[Mattyjm]

Also interested to know about R4 sound quality. I read it's sound dull, flat and boring.
https://www.headfonia.com/hiby-r4-review/3/

"It doesn’t sound very musical or full" is quite far from "dull, flat and boring" imo.

to each its own i guess...

 

[Safeinthemountains]

I'm afraid I am no reviewer myself... did a quick listen and I'm liking it so far...

Don't be scared Listening experience is something highly subjective, and what you feel is not what the others will probably experience by themselves.
You can give some guidelines to others, but once the SQ basics (SNR, distortion...) are okay, this is just a question of personnal taste.

I don't consider myself as an "audiophile", and I'm quite happy with it...
Having started Hi-Fi in the early 90's at the end of the cassettes and LP era and the beginning of CD, I consider most of the DAP options valid for myself as of today. Then I choose a specific DAP more on portability, ergonomics, durability, battery life...
I don't see obvious differences in between different DAPs, DACs, in this digital era, but on the other hand I see loads of differences in between Headphones and IEMs.

In the end, if you enjoy your own music with this device, that some people find "dull, flat and boring" good for you !

 

[ybbobserrot]

Also interested to know about R4 sound quality. I read it's sound dull, flat and boring.
https://www.headfonia.com/hiby-r4-review/3/

I don't understand what "dull, flat, and boring" means. However, I understand "neutral, warm, dark, sibilant". Aren't those descriptors subjective because we each hear differently? What if the person doing the review has something wrong with their hearing?

 

[ChristianM]

"Sound dull, flat and boring"

Sirs ask Headfonia, it's not my statement/review.

 

[ybbobserrot]

Don't be scared Listening experience is something highly subjective, and what you feel is not what the others will probably experience by themselves.
You can give some guidelines to others, but once the SQ basics (SNR, distortion...) are okay, this is just a question of personnal taste.

I don't consider myself as an "audiophile", and I'm quite happy with it...
Having started Hi-Fi in the early 90's at the end of the cassettes and LP era and the beginning of CD, I consider most of the DAP options valid for myself as of today. Then I choose a specific DAP more on portability, ergonomics, durability, battery life...
I don't see obvious differences in between different DAPs, DACs, in this digital era, but on the other hand I see loads of differences in between Headphones and IEMs.

In the end, if you enjoy your own music with this device, that some people find "dull, flat and boring" good for you !

I'll spend a few days with my new toy and I'll be sharing my "non-audiophile" impressions. Don't get me wrong, I am a rabid music lover and I appreciate good old-school music from a time when it still sounded really good.

Come to think of it, I have the same observations as you about people hearing the very slight nuances of how good or bad DAPs sound. They must be blessed with "golden ears".

 

[ybbobserrot]

@Joe Bloggs I just got my R4 unit hours ago and I popped in a 512gb micro sd card with 600+ songs - a mix of flac, dsd, and wav. When I opened the Hiby music app and tried to scan the files, it's taking so long to do the job - like I waited 5 mins and it wouldn't go past 80 files. I had to stop the scanning and I must have closed the app and did it again 3x and still the same issue. Am I doing anything wrong here?

 

[swmmix]

If you can't beat them, join 'em Hiby R4 has landed and the reviews so far have been spot on!

How is it compare to Shanling H2? I know its different product but since H2 can play local music as well.


In term of sound and user experience. I am interest in H2 for while but its a DAC/AMP that support local playback so it hard to find direct compare to actual DAP. I like the M1s but is not avaliable in my country.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

@Joe Bloggs I just got my R4 unit hours ago and I popped in a 512gb micro sd card with 600+ songs - a mix of flac, dsd, and wav. When I opened the Hiby music app and tried to scan the files, it's taking so long to do the job - like I waited 5 mins and it wouldn't go past 80 files. I had to stop the scanning and I must have closed the app and did it again 3x and still the same issue. Am I doing anything wrong here?

Hi, did it get stuck on song no. 80 or is it just crawling along one song every few seconds?

I suspect the former, in which case there's a song with what HiByMusic would consider to be corrupt metadata in a way that it can't recover from.

There would be an error log of the scanning process you can retrieve to find the offending track, one moment.

 

[Joe Bloggs]

@Joe Bloggs I just got my R4 unit hours ago and I popped in a 512gb micro sd card with 600+ songs - a mix of flac, dsd, and wav. When I opened the Hiby music app and tried to scan the files, it's taking so long to do the job - like I waited 5 mins and it wouldn't go past 80 files. I had to stop the scanning and I must have closed the app and did it again 3x and still the same issue. Am I doing anything wrong here?

Go into Settings and tap Error Report then tap back out. Look for a file called hibysdk.log in the root folder of your R4 and send to me via direct message. Thanks.

 

[ToneDeafMonk]

@Joe Bloggs I just got my R4 unit hours ago and I popped in a 512gb micro sd card with 600+ songs - a mix of flac, dsd, and wav. When I opened the Hiby music app and tried to scan the files, it's taking so long to do the job - like I waited 5 mins and it wouldn't go past 80 files. I had to stop the scanning and I must have closed the app and did it again 3x and still the same issue. Am I doing anything wrong here?

Do a factory reset will fix the issue.

 

[ybbobserrot]

Go into Settings and tap Error Report then tap back out. Look for a file called hibysdk.log in the root folder of your R4 and send to me via direct message. Thanks.

Thank you. I'll work on that as soon as I get off from work.

 

[ybbobserrot]

How is it compare to Shanling H2? I know its different product but since H2 can play local music as well.


In term of sound and user experience. I am interest in H2 for while but its a DAC/AMP that support local playback so it hard to find direct compare to actual DAP. I like the M1s but is not avaliable in my country.

I have both units so I really can only compare their common features and sound quality. With the H2, it's compact, easy to use, just copy the music unto the card and play it. The tiny display is almost unuseful and I have tp rely on my phone to navigate to the exact folder where I want to listen to a specific set of songs. If you use the H2 standalone, you can only go through 1 music file at a time sequentially or have it set to random play. It's not too bad.

With the R4? Navigation is as easy as pie since it just works like a phone.

The R4 definitely sounds much better - bigger soundstage, more details. I use the same Iems for both.

 

[ybbobserrot]

Do a factory reset will fix the issue.

I'll wait for the Hiby rep to reply (@Joe Bloggs ) to my distress call. I'll do the reset as a last resort. Thank you for the tip.

 

[JSun]

@Joe Bloggs I just got my R4 unit hours ago and I popped in a 512gb micro sd card with 600+ songs - a mix of flac, dsd, and wav. When I opened the Hiby music app and tried to scan the files, it's taking so long to do the job - like I waited 5 mins and it wouldn't go past 80 files. I had to stop the scanning and I must have closed the app and did it again 3x and still the same issue. Am I doing anything wrong here?

Look for unusually large album/cover art files, that might be the cause. Seen this mentioned before on previous threads.

 

[ybbobserrot]

Look for unusually large album/cover art files, that might be the cause. Seen this mentioned before on previous threads.

Ok, thanks.