I forgot to indicate I'm from the U.S. Thanks for the reply but it would probably be too expensive for either one of us to ship it and take too long as well. Did you notice much of a difference after the firmware upgrade?
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Sabaj D5 - Owners' Thread
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I forgot to indicate I'm from the U.S. Thanks for the reply but it would probably be too expensive for either one of us to ship it and take too long as well. Did you notice much of a difference after the firmware upgrade?
Out of curiousity: have you tried contacting Sabaj directly to get the upgrade tool? For a while there they were sending out the tool for free for owners to upgrade the firmware. I don't think they're doing it for new buyers (with firmware v1.6) but if you have an older device that might still qualify. Worth at least checking out.
Not sure what you mean by "notice a difference after the firmware upgrade"? It would be nice to have a detailed changelog of the firmware versions from Sabaj but I haven't seen one. To the best of my knowledge there have been no firmware changes affecting the sound output. I believe it's been changes to fix some issues with the volume control, changing the digital volume from 40 steps to 90 steps, etc.
Not sure what you mean by "notice a difference after the firmware upgrade"? It would be nice to have a detailed changelog of the firmware versions from Sabaj but I haven't seen one. To the best of my knowledge there have been no firmware changes affecting the sound output. I believe it's been changes to fix some issues with the volume control, changing the digital volume from 40 steps to 90 steps, etc.
renaudrenaud
Major Contributor
I'm not interested in selling my upgrade tool but if you need to borrow it we can probably work something out: I can send it to you, you can do your firmware upgrade, then send it back. (I'm assuming you'd have a USB-A to USB-B micro cable so I wouldn't have to send that.) DM me if interested.
Guys
I want a Dac/amp option
I was going for Xduoo XA-10 but really bad measurements.
so for the owners any problems with D5? any "regrets"? I read like 6, 7 pages of this thread and I saw very few small issues but related to drivers or secondary stuff nothing really important.
Please let me know thanks!!
I want a Dac/amp option
I was going for Xduoo XA-10 but really bad measurements.
so for the owners any problems with D5? any "regrets"? I read like 6, 7 pages of this thread and I saw very few small issues but related to drivers or secondary stuff nothing really important.
Please let me know thanks!!
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1 year this month. Forget its even there until the room is dark and I realized I forgot to turn it off. It doesn't sound good the first minute so if you are in a rush to get a tune in and have a "what in the world happened" moment, it passes and never comes back after the circuitry calibrates. Headphone, XLR only so can't speak of line outs.
IMO the headphone amp has too much gain and you're forced to use a lot of digital attenuation with all but insensitive headphones, which must have some impact on SNR, assuming the volume control is actually digital using the DAC chip. I also have some subjective reservations about how the headphone amp sounds. No complaints when it's used as a DAC with a downstream amp.
Mine stopped working a few days after amazon guarantee ended and sabaj took about 3 months to answer me, their soution was for me to send my unit to the UK for them to repair it and then send it back to me, all paid from my own pocket of course. I'll never buy anything from them again.
Had mine for 5 months so far, no issues whatsoever.
renaudrenaud
Major Contributor
Bought 3 samples. Zero regret. I think it's better to buy a combo than separate at the end.
I bought a lot of things from China but this one and the SMSL M500 are the best for my use case: with the remote using one key I can switch from headphones to active speakers.
I use one Sabaj on my desktop office every day since Feb 2020. The others are used by the children, no problem.
I've upgraded the software to have 99 steps instead of 40 for the volume. That's all.
I bought a lot of things from China but this one and the SMSL M500 are the best for my use case: with the remote using one key I can switch from headphones to active speakers.
I use one Sabaj on my desktop office every day since Feb 2020. The others are used by the children, no problem.
I've upgraded the software to have 99 steps instead of 40 for the volume. That's all.
Veri
Master Contributor
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Any comparison between the Sabaj and the M500, since you own both
?renaudrenaud
Major Contributor
Any comparison between the Sabaj and the M500, since you own both
Not so long ago I bought a little SMSL SU8 (because of ASR).
I discovered it was better than my 8000€ DAC.
Then I started to sold a lot of things accumulated since years.
I was curious and bought the SABAJ D5, SMSL M500, Topping E30 and one Gustard X16.
For me all these DACs sound the same. So the Gustard is just in the bedroom, the one I listen the most is the SABAJ because I am stuck at home since one year so I am working and listening some music in the same time.
There are some differences of course : the Gustard does MQA but "I don't care"², different Inputs, outputs etc...
I like the SU8 (in the homelab with a pair of active JBL) but I do not like the screen.
So I use an Orange Pi Card to drive the SU8, I wrote some python code an use LMS, so the screen problem is solved.
And so on.
Well, all these DACs sound the same for me. They are really inexpensive and it's too much fun to design a box depending of they sizes and "build" a streamer for them.
Good morning. Hoping you folks can help me with a sanity check. I received my D5 yesterday from Amazon. Very impressed with the sound. Firmware 1.6 came pre-installed. I use a Raspberry Pi 4 via USB as a Roon endpoint and that works great. I use my PC through SPDIF optical as it is mostly for gaming with Roon on the Pi being my primary music source. I have a pair of KRK studio monitors connected via XLR. I have my HE400i's connected via SE although balanced cable is coming today. All works great except... If I switch the input to I2S with nothing connected the display reads "connected" and I get this constant ticking tone that pans left to right and back. It is there whether I have output set to line or SE headphones. I've disconnected all other inputs and it remains. I've done a factory reset and it remains. I don't have an I2S source to connect to determine if it stops with an actual source connected. Can anyone verify similar behavior or have any thoughts? I love the unit but want to return it while still in my return period if this is a malfunction. Thanks!
Thanks for the response. My concern is that I tend to keep my gear for a couple of years and then sell it when I'm ready to move onto something new. A defect like this will surely hurt the resale value. If this is indeed a defect then I'd rather exchange it while I can. Do you or perhaps anyone else have a D5 with fw 1.6 that could switch to a disconnected I2S input and let me know if you are experiencing anything similar?
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