[wushuliu]

As mentioned no headamp in the Topping D30.  I run it into a Magni3.  This Aprox $200 combo gives me more satisfaction than a Schiit Modi 4490 and Lake People GS-109 at about
3 times the price.

As for chips, my experience is they can sound similar in lower cost implementations but they are not the biggest factor in some higher priced dacs ultimate sound, but do have a role.  My main speaker dac (Prism Lyra 1) also has 4398 chips but should not be lumped in the same league as the Topping.

Makes sense. I'd say that's because cheaper dacs lean harder on the chip to do the hard work whereas the pricier options can afford to use the components needed to tailor the design to their needs i.e output topologies, software optimization, etc. Given enough time and resources for sure you can many any chip sound however you want.

[murphy11]

Received my Da3 today and am wondering whether Windows Playback Advanced settings have any effect on Spotify High-Quality streaming sound. 14/44, 24/48, 32/192 etc. Whatever I set in Windows shows up on the Sabaj display but not sure if any setting is optimal or makes any difference.

[wushuliu]

Received my Da3 today and am wondering whether Windows Playback Advanced settings have any effect on Spotify High-Quality streaming sound. 14/44, 24/48, 32/192 etc. Whatever I set in Windows shows up on the Sabaj display but not sure if any setting is optimal or makes any difference.

May just have to play around and see. W10 Creator's update made big changes to the usb audio so whatever rate you choose I believe it does some funky resampling, but it sounds excellent.

More impactful would probably be the latency and asio buffer settings with the DA3 XMOS driver.

[uncola]

Thx again wushuliu for drawing our attention to this dac..  I'm using it with an RCA adapter direct to my Folsom amp and it's a great pairing.  Waiting for my sonica dac to come back after it gets modded

[wushuliu]

Thx again wushuliu for drawing our attention to this dac..  I'm using it with an RCA adapter direct to my Folsom amp and it's a great pairing.  Waiting for my sonica dac to come back after it gets modded

 

[o0o]

wushuliu, thank you for your input about SABAJ Da3. 

How would you rate Da2 vs Da3 sound-wise? Is there any difference at all (clarity, soundstage, output power, etc)?

What are the advantages of Da3 vs Da2 aside the obvious balanced output and more informative OLED display?

Also how's power consumption of Da2 vs Da3 considering the later has 2 DACs and display (even though display shouldn't consume too much considering it's size and oled tech)?

And of course how's Da2 vs DF black/red sound-wise and power-consumption-wise?

My HPs are Ety's ER-4PT/S (mostly), Koss Porta Pro and good old BD DT990.

Thanks in advance! 

[o0o]

Bought Da3 anyways. I'm hoping for driver updates or a root android fix. Da2 and Da3 seems to have close power usage (0.8w). Will wait and see in two weeks...

How's your experience so far? How's power consumption vs DragonFly (if you had a chance to compare)?

[restrav]

...

[karnana]

How's your experience so far? How's power consumption vs DragonFly (if you had a chance to compare)?

http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=152638.msg1639537#msg1639537

It's good, using it daily with note 4. Haven't tried dragonfly red but I think wushuliu knows what he is talking about. No issues whatsoever but I still want a chord mojo  What you have is detail and a lot of decrease in noise. Dragonfly red and black use about half of what this uses in power consumption but is twice the price  (I know sabaj is 0.8W, dragonfly black uses <100ma at 5V, , I don't know about dragonfly red but people say it's same as black but I'm not so sure )

[uncola]

Murphy I believe Spotify just outputs sound via standard directsound driver so it will resample Spotify audio which is 16/44.1KHz to whatever you have set in advanced playback settings..  I leave mine set to 24/44.1

[bixby]

Received my Da3 today and am wondering whether Windows Playback Advanced settings have any effect on Spotify High-Quality streaming sound. 14/44, 24/48, 32/192 etc. Whatever I set in Windows shows up on the Sabaj display but not sure if any setting is optimal or makes any difference.

