Both are portable players, $750 against $479. This page puts them side by side on the only three things a maker can be held to — power, output impedance and noise — and then asks the question that actually matters: which headphones do they treat differently?
The HiBy R6 Pro II reaches 100 dB on 566 of the 567 models here, the Shanling M3 Ultra on 562.
| Specification | HiBy R6 Pro II | Shanling M3 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| Power into 32Ω | 750 mW | 140 mW |
| Power into 150Ω | 280 mW | 30 mW |
| Power into 300Ω | 140 mW | 15 mW |
| Power into 600Ω | 70 mW | 7.5 mW |
| Output impedance | 0.6 Ω unverified | 1 Ω |
| Output noise | 4 µV unverified | not published |
| Price | $750 | $479 |
| Headphones it reaches 100 dB on out of 567 | 566 | 562 |
A figure marked not published is missing from the maker’s own material, which is not the same as being good or bad. Where one of these two publishes a number and the other does not, the comparison on that axis cannot be made at all — and saying so is more useful than guessing.
| Load | HiBy R6 Pro II | Shanling M3 Ultra |
|---|---|---|
| 32 Ω | Unverified | Published |
| 150 Ω | Unverified | Derived |
| 300 Ω | Unverified | Derived |
| 600 Ω | Unverified | Derived |
HiBy R6 Pro II publishes no electrical specification at all. That is true of 10 of the 280 sources here, and the figures in that column come from independent measurement rather than from a maker document — which is not worse, but it is not the same thing, and it cannot be checked against anything the maker will stand behind.
The Shanling M3 Ultra column does stand on a power rating its maker printed, at one of these four loads at least. Reading the two straight across sets one kind of claim against another, and nobody has written down the conditions of both side by side.
What each of these labels means, and why a derived figure is still worth printing, is set out in how this data was built.
4 headphones reach 100 dB on the HiBy R6 Pro II but not on the Shanling M3 Ultra — Moondrop COSMO, Moondrop PARA, Symphonium Crimson, 1 more.
562 of the 567 models here reach 100 dB on both. That is a power count and nothing more; whether either source suits a given headphone also depends on the two lines above.
The counts above say how many models the two treat differently. This says by how much. The same 8 headphones appear on every page of this kind, ordered from the easiest to drive to the hardest, so a row can be read across pages as well as across columns. Headroom is at a 100 dB SPL peak.
The widest gap on the list is the Sennheiser HD 600: HiBy R6 Pro II has +13 dB of headroom there against +4 dB. 10 dB is about 9.4 times the power, which matters for peaks rather than for how loud the music sits.
The hiss columns are empty for HiBy R6 Pro II and Shanling M3 Ultra because neither maker publishes no output noise figure. That is a gap in the specification, not a quiet amplifier, and it is left blank here rather than filled with a plausible number.
| Headphone | Impedance | Needs | HiBy R6 Pro II headroom | Shanling M3 Ultra headroom | HiBy R6 Pro II hiss | Shanling M3 Ultra hiss |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shure SE846 | 9 Ω | 0.04 mW | +37 dB | +30 dB | not published | not published |
| Campfire Audio Andromeda 2020 | 9 Ω | 4.0 mW | +17 dB | +10 dB | not published | not published |
| Audeze LCD-2 Classic | 70 Ω | 0.79 mW | +27 dB | +19 dB | not published | not published |
| Beyerdynamic DT 1990 Pro (250Ω) | 250 Ω | 0.63 mW | +24 dB | +15 dB | not published | not published |
| HiFiMAN HE400se | 25 Ω | 7.9 mW | +19 dB | +11 dB | not published | not published |
| Audio-Technica ATH-R70X | 470 Ω | 1.6 mW | +18 dB | +8 dB | not published | not published |
| Sennheiser HD 600 | 300 Ω | 6.6 mW | +13 dB | +4 dB | not published | not published |
| HiFiMAN Susvara | 60 Ω | 50 mW | +10 dB | +2 dB | not published | not published |
The HiBy R6 Pro II costs $271 more than the Shanling M3 Ultra. Out of the 567 models here, that difference buys 4 more models driven to 100 dB.
Nothing runs the other way: there is no axis here on which the cheaper of the two does better.
Everything in this paragraph counts only figures the two makers published. An advantage on an axis one of them leaves blank cannot be counted, and is not counted — how often that happens is its own page.
Each has a page of its own with a full headphone list and the provenance of every figure — worth opening here, because HiBy R6 Pro II has published no electrical specification at all and everything above comes from independent measurement: HiBy R6 Pro II and Shanling M3 Ultra. Or put either against your own headphones in the source comparison tool.