HiBy R4 Review

I've been using MP3 players since the first was released with compact digital cards pre the iPod and been using my green iPod shuffle as a device to listen to music while on hikes. So have been meaning to load up my 30GB MP3 collection to listen while out and about in the UK.

I want to share a quick review of a great device that I acquired quickly on Amazon here in the UK. It arrived the next day and I've been able to use it for a lot of peace with my music collection.

It has the ability to have small, mid to high gain allowing different impedence headphones for the right volume. So my in ear apple headphones have been sounding great which are the best pair of headphones out there. The ones that have a 3.5mm jack. I've put away pairs that are £30+ that aren't as good, like my hifiman sundara's.

Adjusting the volume has the side buttons like a mobile phone but a great UI to just use your finger to drag a nice visualization up and down. Making it easy to just mix an audio track to pump the volume

It's fully android, has the Google Play store so I've been able to download Google Keep to use with an external USB keyboard, my trusty Planck with the honeywell GMK keycaps. Has been brilliant for typing what I need on the go on a small device that is not connected to the cell service.

I've been able to use it to store images taken on my cameras either using the micro-sd slot or the internal storage, allowing for possible future uploading to services when the device is online vs offline. Something I've designed and wanted a couple of years ago to allow ensuring you're offline when hiking.

My old 128kbs MP3s from the 90s/00s are sounding like they are 384kbs high quality sounding music like FLACs and other file formats that services like Tidal have advertised as high quality. It could be that I ripped my CDs back at Southampton University using my raw SPDIF setup, I don't know.

I can't wait to buy their HiBy Yacht10 in ear headphones and compare them to high quality in ear headphones that I have such as the cambridge audio andromedas. As they are 10x cheaper.