Soncoz LA-QXD1 Balanced DAC Review

[SpinifexV]

Just received mine and I really enjoy the upgrade over my old, self-soldered Gamma2 DAC, especially with high-resolution music. I had a couple of questions if I can bother anyone for answers.

In Windows settings, I set the bit rate and resolution to 24/192 (which is my highest resolution sound file). Is there any reason to go higher, to 32 bits and/or 3XX or so Hz? I usually play music through iTunes (yeah, still got my iPod, so I try to keep it all there). I have downloaded the Thesycon driver and upgraded my firmware.

Also, Apodizing, Brickwall or Fast Linear filter (to open THAT can of worms)?

 

[technoian]

For those that are interested in using the coax output of this DAC l have run some tests and think I now have a full explanation of how this works.
If the coax output is unconnected then the 3 inputs (toslink, coax and USB) can all be selected and will output on both the XLR and RCA analogue connectors. Whenever a cable is plugged into the coax output of the the DAC it will be fed a signal from the USB source no matter what source is selected on the DAC. On the analogue side only the toslink and USB inputs will now produce any output when selected. When the coax output is connected then the coax input is disabled.
Could @Ben1987 please confirm this is the designed behaviour?

 

[Brab]

Mine has been operating for six months plugged in all the time. No issues.

 

[alekksander]

there is a webpage with scientific measurements of phone chargers (not only, i recommend to dig deeper into the site, it's great). already bought one for my (still in shipment) dac. here: https://lygte-info.dk/info/ChargerIndex UK.html

 

[Viper Necklampy]

What's that big 4Vrms noise floor translates in actual numbers? There are amplifiers like thx aaa 887 and topping l30 / A90 that produce much less noirse floor, so pairing with this would ruin a bit the potential performance? I heard it's a very good dac btw.

 

[Ben1987]

Whenever a cable is plugged into the coax output of the the DAC it will be fed a signal from the USB source no matter what source is selected on the DAC

LA-QXD1 supports USB to digital SPDIF RCA output(192KHz@24bit)，not toslink and coaxial input to coaxial output. SGD1 supports all digital input to coaxial output.

 

[Erosenbe]

Treadmills with dc motors (which is not all of them) have pwm speed controllers so that can result in a lot of energy radiated at who knows what frequencies. I doubt it is going to be standardized other than to hopefully not interfere with police/fire/aircraft communications in the intended market.

 

[Cidious]

I ordered one to use next to my D50s+A50s stack (for my headphones) to feed my ADAM T5Vs through the balanced XLR ports and adjust the volume with the knobs on the desk.

This all sounded like a perfect plan. But what about this digitial volume control quality wise. Obviously I won't use it at 100% for this purpose. Will less than 100% volume hurt the sound quality? older digital chips used to start loosing info at lower volumes. Modern DACs are bitperfect disregarding the volum right? Or am I wrong?

 

[volkl77n]

I ordered one to use next to my D50s+A50s stack (for my headphones) to feed my ADAM T5Vs through the balanced XLR ports and adjust the volume with the knobs on the desk.

This all sounded like a perfect plan. But what about this digitial volume control quality wise. Obviously I won't use it at 100% for this purpose. Will less than 100% volume hurt the sound quality? older digital chips used to start loosing info at lower volumes. Modern DACs are bitperfect disregarding the volum right? Or am I wrong?

I'm using the Soncoz volume control to provide signal to my powered monitors and it works just fine. It's temporary until I have time to build a few custom cables. The question is, why are you not using the pre-out from your A50s?

 

[Cidious]

I'm using the Soncoz volume control to provide signal to my powered monitors and it works just fine. It's temporary until I have time to build a few custom cables. The question is, why are you not using the pre-out from your A50s?

Valid question and it's rather simple.

Reasons:
#1 Ground loop when using the D50s+A50s+USB+T5Vs. My previous monitors Airmotiv5 (OEM) have dual pile power cables. These have grounded cables. And the groundloop interference obviously starts when I plug in the USB and then turn on the A50s. I've been able to eliminate it by cutting ground pins from some spare power cables and use those temporarily. But I don't want that long term. Another solution is some USB ground isolator but the one I ordered did nothing. In the end I think going balanced is the way for the future anyway.
#2 The volume knob on the A50s sucks. It has a large deadzone where nothing happens and it's too small to grab. Just feels shit to work with. I'd rather cut the operating time in half between monitors and headphones. Lol.
#3 Love my Khadas Tone Board, but. It has popping issues when it initiates for playback. Think the tone board was a bit more engaging than the D50s so happy to give Soncoz a try.

