Hiby FC3 Portable DAC & HP Amp Review

[Jimster480]

Do we know of anything that outperforms this with a mic input?

Will be interesting to see the dongle that is included with the 1More penta headphones (IEMs) because that also has a mic input.

 

[staticV3]

Do we know of anything that outperforms this with a mic input?

THX Onyx Review (headphone adapter)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the THX Onyx MQA DAC and Headphone Adapter. Company was kind enough to send me one prior to its announcement today. The Onyx costs US $200. There are a lot of "dongles" out there but the Onyx is the first one to bring good bit of class to the...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The Meizu Pro outperforms this as well (on a non-borked measurement setup):


114dB SINAD, 100mW per channel @32Ω.

 

[Jimster480]

Likewise, I updated the price.

Are you able to measure the ADC portion of it?

THX Onyx Review (headphone adapter)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the THX Onyx MQA DAC and Headphone Adapter. Company was kind enough to send me one prior to its announcement today. The Onyx costs US $200. There are a lot of "dongles" out there but the Onyx is the first one to bring good bit of class to the...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The Meizu Pro outperforms this as well (on a non-borked measurement setup):
View attachment 378122 View attachment 378121

114dB SINAD, 100mW per channel @32Ω.

My personal experience with the THX Onyx is much worse than this dongle though, because it would have random buzzing and also set the volume to 100% multiple times.

 

[staticV3]

Are you able to measure the ADC portion of it?

Would likely be difficult and labor-intensive (custom cables etc), as the ADC input is firmly designed around Electret capsules with permanent ~2V Plug-in Power.

I don't think it's something you can just plug the APx555's output into and get realistic results.

One workaround is to just use an Electret mic as tone gen for the ADC, but then your dealing with "ugly" acoustics.

An example:

Recommendation for a USB Audio-interface DAC/ADC for ADC performance

using USB DAC/ADC/Audio Interface with a Raspberry Pi 4B - as a BirdNET Pi (it detects and automatically identifies birds by their song/calls) I am using a Clippy EM272 Microphone via TRS-TTRS converter...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[amirm]

Are you able to measure the ADC portion of it?

Will have to build a custom cable. And buy a TRRS plug. I have heard the owner wants it back soon though!

 

[mc.god]

Do we know of anything that outperforms this with a mic input?

The old and sadly discontinued Meizu HiFi\Meizu HiFi Pro\Ugreen HiFi Pro all using CS43131 as DAC + CS46L41 as ADC, their only drawback is CS46L41 sync USB bridge with not fantastic jitter.
Jcally JM30 Pro is the nearest thing I know, also using a CS43131 and supporting mic, but we don't know if ADC is the same nor any measurements.
All dongle using the same ES9281 chip of the FC3 (like this) should be able to support mic being the chip an all-in-one codec+usb bridge and I suspect them to perform on par with the Hiby.

 

[Doodski]

I'm popping a few images here so we can see the scale of this device.

 

[mc.god]

I'm popping a few images here so we can see the scale of this device.

As stated earlier the reviewed unit is the new model with display:

 

[WalterW]

It may be nice looking and is not very expensive, still I would say it is not very competitive right now in this fast changing market. It has no balanced connection and ouputs barely 70 mW at 32 Ohm. There are many headphones I will not drive properly and for IEMs you don't need a dongle above the Apple one. The Hidisz S9 Pro or the Fiio Ka3, even being on the market already some time, both outperform it.

 

[Jimster480]

Will have to build a custom cable. And buy a TRRS plug. I have heard the owner wants it back soon though!

Well, the dongle could be mailed back separately if it is something that you are interested in doing.

The old and sadly discontinued Meizu HiFi\Meizu HiFi Pro\Ugreen HiFi Pro all using CS43131 as DAC + CS46L41 as ADC, their only drawback is CS46L41 sync USB bridge with not fantastic jitter.
Jcally JM30 Pro is the nearest thing I know, also using a CS43131 and supporting mic, but we don't know if ADC is the same nor any measurements.
All dongle using the same ES9281 chip of the FC3 (like this) should be able to support mic being the chip an all-in-one codec+usb bridge and I suspect them to perform on par with the Hiby.

That's interesting because I was looking at several dongles and this is the only one that I looked at with this chipset that claimed to support mic input.
So I really wonder if the other ones do support it and they just didn't put it in marketing or if it's some setting in the firmware that is disabled.

