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TempoTec Sonata BHD, a better budget option than the HD Pro?

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KTN46

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Why 48k limit? Why iOS USB 5V rail available only for pay, why no USB HID for free or Bluetooth? Why S. Jobs dead, where is the second one? The answer is only one: 42 ;)
To me Apple inc today is the company about money ONLY and nothing else they care i.e. it is a bank's mimicry on Apple. No any novelty, no product quality even no serious testing - purified greediness as it is. I wish they'll establish a bank and give up the electronics business, that would be fair.

Apple's silicon is absolutely insane and worth talking about though, they're doing extremely well in that area.
 
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IVX

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Do you mean CPU? The bright guy who handles that for Apple, story:
  • 1990–1992: Researcher and engineer at IBM R&D Labs in Israel
  • 1993–2005: Senior Manager at Intel Israel Design Center
  • 2005–2008: Design Manager in CPU design at IBM
  • 2008–2015: Vice President of Hardware Technologies at Apple
  • 2015–present: Senior Vice President of Hardware Technologies at Apple
 

Saidera

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Indeed let us not forget to mention here for those who don't understand the context here: that Apple and others took away the 3.5 mm jack to begin with and pushed wireless forward (now Sony's XM4 makes wireless on par with wired with DSEE Extreme https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...e-ultimate-dsee-extreme-do.14832/#post-523812) and also limited to 24/48 PCM so that any higher rates were downsampled on playback.

Thanks to these two factors we had an influx of 'dongles' via USB-C of which at present the Apple, Tempotec, and E1DA dongles among many others, appear to be winners in the ranking based on ASR measurements.

But I think these factors are not relevant now. Xperia 1 II regained the 3.5 mm jack, and people know that wired headphones using DSEE Ultimate can surpass wireless using DSEE Extreme (analogous to CS43131 being good but ESS chips having potential for further excellence), so why bother with wireless? Wired is risky but it can be excellent. And Archimago made the case that 24/48 PCM is more than enough for most of us, unless we are mastering engineers ourselves. archimago.blogspot.com/2020/07/summer-musings-post-hi-res-audio-why-hi.html

If the factors which ushered in the dongle era aren't relevant, what takes their place? Clearly it is convenient to be able to choose what DAC to use without swapping devices. Having it externally connected may be good for sound. However, I can only think of one reason for dongles to continue existing which is that it avoids us using badly designed codecs found in PCs and phones. Naturally, onboard audio these days will rarely have audible problems, but it won't ever be hi-fi like select VAIO PCs capable of DSD recording were from 2005-2011. Those who care about sound but are on a tight budget will naturally notice the dongles.

I do use Apple USB-C dongle because it suits lossy audio upsampled using DSEE HX on free Sony software. I can hear the differences clearly whereas I can't do so with 'better' DACs. I also use a second hand iPhone 4S as backup as it's a gift from a Canadian relative. Some reckon Apple USB-C dongle costs less than it should, but a full appraisal of its quality and the Cirrus chip it has in it would lead to a conclusion that it is also designed for profit as one of its foremost priorities. I don't think iPhones have ever truly exceeded fans' expectations nor are they worth selling one's own organs to buy which I remember hearing in the news.

Finally, the dongle market may have existed to cash in on the lack of 3.5 mm jack, but its more pressing purpose is to provide users with the cheapest and highest quality audio which the big players have not provided us with, at least in terms of iPhones and Windows PCs if not Android phones thanks to Qualcomm's WHS94xx chips. The problem is that even if 24/48 PCM is good enough for us, 24/48 limited chips may not be. So we can listen to 24/48 PCM only, but we still want 32 bit codecs to be in every iPhone and Windows PC, only then will the dongle market gradually fade. But still, it is preferable to be able to use the same product/implementation knowing its potential performance based on ASR measurements. So we may never accept using all kinds of implementations which are unmeasured. Therefore Dongles are here to stay forever!

Thank you for reading my rambling on about nothing.
 

amanieux

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so is there any affordable (sub $30) usbc dac with sabre chip that measures well ?
 
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amanieux

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amanieux for that money you can will buy Meizu HiFi DAC, two pcs.
PS: how many times I did promote that DAC, why no any Xie-Xie from Meizu? Anyone, please tell Meizu that they owe me at least whiskey ;)
i owned meizu hifi pro and it was ok but i sold it because i could not hear any difference with the internal dac of my 2015 sony xz premium phone so i wanted to try a reputable sabre dac to see if i can get any sound quality improvement for my bqeyz spring1 that is supposed to benefit from a stronger source.
 
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Veri

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i owned meizu hifi pro and it was ok but i sold it because i could not hear any difference with the internal dac of my 2015 sony xz premium phone so i wanted to try a reputable sabre dac to see if i can get any sound quality improvement
Haha, if the cirrus logic one is no improvement, a tiny sabre DAC won't do anything different! But if in doubt, get 9038D :p
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001559736630.html the only small sabre DAC worth your money.
 

amanieux

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Haha, if the cirrus logic one is no improvement, a tiny sabre DAC won't do anything different! But if in doubt, get 9038D :p
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005001559736630.html the only small sabre DAC worth your money.
thanks but this dac is $100, this is too much money, for those ready to spend so much money, it is common advice to invest these extra $100 in upgrading the iem rather than the source
 

Veri

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thanks but this dac is $100, this is too much money, for those ready to spend so much money, it is common advice to invest these extra $100 in upgrading the iem rather than the source
Agree ;)
 

TheHighContemplator

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Hello everyone,

I have a stupidly simple question, which is kind of embarrassing, but I need to be sure...

