HiBy RS8 Review

Today we review the HiBy RS8 DAP, it is HiBy’s flagship portable player and it is selling for an impressive $3,299 USD. 

Disclaimer: The sample of the HiBy RS8 was sent to us free of charge for this review. HiBy Music is not in any way related to Headfonia. HiBy also offers a bundle with the CR08 Dock, for $3,499 USD, and with Zeta IEMs, for $4, 499$. We will also review the Zeta very soon.

HiBy Music

I don’t think HiBy needs an introduction anymore after having launched multiple successful portable players. But just in case; it is a company that specializes in the research & development of portable audio equipment. They have been in the industry since 2011. They designed and developed a wide range of products from DAPs to various Bluetooth devices.

They successfully launched many other DAPs in the past and now launched their new flagship: the HiBy RS8. We have reviewed several HiBy products and you can find the reviews here. We have just recently reviewed the new R6 III, and it received a recommended badge:

With the exception of the R8, HiBy mostly targeted the entry and mid-fi segments. But now with its newest player, they are aiming for the top-end range, and to fight with the best DAPs in the market. Let’s get started.

HIBY RS8

A brand new TOTL portable player, that’s what the RS8 is. With this DAP, HiBy enters the top-end segment, and they hope to give the competition a tough time. We’ll soon find out if they succeeded. Keep reading.

The previous flagship DAP from Hiby was the R8. Although it is a very fine unit, it doesn’t quite have the pure sound performance to shape up with the best in the market. For sure, the pricing was also significantly lower than the TOTL units, but we can say that this is the first time that HiBy aims to compete with the best of the best. 

The new RS8 is full of features, and I think we can go on and on about them over many pages. However, I’ll try to keep it short and mention the most important ones:

– Monocoque titanium chassis: formed of 6-stage CNC, 17 advanced processes, 19 hours of labour and polishing, yielding a high-quality, tough-wearing exterior

– Darwin II: HiBy’s in-house developed all-new hi-res digital signal processing architecture. Advanced functions such as linear FIR filter, harmonics control, and switchable oversampling / NOS.

– R2R resistor ladder: Consisting of 12 high-speed switches and 184 high-precision resistors, double the amount of the last generation. Sample rates up to 1024x DSD and 1536kHz PCM are supported

– Class A headphone amplification: Comprised of 2x OPA1652+8x NXP dual bipolar transistors

– Turbo Mode: 25% extra headphone amplifier carrying capacity

– Custom designed 12000mAh Battery: Adequate current supply and battery life for the class A amplifier. 12 hours through 3.5mm SE and 8 hours through 4.4mm balanced

– Independent power supplies: Digital, DAC, preamp and post-amp circuits are each supplied independently for zero interference. Headphone amplifier circuit supplied by 2 high-quality DC/DC transformers and 6 high magnetic flux, ultra-low internal resistance, fully shielded high power inductors. The 3.5mm SE and 4.4mm balanced headphone outs are supplied separately.

– Qualcomm Snapdragon 665 CPU, 8GB of RAM, 256GB internal storage, Open Android 12, 5.5” 1080p Display, Dual WiFi, Bluetooth 5.0, PD2.0 Quick Charge

As you can see, even when I do my best to keep it as short as possible, the features are very impressive. The new RS8 literally has everything in a big monoblock chassis. In today’s market, I’m not sure if you can ask more than that. 

For those who are interested in the Darwin tech under the hood, you can check out Hiby’s own video below. Under the video, you can see the full specs. If you’re not interested, you can directly jump to the 2nd page here.

Full Specifications

Page 2: Packaging, Design, Layout, Price, Versatility, CR08 Dock, User Experience

Page 3: Sound, Comparisons

Page 4: Synergy, USB DAC/Digital/Line-Out, Conclusion