Review and Measurements of Sabaj D5 DAC & Amp

[beefkabob]

why not just leave the unit on all the time?

That costs money and is bad for the environment. The unit needing a warm up is a big deal to me, too. I'm still thinking SHD at this moment. Besides, I can't really perceive a 15khz tone at my age. What does that mean for everything else in hifi?

 

[wadec22]

That costs money and is bad for the environment. The unit needing a warm up is a big deal to me, too. I'm still thinking SHD at this moment. Besides, I can't really perceive a 15khz tone at my age. What does that mean for everything else in hifi?

I don't think cost is an issue unless you pay some crazy premium for electricity. Based on the .6W listed idle power consumption, leaving it on 24/7 all year would cost less than $1 if idle where I'm at.

 

[kniff]

Nice to see another review from Sabaj, i own the A4 which i've been fairly happy with. I hope they release a higher-end stereo amplifier with the improved DAC as well.

 

[Rem]

Wow that dac is amazing. Although I was hoping to find one with a dac chip made from akm for my purchase. Hopefully more of them come out.

 

[beefkabob]

I don't think cost is an issue unless you pay some crazy premium for electricity. Based on the .6W listed idle power consumption, leaving it on 24/7 all year would cost less than $1 if idle where I'm at.

At .6W, is it instantly up to temperature? I doubt it. So 8W x 24 x 365 x say .25/kwatt hour (about an average of what I pay in Cali) = $17.52/year and 70kwh. So maybe 30lbs of carbon a year? More in a coal burning state. Less probably in California. Then multiply that by all the tiny loads in your house.

Our house baseline, with fridges not cycling on, is ~600 watts. All the dongles, internet, etc. can really add up. My friend has a home theater with electric reclining seats. The transformers in them, idling, are in the tens of watts each, and I think he has 16 chairs.

So adding 8 watts 24/7 is not cool if it can be avoided.

 

[wadec22]

At .6W, is it instantly up to temperature? I doubt it. So 8W x 24 x 365 x say .25/kwatt hour (about an average of what I pay in Cali) = $17.52/year and 70kwh. So maybe 30lbs of carbon a year? More in a coal burning state. Less probably in California. Then multiply that by all the tiny loads in your house.

Our house baseline, with fridges not cycling on, is ~600 watts. All the dongles, internet, etc. can really add up. My friend has a home theater with electric reclining seats. The transformers in them, idling, are in the tens of watts each, and I think he has 16 chairs.

So adding 8 watts 24/7 is not cool if it can be avoided.

the temperature isn't going up because it is consuming more power, it's going up because the heatsink is slowly saturating a bit. they advertise .6W in standby and there is no reason to not believe that. Your router is probably using about 8W -so safe to say that is when the thing is actually doing something.

To each their own I guess.

 

[Matias]

@amirm Audioquest published a paper with measurements of phase noise between cold and different levels of warm up. See attached. Notice the IMD hump cold and vanishing after warmup.

Could this Sabaj also have its IMD hump vanish after extended warm up too?

 

[Laurent]

the temperature isn't going up because it is consuming more power, it's going up because the heatsink is slowly saturating a bit. they advertise .6W in standby and there is no reason to not believe that. Your router is probably using about 8W -so safe to say that is when the thing is actually doing something.

To each their own I guess.

When the device is in standby it is turned off and not warm.

 

[amirm]

@amirm Audioquest published a paper with measurements of phase noise between cold and different levels of warm up. See attached. Notice the IMD hump cold and vanishing after warmup.

Could this Sabaj also have its IMD hump vanish after extended warm up too?

No. I measured the IMD when warm. That article is not relevant anyway. They are measuring clock performance, not the output of the DAC. The peak clock noise is at just 10 Hz which is easily masked and is not material.

 

[wadec22]

When the device is in standby it is turned off and not warm.

then assuming his math is correct, i guess it may indeed cost him $18 for the year to keep it on for the year. $8 for the year here in the midwest. while I assumed that is not a big deal, it is apparent that it is to some. you may have to sacrifice another device in the house.

 

[Laurent]

then assuming his math is correct, i guess it may indeed cost him $18 for the year to keep it on for the year. $8 for the year here in the midwest. while I assumed that is not a big deal, it is apparent that it is to some. you may have to sacrifice another device in the house.

