HiBy W3 II Headphone Amp Bluetooth 5.2 Receiver USB DAC for Car Audio/Smartphone/PC/Laptop

This is a super simple, great sounding Bluetooth headphone DAC. It's also tiny and very lightweight. I don't think the project pictures really convey how small this thing is. Just clip it to your pocket or jacket and forget about it.It has really good battery life. I can definitely go a full day of listening without needing to charge. And the Bluetooth range is incredible. I can go all the way across from my house and even a little outside and still keep the connection. That's pretty unheard for BT headphones. I also have the fiio btr5, and that thing starts losing signal one room over.For ease of use, it connects very quickly and reliably. Unfortunately it only connects to one device at a time, so if I switch between my phone and computer, I need to turn it off and re-enter pairing mode while telling your new device to connect to it. The controls are super intuitive and can be adjusted just by feel. I tried out the app, and it's straightforward enough, but I really don't want to be bothered with equalizers and such.Luckily it sounds just great without any tinkering. Compared to my brt5, I may give a slight sound quality edge to the fiio, but then again, they may be equal. When I listen to them one after the other, I can't place any real difference in the sound. It definitely doesn't seem to have any audible noise or add any compression. Bass, treble, imaging, etc are all exactly as my headphones sound through a hard wired connection. If I did an official blind test against the btr5, I doubt I could pick which is which.I have Phillips x2s, koss kph40, and koss ksc75. I can listen to any of these headphones for hours though this device; it's almost addictive to have such good sound so mobile.The one potential problem is that it has a combined DAC/amp chip instead of an additional analog amp circuit after the DAC. This means if you have very high impedance headphones or a very low volume source, it may have issues driving them loud enough. It has plenty of volume to spare through my phone or computer with all of my headphones though.Get this if you want high quality, mobile sound through your wired headphones. At this price the only reason to go more expensive is if you have difficult to drive headphones or need need to devices connected at once. Going for a more expensive unit probably won't make an improvement in sound quality, but you may very likely sacrifice BT range and ease of use.

I like the battery life and the fact that this supports LDAC and features a dual Bluetooth and usb dac mode.While the usb dac mode on and plugged into my windows PC it is louder than say like an apple usb dac, it's easy enough to lower the volume. When the dac is plugged into my phone the volume is on par with the apple usb c DAC.I can't speak to audiophile qualities as I'm not an audio expert but the sound seems clear on my $9 Sony ear buds and wired Sony xm4.Like other HIBy products I have ordered the volume buttons work as intended but in order to skip forward you have to press and hold the volume down button and visa versa for going back. Then if you would like to pause the music you can just briefly press the power button. These media buttons/actions only work while in Bluetooth mode, they do not work while in usb dac mode.Usb dac mode can easily be enabled by just plugging the dac into a computer or phone using any usb c data cable.

For non audiophiles - the Bluetooth connections is great. I connected the W3 to my laptop, and was able to walk all around my house, cooking, no issues. Its impressive, turning my Sennheiser 560S into (essentially) a hands-free device.Setup is simple/easy. The two HiBy apps (music and blue) are fine. The W3 is tiny, so make sure to pocket it or use the clip or else you'll drop it haha.Negatives (more for audiophiles): When using my phone -The 95mW really shows itself (took number from W3's listing), and it hurts. When listening to audio, I have great clarity, but no depth/drives. I'm testing Sennheiser 560S with the W3, and while the soundstage is solid, what I would expect --> any toying w/ an equalizer, and it just splats, fuzzy noise that I haven't heard in years. Disappointing.I used Tidal on the HiBy Music app - and the music did not go above 16-bit 44kHz. Disappointing. I bought this to go above the 16-bit 44kHz mark. Maybe I have to toy with the settings more.Speaking of, the UAT codec did not make a difference.So: if you're a casual user, this might be for you, good quality & cost effective. Audiophiles? Not so much.

Good audio quality. Very easy to operate, pairs fast with my phone and tablet. The controller app is very useful. The cable mode also works flawlessly with ipad, It also gets charged by the tablet when in cable mode. The only thing I would complain is the LED is SO bright at night. The led can be turned off with the controller app through, great user-friendly feature, but doing so will lost the ability to identify what mode it is, so I do hope they can dim the led a bit in future models.