HiBy Digital Xeno: the future of digital audio?

HiBy Digital Xeno: the future of digital audio?

HiBy has long since established itself as a pioneering portable audio brand, initially with its software platforms for various digital audio players (DAPs), and then through its own range of DAPs designed for every pocket – literally and figuratively. 

More recently HiBy launched its HiBy Digital sub-brand, intended as a platform for developing cost-effective digital audio solutions for lifestyle and mainstream users. To date the fledgling brand has released two products: the nimble and surprisingly-powerful M300 Android media player ($199, reviewed here), and a pair of inexpensive wired earphones, XOE.

The third HiBy Digital ‘project’ is something quite different and rather unusual, at least from a technical perspective: Xeno. At first glance, Xeno looks like a rather ordinary wired earphone with an oversized in-line controller/microphone, but its basic looks betray a product that’s actually far more forward-thinking and I daresay quite a pioneering take on a typical wired earphone. 

That’s because under the hood of that clunky exterior is an all-in-one end-to-end digital audio ‘system’: two digital-to-audio converters (DACs), two miniature amps, and two audio drivers – a full-range 10mm graphene dynamic driver and an all-new xMEMS ‘Cowell’ solid-state tweeter – all hooked up with a silver-plated copper USB-C cable. 

All these different components work together to give users on the go everything they need to play back lossless high-resolution audio from their smartphones, tablets, laptop and desktop computers. The built-in microphone serves a dual purpose too – making and receiving calls, and functioning as an in-game microphone in partnership with the ultra-low latency earphones designed with gamers in mind. 

Housed in ABS shells with internal 3D-printed aluminium acoustic chambers and connected by a fixed silver-plated copper cable, Xeno takes advantage of many ‘audiophile’ features HiBy users are well familiar with, like SRC bypass (for playing back native high-resolution audio from Android devices) and native DSD playback. 

Even if these ‘advanced’ features aren’t of interest, the low-latency playback (<15ms compared to as much as 220ms with wireless Bluetooth earphones) means watching videos and playing high FPS games on mobile platforms is a far smoother experience, at a lower cost than most wireless earphones to boot. 

As if that wasn’t enough, Xeno has been designed to pair with HiBy Music, Hiby’s music playback software, and specifically the software’s parametric equalizer (PEQ) functionality, letting you adjust the sound to your liking. What’s more, once adjusted, you can save your custom settings to Xeno directly from your smart device, and then toggle between different settings, be they specific musical flavours, bass-boosted games, or stage-enhanced movies. 

If all of this seems to be a very ambitious set of features for a mainstream set of ‘earphones’, that’s because it is. Xeno is in fact the first xMEMS-based earphone I’ve personally seen, certainly the first at anywhere near the modest asking price of $149 ($99 early bird). Also, as I mentioned earlier, Xeno’s actual functionality is camouflaged behind its basic looks, and may in fact herald the birth of a completely new type of device. 

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