 

[sinski]

I have LA-QXD1 since Mai, it is a very good DAC for the price, but yesterday Soncoz SGD1 arrived and it is just better, so much better. More details, more everything, more solid powerfull sound, breathtaking dynamic, more space, more 3d. I have a very good big system, a lot of HD and SACD files. DFF files sounds so good now, incredible, but also 16/44 are much better.

 

[Veri]

I have LA-QXD1 since Mai, it is a very good DAC for the price, but yesterday Soncoz SGD1 arrived and it is just better, so much better. More details, more everything, more solid powerfull sound, breathtaking dynamic, more space, more 3d.

Glad to hear you're enjoying the upgrade~
Great work, @Ben1987

 

[Cidious]

LA-QXD1 arrived. AB testing vs D50s single-ended gets me kind of as expected a bit more engaging sound. Probably due to the different opamps. Works exactly as intended without any ground loop interference. Volume control works smooth too and the device is built well.

It sounds very similar to the Khadas Tone Board which also sounds a little more hot than the D50s. I'm not saying it's less transparant or anything just a bit more engaging and forward (nuances). So for the monitors it's a perfect pairing.

Mine did come with a scratch on the top but I'm not so nitpicky about that.

 

[labeautedel'occident]

It seems the problem wasn't the power supply, instead it seems my LA-QXD1 is defective. After I changed the power supply the DAC started to get very hot to the touch which it hadn't done before and when I tried to listen to some music the left channel only had a hissing noise and the right channel had a distorted sound, it was the same noise in both the XLR and RCA outputs. I tested the LA-QXD1 on 2 different headphone amplifiers and with 2 different headphones and the problem persisted.
Since it failed with less than a week of use it seems that the unit is defective. I contacted the seller (hifigo) for the warranty, I hope they won't ask me to ship it back since I already paid 65 USD for shipping.
And it sucks that I won't be able to use my Geshelli Erish until I get a replacement.

I had the exact same problem today just they way you described it. My unit was powered via an Apple 5v 1A power adapter, in accordance with the SONCOZ specifications for the unit, when it started blinking and outputting noise. Any other power source will produce noise out of my left speaker.

 

[nhatlam96]

View attachment 64350

I'm confused, doesn't that area with the spikes look abnormal?

 

[Veri]

I'm confused, doesn't that area with the spikes look abnormal?
View attachment 104976

It's not absolute perfection but totally fine for its price point, what you see is simply some distortion kicking in. Ideally it would not be there, but it's fine. Nothing dramatic.

 

[nhatlam96]

It's not absolute perfection but totally fine for its price point, what you see is simply some distortion kicking in. Ideally it would not be there, but it's fine. Nothing dramatic.

Im fine with the performance. The only thing that confuses me here, is that those spikes shouldn't actually be there in the first place. I think there was something wrong with the measurement, it looks abnormal. If you look at the two measurements below, you can see that there are no spikes at that specific area:

 

[Veri]

Im fine with the performance. The only thing that confuses me here, is that those spikes shouldn't actually be there in the first place. I think there was something wrong with the measurement, it looks abnormal. If you look at the two measurements below, you can see that there are no spikes at that specific area:View attachment 105040

I'm confused, if you look at the blue channel in Wolf's measurement, you can see similar distortion in the multi-tone. The blue spikes, right? Amir must have shown the worst measuring one, if you compare they look similar enough. Note that Wolf's audio precision machine is a slightly newer revision so there can minor differences in sensitivity to noise and distortion.

 

[nhatlam96]

I'm confused, if you look at the blue channel in Wolf's measurement, you can see similar distortion in the multi-tone. The blue spikes, right? Amir must have shown the worst measuring one, if you compare they look similar enough. Note that Wolf's audio precision machine is a slightly newer revision so there can minor differences in sensitivity to noise and distortion.

Yeah, the blue spikes! In wolfs measurement, they only spike because of channel mismatch due to pre production model. If you match the two channels in wolfs measurement, then the spikes dissapear and then it looks normal, like the chinese measurement below. Amirms measurement looks abnormal in that area.

 

[Veri]

Yeah, the blue spikes! In wolfs measurement, they only spike because of channel mismatch due to pre production model. If you match the two channels in wolfs measurement, then the spikes dissapear and then it looks normal, like the chinese measurement below. Amirms measurement looks abnormal in that area.

Yeah in Amir's main dashboard also, one channel is noticeably worse in the unit he measured, it could be that most production units do not show this and that this is fixed, or was a one-off case. Hard to say