Soncoz LA-QXD1 Balanced DAC Review

[MechEngVic]

Especially if you bought it with Prime, return it. Mark "defective" for the reason, and have them exchange it for a replacement.

 

[seano]

Especially if you bought it with Prime, return it. Mark "defective" for the reason, and have them exchange it for a replacement.

I like the sound of this option, I did buy it with prime. Unless something else comes up, I'll probably do this.

Sorry for the rollercoaster this thread was, and sorry to Soncoz staff for the ping.

 

[Sophia Ann]

I am certain the charger was not defective, as I used it to charge my phone for many years. When I got the phone's screen replaced, they even validated that the phone's battery was at 99% capacity compared to new. So it's almost certainly not the charger.

Additionally, all of the chargers I tried listed 5V (except for the fast charger, which listed 5V or 9V), so in theory the unit should have only pulled 5V and 1A from the charger. The reason I doubted this at first was because of the heat generated.



Interesting. I see no reason for it to have requested the extra voltage. And with more people saying that the charger shouldn't have been the problem, I am starting to wonder if the unit was just defective from the start. Especially because of the fact that my PC and the proprietary driver still detect it, as well as the fact that I was still able to do a firmware update.

I honestly have no idea what to think anymore. I don't know too much about electrical engineering beyond some physics classes, and most of what I've been saying is just speculation on my part.

I wonder if Soncoz would be able to determine what happened to it if I sent it to them? However, I don't think I qualify for their warranty or repair service as I ordered from Amazon here. Can @Sophia Ann or @Ben1987 confirm if I do or don't qualify? I have no idea if they're an authorized retailer or not. I'd also be interested to hear if they had heard of anything about my issues from channels other than this forum.

Dear customer,

You can directly return it to Amazon Prime for a refund or a new DAC.

 

[MechEngVic]

I like the sound of this option, I did buy it with prime. Unless something else comes up, I'll probably do this.

So what's the latest? Did you get a new unit?

 

[S.Z.FightCats]

I was looking for a DAC with volume control and a quality and honest XLR output. I had a difficult choice between SMSL M300 -240$, SMSL M200-280$ and Soncoz la-qxd1-253$ these are the prices with delivery to me, but yesterday in the aliexpress store the price for Soncoz fell to 190$ and I finally bought it Many thanks to the forum participants for tests and reviews, very helpful in choosing the DAC
P.S. I apologize for my English.

 

[WeiW]

Hello, I'm considering paring soncoz la-qxd1 with topping A90. I can find the output impedance for la-qxd1 is 200ohm for XLR and 100ohm for RCA, and I think that should be standard and common for DAC. I couldn't find the A90 input impedance, could someone shine me with such information? Just want to be assured these two could go as a resonant pair. Thx!

 

[MechEngVic]

Hello, I'm considering paring soncoz la-qxd1 with topping A90. I can find the output impedance for la-qxd1 is 200ohm for XLR and 100ohm for RCA, and I think that should be standard and common for DAC. I couldn't find the A90 input impedance, could someone shine me with such information? Just want to be assured these two could go as a resonant pair. Thx!

JohnYang1997
He's the guy you want to talk to about Topping.

 

[Veri]

Hello, I'm considering paring soncoz la-qxd1 with topping A90. I can find the output impedance for la-qxd1 is 200ohm for XLR and 100ohm for RCA, and I think that should be standard and common for DAC. I couldn't find the A90 input impedance, could someone shine me with such information? Just want to be assured these two could go as a resonant pair. Thx!

Considering there are other devices with output impedance in the kOhm range, the 100/200 of the LA-QXD will be absolutely fine, rest assured.

 

[kukocz]

@amirm is it possible for you to measure SINAD vs Measured Level (Vrms)?

Recently I noticed that some companies publish two results of SINAD values - one for 1kHz and another for range 20Hz-20kHz, i.e. Topping D90:

For 1kHz we got ~121 SINAD but for 20Hz-20kHz it is ~116dB.
Soncoz LA-QXD1 has ~116 SINAD for 1kHz but we don't know how it measures for full audio spectrum (by the way, I don't know if this value is averaged through the measured spectrum or it's the worst case...?).

@amirm does it make sense to perform SINAD sweep through audible spectrum to have full overview what is going on? It could turn out that some DACs with lower SINAD are constant in full audio range where other are good only at 1Khz...
If this is possible are you able to perform that sweep for Soncoz LA-QXD1?

By the way, since few days, I'm a happy owner of LA-QXD1 and I'm using it to feed directly my DIY Purifi based power amp. I does really good job.

