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Review and Measurements of Sabaj D5 DAC & Amp

solderdude

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There are many things -today- that are not measurable in audio or are not usually.

Such as ?
(Note that we are talking about the electrical properties here)
 

maty

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I only ask that it be optional. By default it comes activated if they want, but that allows you to disable it or extend the time of its activation, or both.
 

maty

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Too much off topic.

Soundstage, deep... and something very subjective but very important to me: that is able to convey emotion in abundance with a few excellent recordings of great quality, usually with acoustic instrumentation and whose master is analog, of those years when non-commercial music was not manipulated so much. Or it is much worse interpreted, as is now the case with the orchestral masses and their commitment to make the sound spectacular, with a tuning too high in frequency.

If you listen to Hotel California (Eagles), with electrified instrumentation, you appreciate that it had a great processing in the recording studio. But, unlike what is happening today, they did well, taking advantage of the technology available in those years. And without drastically reducing the dynamic range.

Now the technology is much better, the measuring devices also and yet the quality is much lower, both hard and music. However, it is often used good/very good in the soundtracks of many modern films. So what clearly fails is the human factor and the search for economic benefit at the cost of reducing production and recording costs, regardless of the great loss of sound quality.

On the other hand, it is understandable, because new generations -there are excepctions- only listen to PRODUCTS and are unable to appreciate good/very recordings. For example, when they travel or visit museums, they focus on taking pictures instead of appreciating their surroundings (well, not only new generations). Many of them older, who made fun of Japanese tourists and their hobby of photographing everything with analague cameras. Now it is a widespread evil.

- End off topic -
 
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solderdude

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I only ask that it be optional. By default it comes activated if they want, but that allows you to disable it or extend the time of its activation, or both.

What is the actual auto-power-off time ?
I would agree that it would be easy to implement in firmware and given its lesser performance when switched on would make sense.
Best would be to pose this question to Sabaj itself in some way or the other.

Why the totally unrelated 'off-topic' ?
 

maty

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I think someone has deleted the comment that caused it.
 

solderdude

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What is the actual auto-power-off time and what is the 'input' to start that timer ?
The DAC chip consumes 0.5W (which is a lot for a small chip) at 192kHz and 100MHz clock freq.
It doesn't state the power consumption when it does nothing.
The DAC chip can be put to low power mode when it is doing nothing.
Is it known if that functionality is also used ? What the temperatures really are and what more is switched in standby mode (given the power consumption ?)

Is it proven somewhere that the 107dB SINAD is a practical problem ?
 
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Kane1972

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Such as ?
(Note that we are talking about the electrical properties here)

Jim Williams (a very well respected electrical engineer who build and modifies recording equipment as well as being a recording engineer) told me he tested his Topping DX7 and all measured great, yet he finds the high end rolled off and inaccurate when listening through it. He could not find any indication of this when taking measurements.

When I asked him how he reconciles this being a man of science, this was his reply.

Audio testing gear will not tell you when something sounds good. It only catches some errors.

The Topping measures fine. So does a lot of gear that most don't care much for. Transient details cannot be dynamically measured, test gear would need to use actual music as the test stimulus and that technology is not available.

So we end up shutting off the test gear and then listening sessions begin.
 

Thomas savage

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Jim Williams (a very well respected electrical engineer who build and modifies recording equipment as well as being a recording engineer) told me he tested his Topping DX7 and all measured great, yet he finds the high end rolled off and inaccurate when listening through it. He could not find any indication of this when taking measurements.

When I asked him how he reconciles this being a man of science, this was his reply.

Audio testing gear will not tell you when something sounds good. It only catches some errors.

The Topping measures fine. So does a lot of gear that most don't care much for. Transient details cannot be dynamically measured, test gear would need to use actual music as the test stimulus and that technology is not available.

So we end up shutting off the test gear and then listening sessions begin.
Controlled' listening session' great , otherwise it's a huge fail no matter how bright and knowing you are.

We don't want yet another thread arguing about special listening abilities so let's not go any further than this.
 

Thomas savage

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Too much off topic.

Soundstage, deep... and something very subjective but very important to me: that is able to convey emotion in abundance with a few excellent recordings of great quality, usually with acoustic instrumentation and whose master is analog, of those years when non-commercial music was not manipulated so much. Or it is much worse interpreted, as is now the case with the orchestral masses and their commitment to make the sound spectacular, with a tuning too high in frequency.

If you listen to Hotel California (Eagles), with electrified instrumentation, you appreciate that it had a great processing in the recording studio. But, unlike what is happening today, they did well, taking advantage of the technology available in those years. And without drastically reducing the dynamic range.

Now the technology is much better, the measuring devices also and yet the quality is much lower, both hard and music. However, it is often used good/very good in the soundtracks of many modern films. So what clearly fails is the human factor and the search for economic benefit at the cost of reducing production and recording costs, regardless of the great loss of sound quality.

