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Review and Measurements of Sabaj D5 DAC & Amp

maty

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florence

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There is now discount on aliexpress on official sabaj store for D5. They ship from different countries around the world. So taxes etc. should not be a problem. I've already placed an order. For like 375$ its a no brainer.
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/32981545569.html?spm=a2g0s.9042311.0.0.27424c4dTzPjCE
I was talking to them last week and they told me to wait for the end of August for 20% discounted price. However, I placed an order for Khadas Tone Board since it's 1/3 price of D5's discount price. And the funny thing is people who tried both say that D5's sound signature boring while Khadas seems price performance champion. So D5 is not a no-brainer anymore, at least for me. RCA is enough for me, I use my DACs with Neutrik xlr to rca adapter to pair my balanced amp.
 
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maty

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I was talking to them last week and they told me to wait for the end of August for 20% discounted price. However, I placed an order for Khadas Tone Board since it's 1/3 price of D5's discount price. And the funny thing is people who tried both say that D5's sound signature boring while Khadas seems price performance champion. So D5 is not a no-brainer anymore, at least for me. RCA is enough for me, I use my DACs with Neutrik xlr to rca adapter to pair my balanced amp.

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My criteria: I want SMPTE at least of -80 dB at -30dBFS to my KEF Q100 5.25" coaxial speakers (true 85 dB/W/m and minimum 3.9 Ohms).

With speakers of true 88-91 dB/W/m, the same value but at -35 dBFS.

Of course, to listen to very good recordings with high/very high DR.
 
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florence

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My criteria: I want SMPTE at least of -80 dB at -30dBFS to my KEF Q100 5.25" coaxial speakers (true 85 dB/W/m and minimum 3.9 Ohms).

With speakers of true 88-91 dB/W/m, the same value but at -35 dBFS.

Off course, to listen to very good recordings with high/very high DR.
I buy equipments (amp or dac) to use with my headphones only. I don't think that this hump will be a major failure. As I mentioned earlier, I was ready to buy Sabaj D5 but my idsd micro bl amp section has way way more power than D5's. The only thing I want to get rid of was old Burr Brown chip of idsd. Well, I'll see whether ESS 9038Q2M any better.
 

maty

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If you listen modern recordings, as badly recorded (voices with autotune, synthetic instrumentation and DR < 10dB) then it will nott matter so much the ESS bump, I think.
 

dwkdnvr

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Cheers patrick! Good to hear from an owner. Have you used it to drive a power amp?

I'm running the D5 XLR outs directly into a Neurochrome Mod-86, and using the D5 volume control. Works great, sounds great. In my desktop system driving Kef R3's I'm typically at volume level 13-15 (so far, at least)
 

Patrick1958

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Cheers patrick! Good to hear from an owner. Have you used it to drive a power amp?
I sometimes use it to drive a pair of audioengine A5/S8 placed next to my desk, my main use is for headphone listening. Living next to a student dormitory i try to keep it quit not to disturb them while (ahum) studying ;)
 

zym1010

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My D5 arrived. Not able to do very rigorous test between D5 and D70 yet, but my subjective impression is that D70 lacks dynamics; for example, when playing the finale part (last 60 s or so) of Beethoven's Symphony No. 9, I feel there is more drum energy in D5's presentation.

Several issues with D5 I want to mention.

1. there is click/noise when switching between DSD and PCM. If I use DoP, I can sometimes hear that switching related noise for the first few second of a DSD track (music + noise played together); there is no such issue for native DSD (since I assume there is no switching among tracks).
2. Somehow in my native DSD setup (foobar 2000), playing DSD512 can make Windows crash.
3. Build generally looks good, but my volume knob is dead on arrival.



I think 1 and 2 are mostly firmware issues. Going to get an exchange and wait for THX AAA 789 for my end game.

UPDATE: regarding the volume knob, I rebooted the DAC and now everything works.

UPDATE 2:

1. The DSD issue 1 (noise for the first few second of DSD track) is for line out (external amp via RCA in my case); SE output only has slight popping sound and once music starts the playback has no issue.
2. I feel there are some firmware issues. For example, if you power up the unit and switch from line out to SE output, sometimes there will be humming in SE output; however, if I just don't switch these outputs and stick to SE output in a single power session, there will be no such issue.

UPDATE 3:

1. under Mac, the DSD issue 1 (noise for the first few second of DSD track) disappears if I use Audirvana instead of Colibri; however, under Windows, it still happens for foobar2000 if I set the DSD playback mode of foobar2000 to native and switch from a PCM file to DSD256 file; my foobar 2000 setup exactly follows that in Topping D70 manual.
2. The seller told me clicking sound between switching DSD and PCM is considered normal for ESS chips.

UPDATE 4:

The DSD issue 2 (crash for DSD512) is now solved now. The difference is that now I plug power cord to my laptop while previously I didn't... but Topping D70 has no such issue.

Their representatives are quite responsive and helpful (at least if you chat with them in Chinese via WeChat); they told me they will post some official instructions on DSD setup.
 
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wadec22

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3. Build generally looks good, but my volume knob is dead on arrival.

Bummer about the volume knob. I wanted to try this bad boy out with the aliexpress sale but amazon has spoiled me. I don't have the patience. Maybe up front for delivery but if I had an issue like this I would be beyond pissed.
 

zym1010

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Bummer about the volume knob. I wanted to try this bad boy out with the aliexpress sale but amazon has spoiled me. I don't have the patience. Maybe up front for delivery but if I had an issue like this I would be beyond pissed.
I think aliexpress is fine; they now have stock in US and they use Amazon for delivery.
 
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