Review on 🍏 HiBy R3 Pro Saber: Ultimate Hi-Res Music Player with Bluetooth, WiFi, and Full Touch Screen (Green) by Maurice Harvey

I purchased this unit specifically to reorganize my library and use it as a music device streaming to my sound systems. I have Revel Studio speakers and an Adcom power amp, an Adcom preamp and a Denon High End Bluetooth CD player. For music playback I use two different phones connected via Bluetooth to an Audioengine B1 Bluetooth receiver and I also just received an SMSL M200 Bluetooth Audio with an AK4497 DAC which showed a slight improvement over the B1. All of the above combinations are indistinguishable from the output of a CD player. The M200 has an almost imperceptible advantage over the B1. Now, with the hardware background set, here's what happens: The HiBy R3 Saber delivers oddly muddy female techno vocals on regular flat output. That means it was expected to be flat, but it isn't. I just want my FLAC music files to be streamed via LDAC to the Bluetooth receiver, whose DAC should do the rest. And that's even true for Samsung and Alcatel phones compared to CD playback. The HiBy R3 Saber, on the other hand, seems to be good at something akin to new age and the classics are almost okay, but the sophisticated techno catches it with its pants down, so to speak. Playing with numerous controls allows you to change the sound parameters and make it sound better. Which proves that the audio goes through the DAC on the device so it can be manipulated and then packaged back into LDAC and transmitted. Why? I assume the main purpose of the device is to play a headset and the bluetooth output is an afterthought. It had firmware 1.5 and I tried updating it to the latest version 1.6 with no improvement. As much as I can't trust this thing to serve the purpose I needed it for, I will try to get it back. And stick with the trusted Samsung with the Pulsar player. HiBy R3 is useless for me. I'm giving it 2 stars instead of 1 because it's a pretty cute little device. But what a disappointment for $209, it's not a feature, it's really a transmission design flaw!