 

[somebodyelse]

Most of the DAC reviews include a THD+V vs. Frequency plot, with the Tone Board result as reference. I don't know why it wasn't there in this case - sometimes results are forgotten and get posted further through the thread when someone notices. For this DAC there's also WolfX-700's review which shows it for both 20kHz and 90kHz bandwidth - I'm guessing unweighted as it isn't mentioned.

 

[kukocz]

@somebodyelse indeed THD+N measurements is what I'm looking for LA-QXD1 and it these somehow are not included in all amirm's measurements.
Thanks for pointing out Wolfx's measurements. Nonetheless it would be nice to see them in this review too

 

[bravehearTM]

Can someone tell me if I could also use a phone charger (anker quick charge 3.0) that outputs 5V/3A with this DAC unit?

 

[kukocz]

Can someone tell me if I could also use a phone charger (anker quick charge 3.0) that outputs 5V/3A with this DAC unit?

I’m using Apple Charger 5V/1A and it’s working without any issues

 

[EMMA]

Can someone tell me if I could also use a phone charger (anker quick charge 3.0) that outputs 5V/3A with this DAC unit?

You'd better not use this one.

 

[porotikos]

hi there guys. ,u laqxd1 was delivered a month ago, but i was on vacations and just opened it. awesome machinery. great looks.
i would kindly like to ask something.

the question id like to ask is noise related. i connected it with the same rca i had when i had khadas connected to my system. in high volumes i am listening to motherboard noise. i remember someone said that with laqxd1 compared to khadas, this noise should go away. cause it had better power circuit or something like that. i wonder why i still hear the noise. (it isnt ground loop btw). am i doing something wrong?
btw i can purchase the xlrs to connect it to my console, but only if i was sure they would eliminate noise. Would it?

ps. power adapter from my lumia 950 phone, which is 5v 3a, works like a charm

edit.
Today i updated soncoz. installed max volume firmware. (noise is still here btw). i would like to ask if my settings are fine.
I am running windows 7x64btw.
in toolbar, when i click on soncoz icon i see this info
output 2 channels 32 bit (should i change to 24bit?
in buffer settings, safe mode is clicked. is this fine?
i am running 4.86. is there anything else i should install? (to use dsd for instance)
in my pc, in speaker properties, 32bit 44100 is selected. if i remember correct, when i had khadas, i had to have it in 24 bit. am i fine with 32 bit selected in my pc speaker properties settings?
Thank you guys

 

[BlueRob]

Well... I was a partial happy owner. Received my Soncoz last week and sounded really good... when it worked. The second day of ownership started to notice intermittent output... For brief fractions of a second the sound was... Somehow corrupted. Tryed 2 different coax. cables and one toslink... Same result crapy output sound. My source maybe? The source being a Tunebox streamer that has been working with zero issues with its internal DAC and analog output. Today I connected my CD transport to try a different source for the Soncoz. No weird artifacts with both coax and toslink but... Out of the blue the Soncoz stopped working. The power led flikers and that is it. Tryed all buttons with no effect and plug it on and off to see if it resets itself but no avail. Suggestions? Any other user with similar problems?
Thanks,
Rob

 

[kukocz]

@amirm is it possible for you to measure SINAD vs Measured Level (Vrms)?

Recently I noticed that some companies publish two results of SINAD values - one for 1kHz and another for range 20Hz-20kHz, i.e. Topping D90:
View attachment 80045

For 1kHz we got ~121 SINAD but for 20Hz-20kHz it is ~116dB.
Soncoz LA-QXD1 has ~116 SINAD for 1kHz but we don't know how it measures for full audio spectrum (by the way, I don't know if this value is averaged through the measured spectrum or it's the worst case...?).

@amirm does it make sense to perform SINAD sweep through audible spectrum to have full overview what is going on? It could turn out that some DACs with lower SINAD are constant in full audio range where other are good only at 1Khz...
If this is possible are you able to perform that sweep for Soncoz LA-QXD1?

By the way, since few days, I'm a happy owner of LA-QXD1 and I'm using it to feed directly my DIY Purifi based power amp. I does really good job.

@amirm Hopefully you still have this DAC in your storage It would be great to see SINAD vs Measured Level (Vrms) graph.

 

[Ben1987]

@Ben1987 can give us an official list of recommended power supplies

We are planning to launch our adapters soon.

 

[occip]

@Ben1987,
Is it possible to provide a firmware with automatic switch between USB and COAX ( like khadas tone) ?
I've sent you a PM
Thanks

 

[Takato]

There was a guy here somewhere that was having no sound issues, he unplugged it overnight and it worked the next day. NO sound issues have been documented with this DAC.

Something like this happened to me. After I upgraded the FW to the latest version, only the PWR led was on. Nothing worked, so I think maybe it bricked. However, after 30 minutes unplugged it came back to life like nothing happened. Now it's working without issues.