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Khadas Tone Board vs Audiophonics DAC I-Sabre ES9038Q2M

D

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Hallo, i am thinking of switching my Arcam irDAC, Squeezbox Touch and NAS for a one box solution. Raspberry Pi with a DAC. From my research i end up leaning towards Khadas Tone Board but notice the less known Audiophonic Sabre ES9038Q2M DAC on the internet. Can anyone tell me whats the difference between these 2?

I will be using this one box solution with my DK Design Group VS.1 Reference MKII analog amplifer and Epos K3 speakers. Will these DACs be good enough for my setup or do i need to look for the 8 channel version of ES9038 DAC?
 
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daftcombo

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Hi there,

I would advise to get the Khadas with the Audiophonics box rather than something you don't know about. I don't have a Khadas but I have this at my office : https://www.audiophonics.fr/fr/dac-...rch_query=u-sabre audiophonics&fast_search=fs
and am still not sure what to think about it.

I see that you also have a pair of Epos K3. What do you think of them?
I have a pair set up in my living room. I use DSP correction and put -6dB around 13000 Hz (Q=1) to have a flat curve.

Cheers.
 
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Hi there,

I would advise to get the Khadas with the Audiophonics box rather than something you don't know about. I don't have a Khadas but I have this at my office : https://www.audiophonics.fr/fr/dac-sans-volume/audiophonics-u-sabre-desktop-k2m-dac-ampli-casque-24bit96khz-sa9023-es9018-p-11911.html?search_query=u-sabre audiophonics&fast_search=fs
and am still not sure what to think about it.

I see that you also have a pair of Epos K3. What do you think of them?
I have a pair set up in my living room. I use DSP correction and put -6dB around 13000 Hz (Q=1) to have a flat curve.

Cheers.

I don't own any room correction processor for my stereo setup but even without it they sound amazing. I listen to heavy metal mostly and damn this music is demanding when it comes to speakers. I have a 17m2 room so I was searching for rather compact speakers. The bass is great, fast agily and yet powerful enough to feel the double drum kicking. Vocals have their spot and highs are not bright but still present. They also are very forgiving on poor mastered songs compare to Dynaudio, Dali, Amphion speakers.

From my countless listening sessions, K3 ticket most of my boxes.
 

daftcombo

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I also have a 17m² room but I have to put them 2.5m away from each other while I sit with them in an equilateral triangle. Hence I cannot have them firing straight, but I have to toe them in to preserve a focused stereo image. The tweeters aim directly towards my ears. Also, I have a large glass window in the room, and a wall behind my sofa that reflects. And one of the speakers is in a corner.

When I listen to vinyl I enjoy them without correction. But for CDs and digital I correct the curve and also correct the phase a bit, otherwise the hi-hats are a bit harsh to my ears. Maybe it is partially due to my amplifier also... The correction I apply was found thourgh measuring with a microphone & REW.

I like their low medium very much as well, and they are great for electronic music and classical music.

Sorry for my poor english by the way.
 
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That sounds like a very troublesome room to work with. 2.5m is really far, did you try to get them close to each other ? In my room, one speaker is closer to the wall then the other one. So i plan to use my furniture as an absorption panel by covering its front with acoustic curtain material.

What kind of amplifier do you use with yours K3?

Its 6 or 6.5 inch in size but that woofer produce a lot of sound and nice bass. I tested it with bootleg version of Evanescence - Bring me to life, really enjoyable experience.

You have nothing to sorry about really, your english is very good.
 

daftcombo

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I have a big piece of furniture in between and can't have them closer to each other. I should also have them farther from the wall (they are 15-20 cm [6 - 7 inch] at the moment), and my couch furthur from its wall too. That is the reason why I do some EQ. The left speaker, which is way closer to the side wall (like 25 cm [8.5 inch]), has +14 dB at 40 Hz and 60 Hz, whereas the other only has around +4 dB. I use a high-pass filter (-24 dB at 50 Hz) here for the left channel only.

Off-axis, the K3 are pretty flat. Well, actually they have a descending curve, like -0,6 dB per octave, and it would be the way I would have corrected them if they had been horizontally flat. So nothing to re-touch here.

My integrated amplifier is a Simaudio Moon Neo 250i. It had very good reviews when I bought it, but now that I see all these measurements by Amir, I doubt that 0,015% THD (20Hz - 20 kHz) and -101dB SNR are that good.

Thank you :) Sometimes I have the impression that what I write isn't perfectly clear, especially when it gets technical.
 
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From my experience the bass benefits more when you put them close to the walls. My speakers are places where my built in closet was once. So both speakers are close to corners and each have a "side wall" close to them. Making the bass sound bigger.

How is it that you apply your room correction? Dose your amplifier support it or?

My father was interested in that amplifier as well but unfortunately his speakers were 8 ohm so 50 watts woldnt do much for his 50 m2 room. What do you think of its sound character and most importantly power? Dose it liv up to Harman Kardon HK990 and other power hungry beasts? Thanks to this forum and genreally his reviews, my eyes opened up to how much more BS there is in this industry.

You should be confident in your English and if something will seem off then people will tell you it.
 

daftcombo

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I live in a flat, with neighbours all around, and don't want them to be pissed by the bass frequencies too much. Especially since I listen mostly to bass heavy music (electro). For classical there would be no problem though.

The Neo 250i is full of power. When I plugged my CD player on it (without room correction), I didn't go higher than like 10% of the gain and it was already loud enough. At full power it could easily have me deaf in a couple of minutes.

My room correction is very simple. As I said before, the K3 are pretty flat / slowly descending on-axis. So I only reduce the bass under 80 Hz for one channel and reduce the treble at around 13 000 Hz. The rest is kept flat. But the phase correction needs an overall -5dB. My amp totally deals with it. I never go higher than 30% of the full power.

As for sound character, I don't think the 250i has any. It just amplifies the signal. When you work with an equalizer, what you do to the sound has a lot more effect than the change of an amp, a DAC or cables.
 

daftcombo

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The Neo 250i is nearly identical to the Moon I1, which had those measurements:
https://www.stereophile.com/content/simaudio-moon-i-1-integrated-amplifier-measurements
and
http://www.avhub.com.au/images/stories/pdf/Moon_i1_Amplifier_Review.pdf?129278822769034660

The Moon 340ix is said to have better sound, but it is twice the price of the Neo 250i.
https://www.stereophile.com/content/moon-simaudio-neo-340i-integrated-amplifier-measurements

I am not competent in comparing those measurements between themselves and against other amp measurements.
 
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