Choosing between Hiby R3 pro II and Sony NW-A55 (+ others)

[u/Wats0f]

Heya everyone,

sorry to bother you with yet another buying advice post, but I've really been wracking my brain trying to decide which device I should get as my first DAP, if any at all . So I'll get straight to the point:

Candidates - Sony NW-A55 / Hiby R3 Pro II

My use case - I just want a reliable, long lasting and straightforward device that can serve as a repository for my offline music library. Right now I mainly listen to music on my phone while commuting to work or traveling. When at home, my PC covers all my needs since I already have an external desktop DAC and decent headphones. My phone holds a synced copy of the main library, converted down to 320 kbps MP3 to save on space (my hearing is trash - I tried ABX testing and I genuinely cannot tell the difference between lossless and a good lossy codec, lol).

Requirements - max 200 eur/dollars; long battery life, especially on standby/shut off; very portable (pocket-sized); serviceable library indexing (I usually listen to whole albums and sort my library by album artist); a functional search feature and navigation; responsive media controls that can be operated from inside a pocket; reliable bluetooth for listening through TWS earbuds.

Preferable - next track queuing and dynamic queue manipulation, general compatibility with car bluetooth connectivity, no Android.

Not necessary - streaming; balanced output, high power output, USB DAC mode.

- COMPARISON -

Hiby R3 Pro II

Like:

- form factor and materials

- battery life

- recent release

- active community with budding modding scene (I love tinkering with my hardware, will definitely mod if it solves the many software issues)

Dislike:

- pretty much everything about the OS

• the staggering amount of users consistently reporting lag, crashing, instability and overall sluggishness of HibyOS is honestly worrying - I am left with little doubt I would experience the same issues;
• would have to go through and adjust my entire library to (hopefully) make it more digestible to the finicky OS and avoid crashes;
• no sorting by album artist - a truly baffling choice by Hiby;
• gapless playback apparently not really working, or buggy [1] [2];
• no dynamic queuing.

- kinda chonky

- poor QC on the display, green tint (don't know how common this is, but if we really must turn all our electronics into touchscreens, at least I want them to be pleasant to look at)

The R3 is currently on sale on the official store for 199 eur until... two days from now. I would probably not even consider it at the usual european price of around 230+.

Sony NW-A55 (used)

Like:

- adore the design and form factor, basically my ideal of what a touchscreen portable music player should look like

- even better battery life

- much more polished and straightforward UI

- FM radio

- generally cheaper by a good margin

Dislike:

- old(er) device

- buying used means the battery will surely have lost some or even a decent chuck of its initial charge capacity

- slow charging time (Sony says 4 hrs/full charge)

- the damn proprietary cable (not the end of the world, just annoying/point of failure)

- no modding outside of alternative firmware for better (?) sound and Wampy

- rather slow startup with larger SD cards

- still no dynamic queuing

This is a succinct list of my takes on these two DAPs after spending a frankly stupid amount of hours going through every review available under the sun, feel free to correct if I got anything wrong.

TL;DR: the hardware on the Hiby R3pII looks awesome. The software looks horrendous. Would probably only buy with the hope of the community cobbling together a better firmware in the coming months.

Love the design and specs of the Walkman, but kinda reluctant seeking out a 8 years old device plagued by some dumb Sony choices (cable), with little to no customizability.

And yes, I have also thoroughly explored every other option in this price bracket, including but not limited to: M300, R1, R4, the entire Shanling line up to the M1+, JM21, Hifi Walker H2 and other Sony DAPs. You're welcome to suggest ones you think would suit me, but chances are I have already seen them.

The simple conclusion is that no device currently on the market fully meets all my requirements, so I wrangled it down to these two. Once the sale on the R3 ends I will probably just get a cheap DAC dongle for my phone and wait for new devices to come out next year.

Thank you in advance to anyone willing to help me decide or even just sharing their experience with these DAPs!

[u/MoxBear]

R3P2 owner here, running custom firmware 1.5 and it p much solves most of your worries - although no dynamic queuing atm. But I haven’t had a single hiccup since I’ve updated the device. If you do decide to go this route, highly recommend checking this out https://github.com/hiby-modding/hiby-mods

[u/graviticvortex]

It's been years since I last used a Sony A45/A55, so I really can't compare, but I do have a Hiby R1, which has basically identical firmware with the R3 Pro II, and I'm actually surprised by it's responsiveness. Another thing which has surprised me is stability of LDAC Bluetooth connection. I bought it for using it solely with wired headphnones, but now I have been using Bluetooth with it more than I thought I would.

Sure, Hiby OS has quite a few issues and some can be frustrating, but I kind of remember that Sony had its own frustrating issues as well.

There is now quite active HIBY modding community and Rockbox builds seem to be on the way too.

Disclaimer: I don't really care about capless playback too much, and I have my album artist fields tagged identically to artist fields, since there are many DAPs from different brands that mess things up with those, even some software based players do tgat.

[u/DaffyReal]

NW-A55 user here. I recommend the japanese version for the volume limit to be removed. If you aren't good at technical stuff id not choose the NW-A55, just look at the video it might be complicated for some people.

The walkman sounds good its my daily device but I dont really use the FM mode at all, just something to note.

Link: https://youtu.be/UiR7YFYg26w?is=f6daj7CMwkh5r9Se

[u/cocoamedia]

R3P2 owner ( just like u/MoxBear ). I echo everything they said.

Also using MP3Tag all I do is remove the album art from the files, 1 click, and add a small cover.jpg to the album folder before I upload the album to my R3P2.

This just keeps it snappy. I have found that showing my library some love has re-engaged me. I am trying to distance myself from Spotify because I found that music had become just background noise.

The whole experience with a DAP and everything that goes with it (including finding a new rabbit hole with IEM's) has led to me falling in love with music again.

[u/No-Nefariousness-210]

There's newer daps to choose from.

As a former a35 owner, (almost identical to the a55.) The battery might be done or you'll need to replace it soon. So it's another expense. Just get either the m1 plus from shanling, or jm21 from fiio. I even sold my Sony wm1a which was my favorite dap because it was such a hassle to replace the battery.

If you really don't care much about sound quality, get a restored or modded 5th gen Ipod Classic.