forth…

All my music is stored on a single microSD card (and after a bad experience also occasionally backed up in iCloud). This SD card is usually in the back of my iMac but I appreciate the convenience to pop it into a DAP, the Chord 2Go or Poly, etc.
I haven‘t tried mounting the SD card through the R3 II yet, but I am expecting it‘ll work no problem. So I can simply change my desktop / JRiver library to the drive and play music from there. At least that is the plan…

So let me reflect a bit. I have a Hugo 2, Mojo 2, TempoTec BHD Pro and a bunch more dongles in the drawer. Excellent portable devices with one issue: They need a source. So the PMP needs to become my single source for anything but streaming. But boy, oh boy, have I been let down.

Browsing music on the Hiby R3 II is so bad. Like really bad.
1. Selecting an Artist will get you to Albums. But if your Album has different Artists, for example a Classical album that has instrumental tracks and a choir, or a Piano solo as well as an orchestra, this Album will be separated as long as it is tagged correctly. Compilations need to have Various Artists in the Artist tag or they will be separated!
2. Album Artist should be showing the albums, but it is not. ALBUM Artist will get you to the songs instead of albums. This does not make sense at all!
3. Album sort is also messed up. I doubt most people will be able to remember all album names in their collection so I was quite bummed that the small display wastes so much space when clearly there should be a 2nd line mentioning the album artist below album title. But Hiby does not - because it doesn‘t even check! It will throw all tracks together from the same album name - another huge oversight. So the album „The Köln Concert“ throws together Chet Baker and Keith Jarrett, two completely different albums.
4. It seems like the R3 II does not create thumbnails. Every time you want to browse albums, it has to reload the cover art. The majority will never load at all and even when playing, some art isn‘t displayed even when triple-checked and confirmed on the computer. And even when it loads, the scrolling is very choppy on a low-res display.

The only proper way to browse the music library is via Files. This is so sad and ridiculous at the same time. The main objective of a DAP failed, at least to my expectations explained in the beginning. I don‘t need Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, that is a nice-to-have feature at best. The main purpose is to carry my library with me with an enjoyable way of accessing it.

I had far better browsing experiences on an iPhone 3G in 2009. In fact, even iTunes does a better job so my recommendation would be to save the money and size up on smartphone storage. What use is a new DAP every 3 months with latest DAC and new amp when you can‘t get the basics right? I don‘t think my criticism is exclusive to Hiby, but I really think manufacturers need to go back to the drawing board or nobody will care if the product category dies in a few years.

Anybody in EU want to buy a brand new R3 II?

 

[InvisibleInk]

German user here. I pre-ordered on Sep. 9th. The order was shipped on 19th and arrived 11 days later (30th). I paid 159 € and so far I wasn‘t charged for import tax. I would estimate these to be around 35 € from experience, but sometimes the invoice doesn‘t come, so here‘s hoping.

Either way, the Hiby R3 II is a fairly inexpensive DAP. But the main question is: Why would one need a PMP in 2023? For me, the reason would be to fight streaming and „own“ / collect digital music and maintain a superior library. For me, that also means that I analyze all my files and if I see there‘s nothing but noise in my 96 kHz file, I will downsample it. Conversions are always adjusted to TPL. There is no crap in my library, all files tagged with album artist, proper artist names (instead of „feat.“ on a song title), album cover, ratings, album info in the lyrics, and so forth…

All my music is stored on a single microSD card (and after a bad experience also occasionally backed up in iCloud). This SD card is usually in the back of my iMac but I appreciate the convenience to pop it into a DAP, the Chord 2Go or Poly, etc.
I haven‘t tried mounting the SD card through the R3 II yet, but I am expecting it‘ll work no problem. So I can simply change my desktop / JRiver library to the drive and play music from there. At least that is the plan…

So let me reflect a bit. I have a Hugo 2, Mojo 2, TempoTec BHD Pro and a bunch more dongles in the drawer. Excellent portable devices with one issue: They need a source. So the PMP needs to become my single source for anything but streaming. But boy, oh boy, have I been let down.

Browsing music on the Hiby R3 II is so bad. Like really bad.
1. Selecting an Artist will get you to Albums. But if your Album has different Artists, for example a Classical album that has instrumental tracks and a choir, or a Piano solo as well as an orchestra, this Album will be separated as long as it is tagged correctly. Compilations need to have Various Artists in the Artist tag or they will be separated!
2. Album Artist should be showing the albums, but it is not. ALBUM Artist will get you to the songs instead of albums. This does not make sense at all!
3. Album sort is also messed up. I doubt most people will be able to remember all album names in their collection so I was quite bummed that the small display wastes so much space when clearly there should be a 2nd line mentioning the album artist below album title. But Hiby does not - because it doesn‘t even check! It will throw all tracks together from the same album name - another huge oversight. So the album „The Köln Concert“ throws together Chet Baker and Keith Jarrett, two completely different albums.
4. It seems like the R3 II does not create thumbnails. Every time you want to browse albums, it has to reload the cover art. The majority will never load at all and even when playing, some art isn‘t displayed even when triple-checked and confirmed on the computer. And even when it loads, the scrolling is very choppy on a low-res display.