It may be nice looking and is not very expensive, still I would say it is not very competitive right now in this fast changing market. It has no balanced connection and ouputs barely 70 mW at 32 Ohm. There are many headphones I will not drive properly and for IEMs you don't need a dongle above the Apple one. The Hidisz S9 Pro or the Fiio Ka3, even being on the market already some time, both outperform it.

Well, I don't think that overall it is a bad price and the high resolution screen combined with the memory for the settings is a nice addition.

It has a little app that lets you stream to it directly around the Android resampling settings and it supports a dedicated mode inside of Tidal.

Personally though, the ability to remove the wire from the dongle was a big selling point for me because of how I can fit it into my IEM case.

 

[mc.god]

That's interesting because I was looking at several dongles and this is the only one that I looked at with this chipset that claimed to support mic input.
So I really wonder if the other ones do support it and they just didn't put it in marketing or if it's some setting in the firmware that is disabled.

I also noticed this information lacking on most of them and raised the same doubt. The Lxdac A04 I linked, while not explicitly advertising it, refers to the function in the description:

If you use a headset with a microphone, you need to plug the headset into 3.5 first and connect the other end to your phone, in case the microphone doesn't work

2. When "exclusive HQ USB audio access" is enabled in HibyMusic app, the headset will not be able to answer calls.

 

[Music1969]

84 dB, it's there.

sorry i cannot see :-( where is it

 

[WalterW]

sorry i cannot see :-( where is it

 

[Vict0r]

I've been using the FC3 (no display, just a big, round LED that changes color depending on codec) for more than a year now (or two years? Can't remember... Time flies.) in combination with the Moondrop Aria and my Xiaomi Android smartphone and it's been smooth sailing. Zero issues. Sounds good to me (for whatever that's worth) and it came with a cute leather sleeve. I stopped thinking about upgrading and dongles and DACs when I started using the Hiby, so I guess that means it's a good product.

The only niggles I could come up with are that the sleeve is hard to take off when it's on the dongle, and that the included Hiby USB cable went from a fresh white to a nicotine yellow rather quickly. And I don't smoke.

 

[SAV1972]

Thanks for the review. I really hope to see your review of the Cayin idac-8.
There are no reviews on the Internet yet

 

[amirm]

I really hope to see your review of the Cayin idac-8.

I don't have any contact with the company and no one has sent one in.

Based on their specs, it would have a SINAD of 103 dB in transistor mode which is really not very competitive. It is very nice looking unit though!

 

[Jimster480]

I don't have any contact with the company and no one has sent one in.

Based on their specs, it would have a SINAD of 103 dB in transistor mode which is really not very competitive. It is very nice looking unit though!

So basically the same performance as this dongle.

 

[mc.god]

Looking at advertised features of this new FC3:

came back to mind a question that arose in another thread about output power.
Since ES9281 is generally rated around 60 mW per channel @32 and given that original FC3 claims 70 mW, it were not clear where those 112 mW came from, maybe from an unmentioned additional op-amp.
@amirm test finally clarified that it's not even near that value, maybe they just decided to claim the cumulative power from both channels (like other manufacturers do).

 

[Somafunk]

The latest “dongle de reguier” is the Onix Xi1, 500w into 32ohms , if genuine that’s a tiny powerhouse of a dongle

3.5mm Single-Ended Output

Output Power: 2.4V@32Ω (180mW@32Ω)

Output Impedance: 0.4Ω

–

4.4mm Balanced Output

Output Power: 4.0V@32Ω (500mW@32Ω)

THD+N: 0.0005% @32Ω (A-Weight)

Dynamic Range: 129dB @32Ω (A-Weight)

Channel Separation: 99dB

Signal-to-Noise Ratio : 129dB @32Ω (A-Weight)

Output Impedance: 0.8Ω

 

[mc.god]

The latest “dongle de reguier” is the Onix Xi1, 500w into 32ohms , if genuine that’s a tiny powerhouse of a dongle

3.5mm Single-Ended Output

Output Power: 2.4V@32Ω (180mW@32Ω)

Output Impedance: 0.4Ω

–

4.4mm Balanced Output

Output Power: 4.0V@32Ω (500mW@32Ω)

THD+N: 0.0005% @32Ω (A-Weight)

Dynamic Range: 129dB @32Ω (A-Weight)

Channel Separation: 99dB

Signal-to-Noise Ratio : 129dB @32Ω (A-Weight)

Output Impedance: 0.8Ω

It is similar to Fiio KA13 with 2 CS43198 instead of 2 CS43131 and the same 2 SGM opamp. FIIO ones advertising even more power a 550 mW @32, probably they are on par.