HiBy R6 III Digital Audio Player MP3 MP4 Player with Class A&AB Dac Amp Android 12 Bluetooth 5.0 WiFi 2.4G+5G 4500mAh(Black)

Sound preference is so subjective, being different from person to person for so many reasons. For reference my ears are over 50 years old and have been listening to in ear music for over 30 years. For me I love this DAP. Straight out of the box, playing FLAC from my SDcard, the sound was superb. A little mid forward, but the bass is solid depending on your headphones/ IEMs. Vocals are really well delivered. Being mid forward female vocals are really beautifully presented. Higher frequencies are very clear and offer very good separation and air to the music, even with closed back headphones. Balanced mode is a step up in performance. This unit also partners very well with an external portable amp like the Ifi XCan.I’ve had a Hiby player in the past and found the MSEB sound enhancement to be invaluable to tailoring the sound to my taste. However with the R6 III, the normal EQ does the job for my head phones (Focal Clear, Hifiman Arya, in balanced mode, Bowers & Wilkins P9 unbalanced.). One word of advice if using the EQ, take care of the “amp” slider in the EQ. If you raise this and increase the bass frequencies you will get distortion. I also like that the pre set EQ settings like Pop, Rock, Jazz etc, can also be adjusted.Playing in class A amp mode the player does get hot. I can’t say that I found the sound to be markedly improved from AB mode, but it does drain the battery quicker. I strongly recommend that you don’t keep the player in your pocket particularly in Class A mode.I’ve not really used any of the Google/Android stuff, I wanted a player to play my stored music library and that’s mainly how I’ve been using it.This is quite a high quality DAP, if you have poor or low res music, it will be very unforgiving and will show up the poor quality. I thought my headphones had blown a driver listening to an album, but then realised that it was a 275mbps MP3 copy. Playing FLAC and WAV sound excellent or 320mbps MP3 sounds pretty good too.Reading some of the reviews, it seems that maybe quality control from Hiby is a bit hit and miss regarding the UI and it being glitchy. I love the UI on my player, it performs as I would expect. It connects to my network without issue and the BT connection is quick and strong.As far as build goes, it’s very sturdy and solid feeling. I found the supplied case to be a bit cumbersome, however I dropped my player this morning from a desk, onto a tiled floor, thank goodness I had the case on, not a scratch to either glass panel. Battery charges on fast charge in around an hour and a half from around 20% to 95%.The volume wheel being on top is a great idea to allow access in a pocket, however the headphone cables exiting from the bottom makes no sense to me. With the weight of this unit, pressing down on your jack plug I think it would run the risk of either breaking the cable eventually or applying undue stress to to the headphone socket. A right angled Jack would solve this I guess.Overall, coming from a Sony NW A306 which I thought was the bees knees, IMO the R6 III is a step up in sound, overall presentation of music and features. All be it, that I think the Sony was better designed, I wouldnt swap the R6 III. For my use it is superb.

THIS UNIT PLAYS HIGH REZ /PLUS CD QUALITY WITH EASE BEST DAP that ive ever had in a decade.interface/ menu screen presentation 10/10 . internet access excellent if requiredITS good to see a good charging cable the thickness shows a good csa for quick chargingplenty of options to modify sound /frequency range .google store to add music appsit has the option of class A or class A B IN TRUTH THERE IS A SMALL IMPROVEMENT at the expense of battery life . two screen protectors fitted and a spare,.clear protective cover included it would be better with a total coverloading 500gb card id faultless . format then copy FAILED AFTER 3 MONTHS UNABLE TO POWER UP. SEEMS TO BE COMMON . AWAIT FOR REPLY

It is a very solid bit of kit, as big as my old Panasonic, bigger than the, Sony and heavier.Hopefully some of the weight is in a big battery.Not too much bloat ware to clear out.Downloaded Tidal and Amazon music.Both sound great, but tidal through hiby's great in house music app, about blew my ears off quality, clarity and slightly better volume than Android and the Govt restrictions normally allow.I am happy but it comes at a price, apart from the cost of the player, I need to get new cans and balanced cables to play with all the features but its only about 5 haircuts for the wife and it will last longer, hopefully.Just to add a month or so on, been away in Tenerife lots of updates to software, which have smoothed a couple of annoying features like time resetting, some crash issues, basically it works better now more consistently. I am a bit fed up with the memory it had a 1tb card in which should be ok but it keeps losing it and is filling the internal memory with stuff I want in the card. But it's not too annoying yet, will try a different card when I can be bothered they are so small and fiddly for old farts fingers to manipulate.Still very good

This is an edited review, and this is what I originally wrote: Very good playback and amplification. Two caveats - on class A amplification this item runs hot. Second, if you have a Mac computer, be warned that if you want it to link to the HyBy, then good luck! It can be done, but it’s a bit laborious. However, it’s worth it for the range of options, sound, etc.All that was correct, but in under two weeks, the HiBy stopped working. As in, it would not switch on, by battery or mains. Everything was dead. As in the proverbial dodo. Bereft of life, joined the choirs invisible, etc, etc. Reading up on the matter, I found a fair number of gripes on the web about the HyBy’s battery conking out. Maybe this was the cause here, but regardless, I sent it back and bought a Sony Walkman. A big shout out to Amazon, who were superb in dealing with refund, etc.