After releasing a revolutionary R-2R ladder DAP last year, Hiby didn’t rest on laurels and started working immediately on bringing the R-2R technology to a broader audience, by releasing a much-smaller, but equally impressive RS2 DAP. With HiBy’s in-house developed Darwin Audio architecture, RS2 brings the sweetness of R-2R ladder DACs and spices it up with modern features like adjustable FIR filters, harmonic controller, NOS/OS switch and a few more. RS2 dropped all wireless connections for a purist portable audio player blessed with HiBy’s Pure Audio OS. An unlocked Android OS was dropped, favoring offline music playback via two MicroSD card slots. HiBy designed the RS2 as a compact unit, featuring a ladder of R-2R resistors and a retro design that reminds about first generation A&K DAPs.
While small and lightweight, it’s still based on the good-old Darwin Audio Architecture, borrowing most of the tech from its bigger brother, while slashing its cost to an attractable $479 price point.
Darwin Architecture is HiBy’s in-house developed high-resolution audio signal processing that combines R-2R technology with modern technology. It effectively reduces distortion caused by resistors mismatch in an R-2R ladder, producing a cleaner and a more transparent sound. RS2 features an OS / NOS (Oversampling / Non-oversampling) mode, bringing a different sound experience to the masses. The Darwin Architecture is powered by a 256-tap adjustable FIR filter, capable of up to 16x oversampling with a variety of AA filters like phase linearity, high-fidelity and many others.
RS2 features a powerful clocking system controlled by a dedicated FPGA, using high-precision 45 and 49 MHz femto-second clocks that will reduce incoming phase noise and jitter. Its headphone amplifier is powered by high-current OPA1652 dual op-amps and its output stage is driven by dual OPA1612 op-amps. It offers 3.5mm single-ended and 4.4mm balanced connections that should cover most IEM users out there.
It supports high-resolution 32 bit / 384 kHz PCM, DSD256 content, including 8X MQA unfolding, covering most formats and bit rates. Spotting a 3500mAh battery pack, it will provide continuous music playback for up to 10 hours on a single charge, which should be more than enough for short of long trips.
Hiby’s RS2 can be pre-ordered from Hiby’s official web-store right here.
