Review on 🎧 HiBy R2 Portable Lossless Music Player - Black: Bluetooth 5.0, WiFi 5G, Entry-Level Hi-Fi Player for Audiophiles by Christopher Bates

Due to Apple's refusal to add an improved Bluetooth codec, iPhone users have been stuck with AAC over the years. No longer! With the HiBy R2 and the HiBy-distributed USB-C to Lightning cable or the LT-LT1 by FiiO, you can use the HiBy R2 as an external USB DAC and output an LDAC Bluetooth stream. Of course, you can also use this PC/Mac device to output LDAC signals from desktop/laptop or Macbook. There are a few limitations and issues (hence only 4 stars)1. The display always shows 24-bit mode in DAC mode, even with DAC input 16, 24 or 32. I have confirmed with HiBy and they said that the bit depth information display is hard coded to "24", However, this has no influence on what is decoded.2. In USB DAC mode, there is NO Bluetooth signal when the input is in DSD format (or the DSD file is played directly by this portable player)3. If you are using LDAC, you MUST TURN WiFi OFF. When streaming from Tidal or Qobuz using the built-in app (NOT USB DAC) with LDAC, the LDAC stream is very unstable due to WiFi interference. In my opinion, the streaming feature is almost useless with this portable player if you use the LDAC.4 codec. This DAC is very susceptible to radio signal interference when using the LDAC codec, especially if you use it near a router or very close to a wireless mouse or keyboard. for streaming with max 990kbps Yes, I know it's not possible, high resolution, compress, lossy. bla bla bla. but still better than Apple's AAC, 990 kbps LDAC > 320 kbps AAC, simple math. " error.