Three things here. 1. A lot of devices turned on and the 18 dollars are adding up. 2. It isn't nice or good for the environment to just waste energy. 3. Leaving your device on all the time might decrease its lifetime.

 

[KSTR]

ap2700 is also very expensive

Chinese engineers seem to have access to excellent 27xx lookalikes/clones. I have seen and used something that looked like a 2712 clone over there myself, technically absolutely no difference to the real thing except slightly different appearance/printing reading "RED AP SYS 2712A", and the missing monitor output volume control. It took quite a while until I noticed the different label on the fan grille, as well as different printing on the rear panel... when I asked the chief engineer about it, he put a very proud smile on his face and stated "yes yes, exactly like original, but only 1/3rd of the price so that our local operations, especially smaller ones, can afford it in order to deliver excellent electronic product quality to the customer".

 

[JohnYang1997]

Chinese engineers seem to have access to excellent 27xx lookalikes/clones. I have seen and used something that looked like a 2712 clone over there myself, technically absolutely no difference to the real thing except slightly different appearance/printing reading "RED AP SYS 2712A", and the missing monitor output volume control. It took quite a while until I noticed the different label on the fan grille, as well as different printing on the rear panel... when I asked the chief engineer about it, he put a very proud smile on his face and stated "yes yes, exactly like original, but only 1/3rd of the price so that our local operations, especially smaller ones, can afford it in order to deliver excellent electronic product quality to the customer".

View attachment 31117

Wow, I haven't seen those. For what I know most companies like those just got dscopes. What about the software part of that thing? Similar to original?

 

[wadec22]

Three things here. 1. A lot of devices turned on and the 18 dollars are adding up. 2. It isn't nice or good for the environment to just waste energy. 3. Leaving your device on all the time might decrease its lifetime.

It's actually harder on most electronics dealing with the power on/off cycling and heating up/cooling down than anything else but certainly don't disagree with your other points.

 

[evrial]

Common question - any A/B testing with DX3pro? Anything audible?

 

[thehun]

I don't think cost is an issue unless you pay some crazy premium for electricity. Based on the .6W listed idle power consumption, leaving it on 24/7 all year would cost less than $1 if idle where I'm at.

At .6W, is it instantly up to temperature? I doubt it. So 8W x 24 x 365 x say .25/kwatt hour (about an average of what I pay in Cali) = $17.52/year and 70kwh. So maybe 30lbs of carbon a year? More in a coal burning state. Less probably in California. Then multiply that by all the tiny loads in your house.

Our house baseline, with fridges not cycling on, is ~600 watts. All the dongles, internet, etc. can really add up. My friend has a home theater with electric reclining seats. The transformers in them, idling, are in the tens of watts each, and I think he has 16 chairs.

So adding 8 watts 24/7 is not cool if it can be avoided.

Don't worry climate crusaders like Leo da Cappucino will buy your carbon credit, so he can jet around the world... and virtue signal while at it too....

 

[thehun]

It's actually harder on most electronics dealing with the power on/off cycling and heating up/cooling down than anything else.

Exactly, I have both my DAC and HP amp on 24/7, my router and my PC is on too, the only time I power down when I leave for more than 2 days. The planet will be here far long after the silly humans kill themselves off with their misguided GND!

 

[beefkabob]

The Green New Deal is going to kill everybody? Now that's good science.

I leave things on if they're doing something. I turn them off if they're not. It's even better to unplug things, but that's often a pain in the butt.

So a DAC that needs to be on 24/7 or otherwise the sound quality is significantly worse? Er... Now granted, it's great even cold, but this is a significant design flaw. They could, I dunno, add some warm-up circuitry or something.

In the end, though, I'm not interested in a two-channel DAC nor one without integrated DSP. Give me 4+ channels and a DAC or give me death!

 

[amirm]

No climate or political talk please.

 

[MatrixAudio]

@amirm Providing documentation download on the web site is so simple and costs nothing and yet almost none of Asian companies would do this.

Matrix prodive user manuals for every products, including our first DAC DA-100plus from 2009 (https://www.matrix-digi.com/pdf/DA-100PLUS_Manual_CN.pdf ).
you can find these documentations here, https://www.matrix-digi.com/en/downloads/
I think not all the Asian companies do not pay attention on these details.