Hiby R5ii

What's special about the ES9219C is that it grants R5II access to its on-chip analog volume control – the baby of HiBy's bunch attenuates volume in the analog domain granting much better signal-to-noise performance than the average competitor's lossy digital volume control.

You'll see that we're already discussing R5II as a much higher-end offering than it is. And there's still more. Small signal accuracy in the DAC and gain stage is key, because this flows on to a series of eight discrete dual bipolar transistors working in pure Class A.

Differentiating itself from so many others who use op-amp ICs with inordinate amounts of gain, R5II's open-loop linearity remains excellent before application of feedback, owing to its Class A bias. That ensures individual transistors are working in optimum condition.

Distortion and noise are kept low, without resorting to the excessive use of negative feedback. HiBy designed a true-balanced differential amplifier to further improve R5II's linearity, and you can count on common-mode rejection at its best whenever you plug in via 2.5mm or 4.4mm.

Without adding cheaply-built, signal degrading adapters to your balanced connections to make something fit, even your flagships can be juiced to the max potential, signal integrity guaranteed via direct sockets soldered to PCB.

R5II's current handling is impressive given its number of output transistors in parallel, meaning this HiBy remains unfazed driving even Odin and Legend Evo from Empire Ears, the Craft Ears Aurum, or Madoo's Type 711. 

By putting such a high-performance circuit in the palms of people's hands, and offering them a Snapdragon 425 with full Google Play support with the ability to bypass Android sample-rate conversion for bit-perfect playback, music is truly accessible to anyone and everyone. TechPowerUp award their Highly Recommended and Innovation awards to R5ii.

Discussing the above, it's so easy to forget we're talking about R5II as HiBy's entry-level offering. See what these forward-thinkers can really do higher up the range here, or view our other music players here.