If I buy a Tempotec Sonata HD Pro and plug it into my Windows 7 laptop, will it work? The reason I ask is everyone talks about using it with their phones, and their website has this written in the description:

"Connection with Laptop/Desktop,Connection with TempoTec V1 HIFI Player"

This made me think I need this player to use with a Laptop/Desktop and not the Sonata HD Pro, despite it saying it is compatible with Android and PC.

These Chinese companies need to hire one competent English speaking person who understands the technical side of their electronics. It's ridiculous to have this much confusion in today's market with their literature sounding as if it was written by a 10 year old.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
 

Veri

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Hello everyone,

I have a stupidly simple question, which is kind of embarrassing, but I need to be sure...

If I buy a Tempotec Sonata HD Pro and plug it into my Windows 7 laptop, will it work?

Win7 support is getting more rare, it will only work if you find a suitable driver for the dongle. It will NOT work plug-and-play, no chance.
 

338h10

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I strongly believe that this BHD version deserves an official review. This could set a new record for quality/price ratio if the paper specs are reproduceable in the real world.
 

Nango

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Indeed let us not forget to mention here for those who don't understand the context here: that Apple and others took away the 3.5 mm jack to begin with and pushed wireless forward (now Sony's XM4 makes wireless on par with wired with DSEE Extreme https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...e-ultimate-dsee-extreme-do.14832/#post-523812) and also limited to 24/48 PCM so that any higher rates were downsampled on playback.

Thanks to these two factors we had an influx of 'dongles' via USB-C of which at present the Apple, Tempotec, and E1DA dongles among many others, appear to be winners in the ranking based on ASR measurements.

But I think these factors are not relevant now. Xperia 1 II regained the 3.5 mm jack, and people know that wired headphones using DSEE Ultimate can surpass wireless using DSEE Extreme (analogous to CS43131 being good but ESS chips having potential for further excellence), so why bother with wireless? Wired is risky but it can be excellent. And Archimago made the case that 24/48 PCM is more than enough for most of us, unless we are mastering engineers ourselves. archimago.blogspot.com/2020/07/summer-musings-post-hi-res-audio-why-hi.html

If the factors which ushered in the dongle era aren't relevant, what takes their place? Clearly it is convenient to be able to choose what DAC to use without swapping devices. Having it externally connected may be good for sound. However, I can only think of one reason for dongles to continue existing which is that it avoids us using badly designed codecs found in PCs and phones. Naturally, onboard audio these days will rarely have audible problems, but it won't ever be hi-fi like select VAIO PCs capable of DSD recording were from 2005-2011. Those who care about sound but are on a tight budget will naturally notice the dongles.

I do use Apple USB-C dongle because it suits lossy audio upsampled using DSEE HX on free Sony software. I can hear the differences clearly whereas I can't do so with 'better' DACs. I also use a second hand iPhone 4S as backup as it's a gift from a Canadian relative. Some reckon Apple USB-C dongle costs less than it should, but a full appraisal of its quality and the Cirrus chip it has in it would lead to a conclusion that it is also designed for profit as one of its foremost priorities. I don't think iPhones have ever truly exceeded fans' expectations nor are they worth selling one's own organs to buy which I remember hearing in the news.

Finally, the dongle market may have existed to cash in on the lack of 3.5 mm jack, but its more pressing purpose is to provide users with the cheapest and highest quality audio which the big players have not provided us with, at least in terms of iPhones and Windows PCs if not Android phones thanks to Qualcomm's WHS94xx chips. The problem is that even if 24/48 PCM is good enough for us, 24/48 limited chips may not be. So we can listen to 24/48 PCM only, but we still want 32 bit codecs to be in every iPhone and Windows PC, only then will the dongle market gradually fade. But still, it is preferable to be able to use the same product/implementation knowing its potential performance based on ASR measurements. So we may never accept using all kinds of implementations which are unmeasured. Therefore Dongles are here to stay forever!

Thank you for reading my rambling on about nothing.
Indeed, to my ears WHS9415 based dongles are better sounding than those newer 9218P, CS43131, etc.
 

ZolaIII

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DeepSpace57, no time for that but I have some interest to play around CS43131 to get THD+N better than -114-115db, as I see I have a chance. CS43131 has already VERY low SNR/DR(that's why I see no techincal reason to use dual CS43131) but THD+N would be nice to get better to kill all competitors.
For you is CS43198 probably more interesting choice. Unfortunately in many designs even with great clocks, reference bord layaut, better power input ESS DAC's simply failed to meet expectation. TempoTec is actually interesting for a small manufacturer as they used DAC's of most manufacturers so far (AKM, ESS, CS) and had some interesting design in the past.
 

ZolaIII

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Why 48k limit? Why iOS USB 5V rail available only for pay, why no USB HID for free or Bluetooth? Why S. Jobs dead, where is the second one? The answer is only one: 42 ;)
To me Apple inc today is the company about money ONLY and nothing else they care i.e. it is a bank's mimicry on Apple. No any novelty, no product quality even no serious testing - purified greediness as it is. I wish they'll establish a bank and give up the electronics business, that would be fair.
It always whose take money and run.
 
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