Sabaj D5 - Owners' Thread

[Veri]

still the difference is audiable........ You decicde wether you will afford the small differences.

No it's not, saying so does not make it true. There's a difference between "thinking" it is audible, and there being any (audible) effect whatsoever.
If you believe in "extremely isolated" power cables, "just hear the difference" mentality, this isn't the forum for you I'm afraid.

I started with the question if anybody had expierience with the use of I2s.........

Zero benefits. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/study-is-i²s-interface-better-for-dacs-than-s-pdif-or-usb.7105/

 

[AnalogDE]

I am getting no audio out of my Sabaj D5... Looks like it bricked itself...
Anyone seen the same?

 

[AnalogDE]

I am getting no audio out of my Sabaj D5... Looks like it bricked itself...
Anyone seen the same?

Looks like maybe a USB glitch. Fiddling around with tidal sound settings got the sound back....magically. Weird.

 

[Malis]

I had the same issue after Windows update, when a lot of things were not working, even the windows hello function was not functioning properly. I made a system restore and Sabaj started to work again.

Check if you had any updates recently, this has become a norm for me, if something stopped working the first thing to check is the update log of windows

 

[DACslut]

I need help finding the USB upgrade tool. After searching everywhere, it appears Amazon, aliexpress or ebay no longer have them. I would buy one used from somebody for up to $20. Sorry if this is the wrong forum area for a "wanted" post. I live in the U.S. Thanks.

 

[renaudrenaud]

I have one I can send in Europe if anybody interested. Not selling it, just if someone need to update, and then send back the unit.

 

[DACslut]

I have one I can send in Europe if anybody interested. Not selling it, just if someone need to update, and then send back the unit.

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?

 

[RickSanchez]

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.

 

[DACslut]

That's a long, sordid story. They were no help despite telling me they would take care of me. Thanks for the reply.

 

[renaudrenaud]

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?

The difference is the volume steps.

I have plenty of DACs for me they sound the same.

 

[mkawa]

i have an upgrade tool.... somewhere. mine is on 1.4. anyone know the approximate changelog to 1.6 other than finer volume control? i'd just as well leave it alone if that's the only difference.

 

[RickSanchez]

I need help finding the USB upgrade tool. After searching everywhere, it appears Amazon, aliexpress or ebay no longer have them. I would buy one used from somebody for up to $20. Sorry if this is the wrong forum area for a "wanted" post. I live in the U.S. Thanks.

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.

 

[kiyu]

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!!

 

[Chuckv]

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.

 

[gvl]

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.

 

[Saxkun]

Guys
I want a Dac/amp option
I was going for Xduoo XA-10 but really bad measurements.

so for the owners and 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!!

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.

 

[RickSanchez]

Had mine for 5 months so far, no issues whatsoever.

 

[renaudrenaud]

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.

 

[Veri]

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.

Any comparison between the Sabaj and the M500, since you own both ?

 

[renaudrenaud]

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.