This is a review and detailed measurements of the 2022 revision of Sabaj A10d, balanced DAC and headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $299.
As you see this is a very nice departure from typical look of a desktop DAC. A large and nicely visible white 7-segment display does a nice job of conveying menu options despite its limitations. Volume control is a bit too shallow for my taste but otherwise is very responsive. There is a 4.4 "balanced" headphone jack but it has the same power as the unbalanced 1/4. So it is more for convenience.
Back panel has the usual connection with the exception of using USB-C for that connector:
As usual, I love in-built power supplies.
Overall Sabaj nails the design of this new unit with fresh and old ides brought together.
Note that there is an older product with the same 10d designation which is confusing. That unit doesn't have headphone amp and doesn't look anything like this upgrade.
Sabaj A10d 2022 Version Measurements
One look at the dashboard and you can tell extreme attention was put into the design:
This lands A10d into our top 20 lowest noise+distortion DACs:
Distortion is incredibly low at -140 dB (25 dB below threshold of hearing). Similar performance remains with RCA outs:
DAC dynamic range is excellent:
As is jitter over USB:
Toslink and Coax though don't do as well:
As secondary ports, I am OK with this although I always wish for parity here.
IMD performance is excellent:
Linearity is perfect:
Multitone distortion is near best there ever is:
Filter response is typical but I am please with F1 being the default:
When I first ran my THD+N vs frequency I sow high levels at higher frequencies. I traced that to reconstruction filter not being active or being slow. Changing filters above made no difference. Power cycled the unit and problem went away and got this excellent performance:
Sabaj A10d 2022 Version Headphone Amplifier Measurements
I love combo DAC and headphone amps. It not only reduces clutter on your desk but also gives you perfect volume control channel match. Sometimes though the headphone amp does not keep up with the DAC so let's test that starting with 300 ohm load:
This is excellent performance and nicely passes my 100 milliwatt threshold. Switching to 32 ohm, we get similar performance:
Notice how in neither case the amp clips. This means if you hear any distortion, it is in the headphone itself! SNR though at 50mv was not as good as I expected (tested in low gain):
Sabaj A10d 2022 Version Listening Tests
The new A10d had no trouble producing superb loudness and dynamics in Sennheiser HD650 and Drop Ether CX. Resolution, detail, fidelity, you name it and it was amazing. It even managed to drive my difficult Dan Clark Ether CX headphones to very satisfactory volume.
Conclusions
Kudos to Sabaj for a job well done across so many areas from design to performance. Yes, there is a bit of room left for products even higher in performance but that gap is incredibly small while cost savings are significant. I am so glad I am not in desktop audio business to compete with products like this!
It is my pleasure to recommend Sabaj A10d 2022 version. My only wish is that they should have given it a new model number give the step up that it is from that older product.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
As you see this is a very nice departure from typical look of a desktop DAC. A large and nicely visible white 7-segment display does a nice job of conveying menu options despite its limitations. Volume control is a bit too shallow for my taste but otherwise is very responsive. There is a 4.4 "balanced" headphone jack but it has the same power as the unbalanced 1/4. So it is more for convenience.
Back panel has the usual connection with the exception of using USB-C for that connector:
As usual, I love in-built power supplies.
Overall Sabaj nails the design of this new unit with fresh and old ides brought together.
Note that there is an older product with the same 10d designation which is confusing. That unit doesn't have headphone amp and doesn't look anything like this upgrade.
Sabaj A10d 2022 Version Measurements
One look at the dashboard and you can tell extreme attention was put into the design:
This lands A10d into our top 20 lowest noise+distortion DACs:
Distortion is incredibly low at -140 dB (25 dB below threshold of hearing). Similar performance remains with RCA outs:
DAC dynamic range is excellent:
As is jitter over USB:
Toslink and Coax though don't do as well:
As secondary ports, I am OK with this although I always wish for parity here.
IMD performance is excellent:
Linearity is perfect:
Multitone distortion is near best there ever is:
Filter response is typical but I am please with F1 being the default:
When I first ran my THD+N vs frequency I sow high levels at higher frequencies. I traced that to reconstruction filter not being active or being slow. Changing filters above made no difference. Power cycled the unit and problem went away and got this excellent performance:
Sabaj A10d 2022 Version Headphone Amplifier Measurements
I love combo DAC and headphone amps. It not only reduces clutter on your desk but also gives you perfect volume control channel match. Sometimes though the headphone amp does not keep up with the DAC so let's test that starting with 300 ohm load:
This is excellent performance and nicely passes my 100 milliwatt threshold. Switching to 32 ohm, we get similar performance:
Notice how in neither case the amp clips. This means if you hear any distortion, it is in the headphone itself! SNR though at 50mv was not as good as I expected (tested in low gain):
Sabaj A10d 2022 Version Listening Tests
The new A10d had no trouble producing superb loudness and dynamics in Sennheiser HD650 and Drop Ether CX. Resolution, detail, fidelity, you name it and it was amazing. It even managed to drive my difficult Dan Clark Ether CX headphones to very satisfactory volume.
Conclusions
Kudos to Sabaj for a job well done across so many areas from design to performance. Yes, there is a bit of room left for products even higher in performance but that gap is incredibly small while cost savings are significant. I am so glad I am not in desktop audio business to compete with products like this!
It is my pleasure to recommend Sabaj A10d 2022 version. My only wish is that they should have given it a new model number give the step up that it is from that older product.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