The only proper way to browse the music library is via Files. This is so sad and ridiculous at the same time. The main objective of a DAP failed, at least to my expectations explained in the beginning. I don‘t need Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, that is a nice-to-have feature at best. The main purpose is to carry my library with me with an enjoyable way of accessing it.

I had far better browsing experiences on an iPhone 3G in 2009. In fact, even iTunes does a better job so my recommendation would be to save the money and size up on smartphone storage. What use is a new DAP every 3 months with latest DAC and new amp when you can‘t get the basics right? I don‘t think my criticism is exclusive to Hiby, but I really think manufacturers need to go back to the drawing board or nobody will care if the product category dies in a few years.

Anybody in EU want to buy a brand new R3 II?

I guess it is best for you to seek out a more expensive DAP with android and a much faster CPU with more capable playback software. I doubt you'll find anything in such a small form factor, but your performance standards should be met.

 

[alwass89]

German user here. I pre-ordered on Sep. 9th. The order was shipped on 19th and arrived 11 days later (30th). I paid 159 € and so far I wasn‘t charged for import tax. I would estimate these to be around 35 € from experience, but sometimes the invoice doesn‘t come, so here‘s hoping.

Either way, the Hiby R3 II is a fairly inexpensive DAP. But the main question is: Why would one need a PMP in 2023? For me, the reason would be to fight streaming and „own“ / collect digital music and maintain a superior library. For me, that also means that I analyze all my files and if I see there‘s nothing but noise in my 96 kHz file, I will downsample it. Conversions are always adjusted to TPL. There is no crap in my library, all files tagged with album artist, proper artist names (instead of „feat.“ on a song title), album cover, ratings, album info in the lyrics, and so forth…

All my music is stored on a single microSD card (and after a bad experience also occasionally backed up in iCloud). This SD card is usually in the back of my iMac but I appreciate the convenience to pop it into a DAP, the Chord 2Go or Poly, etc.
I haven‘t tried mounting the SD card through the R3 II yet, but I am expecting it‘ll work no problem. So I can simply change my desktop / JRiver library to the drive and play music from there. At least that is the plan…

So let me reflect a bit. I have a Hugo 2, Mojo 2, TempoTec BHD Pro and a bunch more dongles in the drawer. Excellent portable devices with one issue: They need a source. So the PMP needs to become my single source for anything but streaming. But boy, oh boy, have I been let down.

Browsing music on the Hiby R3 II is so bad. Like really bad.
1. Selecting an Artist will get you to Albums. But if your Album has different Artists, for example a Classical album that has instrumental tracks and a choir, or a Piano solo as well as an orchestra, this Album will be separated as long as it is tagged correctly. Compilations need to have Various Artists in the Artist tag or they will be separated!
2. Album Artist should be showing the albums, but it is not. ALBUM Artist will get you to the songs instead of albums. This does not make sense at all!
3. Album sort is also messed up. I doubt most people will be able to remember all album names in their collection so I was quite bummed that the small display wastes so much space when clearly there should be a 2nd line mentioning the album artist below album title. But Hiby does not - because it doesn‘t even check! It will throw all tracks together from the same album name - another huge oversight. So the album „The Köln Concert“ throws together Chet Baker and Keith Jarrett, two completely different albums.
4. It seems like the R3 II does not create thumbnails. Every time you want to browse albums, it has to reload the cover art. The majority will never load at all and even when playing, some art isn‘t displayed even when triple-checked and confirmed on the computer. And even when it loads, the scrolling is very choppy on a low-res display.

The only proper way to browse the music library is via Files. This is so sad and ridiculous at the same time. The main objective of a DAP failed, at least to my expectations explained in the beginning. I don‘t need Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, that is a nice-to-have feature at best. The main purpose is to carry my library with me with an enjoyable way of accessing it.

I had far better browsing experiences on an iPhone 3G in 2009. In fact, even iTunes does a better job so my recommendation would be to save the money and size up on smartphone storage. What use is a new DAP every 3 months with latest DAC and new amp when you can‘t get the basics right? I don‘t think my criticism is exclusive to Hiby, but I really think manufacturers need to go back to the drawing board or nobody will care if the product category dies in a few years.

Anybody in EU want to buy a brand new R3 II?

Regarding #4, the reason that your album art may not load is because the files must be baseline JPG. If they are in the progressive JPG format, the player will not load them.
It seems that this player is specifically optimized for the older/slower X1000E CPU, and by not creating thumbnails, and just reloading them, it frees up space in the very limited very limited RAM the device may have for a smoother operation.

The albums with the same name combining artists and the album artists only showing tracks are also problems with the RS2, which I believe is running the same OS as this player (and costs $300 more), but I believe Hiby is aware of these issues and will fix in upcoming firmwares.