On the other hand, it is understandable, because new generations -there are excepctions- only listen to PRODUCTS and are unable to appreciate good/very recordings. For example, when they travel or visit museums, they focus on taking pictures instead of appreciating their surroundings (well, not only new generations). Many of them older, who made fun of Japanese tourists and their hobby of photographing everything with analague cameras. Now it is a widespread evil.

- End off topic -
We could do without these off topic rants , putting ' off topic ' and ' end of off topic' before and after them dose not validate the post.

If you feel the need to write ' off topic ' do us all a favour and find a more suitable thread for the thought.

Cheers
 

Kane1972

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Controlled' listening session' great , otherwise it's a huge fail no matter how bright and knowing you are.

We don't want yet another thread arguing about special listening abilities so let's not go any further than this.


I think if you are using a DAC to produce music on for months and months and you come to the conclusion that the top end just does not sound right, meaning your mixes are not translating as well to other systems as when mixing through your previous DAC, that is certainly not a fail. It’s finding a tool is not working as well as your previous tool. Kind of like a racing driver trying out tyres. If you analyze the best tyres in the world, the science will tell you they will all perform the same, but the driver will still find one that performs best for them.
 

BDWoody

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I think if you are using a DAC to produce music on for months and months and you come to the conclusion that....

That's what a lot of people think.
Makes sense and all...
It just happens to be a worthless subjective opinion...
 

Thomas savage

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I think if you are using a DAC to produce music on for months and months and you come to the conclusion that the top end just does not sound right, meaning your mixes are not translating as well to other systems as when mixing through your previous DAC, that is certainly not a fail. It’s finding a tool is not working as well as your previous tool. Kind of like a racing driver trying out tyres. If you analyze the best tyres in the world, the science will tell you they will all perform the same, but the driver will still find one that performs best for them.
Unintentionally good analogy as it's the driver and how he drives that causes performance variants in tyres assuming said tyres are of the same compound. Obviously along with chassis suspension etc etc.

It there's notable high-frequency issues it will be evident in the measurements one way or another.
 

maty

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We could do without these off topic rants , putting ' off topic ' and ' end of off topic' before and after them dose not validate the post.

If you feel the need to write ' off topic ' do us all a favour and find a more suitable thread for the thought.

Cheers

It would be appreciated if you also participate when some other users engage in harassing me wherever I participate, often interpreting my words in the worst possible way without taking into account that English is not my mother language/tongue as they well know. And always assuming I know nothing at all.
 

Kane1972

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Unintentionally good analogy as it's the driver and how he drives that causes performance variants in tyres assuming said tyres are of the same compound. Obviously along with chassis suspension etc etc.

It there's notable high-frequency issues it will be evident in the measurements one way or another.

No, what Jim is saying is that the test equipment would need to be able to measure using music rather than tones to tell the full story, which the equipment is currently incapable of. Don't forget this is a guy who does use test equipment himself. He does this stuff for a living too and he's the first person to debunk snake oil belive me.
 

Kane1972

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Unintentionally good analogy as it's the driver and how he drives that causes performance variants in tyres assuming said tyres are of the same compound. Obviously along with chassis suspension etc etc.

It there's notable high-frequency issues it will be evident in the measurements one way or another.

Yes, and that driver's performance is measured and they go with the ones that perform better in his hands. A scientist would tell him they are not any better than the others, yet somehow he can drive better with one over another. It is not placebo either as the driver will not be aware which tyres are on his car, he just gets in and keeps driving until the team build up a picture of which tyres gave best results. Remember, we are talking about millisecond benefits here, so the scientists are not exactly wrong either, they all do perform the same, only not 99.999% the same.
 

BDWoody

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No, what Jim is saying is that the test equipment would need to be able to measure using music rather than tones to tell the full story, which the equipment is currently incapable of. Don't forget this is a guy who does use test equipment himself. He does this stuff for a living too and he's the first person to debunk snake oil belive me.

Then he should know the insidious nature of bias...he may understand electronics but that doesn't mean he understands psychoacoustics.
Would he be willing to take a controlled test? Might be interesting.
 

Thomas savage

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Yes, and that driver's performance is measured and they go with the ones that perform better in his hands. A scientist would tell him they are not any better than the others, yet somehow he can drive better with one over another. It is not placebo either as the driver will not be aware which tyres are on his car, he just gets in and keeps driving until the team build up a picture of which tyres gave best results. Remember, we are talking about millisecond benefits here, so the scientists are not exactly wrong either, they all do perform the same, only not 99.999% the same.
And if the lap time got worse but the driver insisted on these tyres being better...
 

BDWoody

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It would be appreciated if you also participate when some other users engage in harassing me wherever I participate, often interpreting my words in the worst possible way without taking into account that English is not my mother language/tongue as they well know. And always assuming I know nothing at all.

You interject unsupported subjective opinions all over the place, many of which are contrary to the primary 'science' aspect of the site, then get upset when that is pointed out?
 
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