At last, we’ve reached my sound impressions on the HiBy R1. I won’t go too in depth as I plan to do that on my full review, but I would like to share a couple of my thoughts and observations.
Firstly, if you haven’t seen my post about the volume lock situation, you can read it here https://audionotions.com/hiby-r1-and-other-hiby-products-volume-lock-explained/
With that put into the context, the R1 is a surprisingly powerful little device with emphasis on clarity and details over musicality and warmth. In short, this is on the brighter spectrum of the CS43131 DACs out there.
This reminds me a lot of the HiBy Digital M300 with its emphasis on the top end over the bass, but the M300 is still a little bit more dynamic in the low end and a little bit more powerful.
Instrument separation is the most impressive thing about this thing as the leaner output emphasizes the smaller details in whatever headphones you listen to. However, this also has the tendency to make bright IEMs a tad bit too bright while balancing out the warmer IEMs to have a bit more treble. Keep that in mind when choosing your transducer
Speaking of which, I absolutely LOVED pairing the Kefine Delci and Klean on this. It almost sounds like it was made for the R1, or vise versa. The way that it controlled the bass was fantastic while bringing a tad bit more detail in the treble.
Not so good pairing would be brighter leaning IEMs like the EW200, KZ ZSN/ZS10 series of IEMs (trust me, all of them) and any of the brighter sets that can get a little edgy.
Ironically, I choose to pair probably the worst pairing to photograph with the bright and vibrant DK3001BD with the R1, but I thought it was aesthetically fitting.