Since Spotify is playing an MP3 file and since all mp3 files are 16/44k you should set the windows settings and your sound card to 16/44k.  There is no evidence I have found of any magic Windows 10 upsampling that would occur with those settings.

[murphy11]

Thx all for the recommendations - love this community.

Got Sinatra Christmas CD from Best Buy for $3.99 and 6 months free Tidal streaming. (expires today jump on it!)

Tidal seems to stream 16bit 44.1 CD quality which is what I will be using instead of Spotify premium. Should I stay at 16 or 24bit  44.1hz when streaming Tidal or set Windows settings higher?

[bixby]

I would set it at 16/44k.  No sense having windows do extra processing on the fly to add 8 zeros to the stream since it will not be heard anyway.  I think even if you have a 24 bit dac it will do the adding of zeros to the stream.

[wushuliu]

Thx all for the recommendations - love this community.

Got Sinatra Christmas CD from Best Buy for $3.99 and 6 months free Tidal streaming. (expires today jump on it!)

Tidal seems to stream 16bit 44.1 CD quality which is what I will be using instead of Spotify premium. Should I stay at 16 or 24bit  44.1hz when streaming Tidal or set Windows settings higher?

Dude try out whatever setting you want and just judge for yourself. That's the joy of the hobby. Have fun.

[restrav]

Ah, I misunderstood bixby's post. Thought it did. If a headamp is important, you should just buy a separate headamp. Can start with a good old CMOY mint tin on ebay if you're cash strapped.

so it looks like that separate DAc and headamp is the way to go. i have heard CMOY and im not too excited about that prospect.
on the other hand little dot and dark voice head amps are lookiing promising. Im curuious how they would pair with planar phones

[wushuliu]

so it looks like that separate DAc and headamp is the way to go. i have heard CMOY and im not too excited about that prospect.
on the other hand little dot and dark voice head amps are lookiing promising. Im curuious how they would pair with planar phones

In that case, if that's the budget you have then I once again point you to XRK, since he sells fully built amps as well. Keep in mind his amps would go multiples times over if they were typical retail:

https://headfonics.com/2017/06/the-class-a-nhb-pocket-amp-by-xrk-audio/

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Pocket-Class-A-Headphone-Amplifier-Desktop-Amplifier-NHB-Edition/222479147739?hash=item33ccca62db:g:YVIAAOSwWWxY9YfA

[bixby]

so it looks like that separate DAc and headamp is the way to go. i have heard CMOY and im not too excited about that prospect.
on the other hand little dot and dark voice head amps are lookiing promising. Im curuious how they would pair with planar phones

Having owned a La Figaro (improved DV) and heard a DV SE, I would say not a great match with planars.  Actually not a great match with anything for the money you would spend, unless you want rolled off highs and wooly bass.  Lots better stuff now to power planars and other great cans.  Magni 3 for example.

[o0o]

The es9018q2c includes the amplifier - it's an all in one package by ESS, so I am guessing voltage via the buttons. Archimago made no mention of reduced bits in his measurements. So that's another nice thing about these ESS mobile chips - you don't have to worry as much about some dodgy amp section being added since they take care of that for you...

I remember well how Fiio managed to screw up the beautiful sound of Cirrus Logic CS4398 chip in X3 2nd gen model with some ugly amp section (or custom tuning maybe). Plain line out was sounding so open clear and beautiful, while HP out completely destroyed all of that by scooping mid-range, adding some excessive low freq boost and some dirty coloring to the sound. Shame really.

[o0o]

It's good, using it daily with note 4. Haven't tried dragonfly red but I think wushuliu knows what he is talking about. No issues whatsoever but I still want a chord mojo  What you have is detail and a lot of decrease in noise. Dragonfly red and black use about half of what this uses in power consumption but is twice the price  (I know sabaj is 0.8W, dragonfly black uses <100ma at 5V, , I don't know about dragonfly red but people say it's same as black but I'm not so sure )

How fast you battery percentage go down per average 3-4 min song? Also how fast your fully charge battery goes out of juice with nonstop listening vs regular use with no DAC attached? Some simple subjective statistics should be good enough to understand the power consumption impact of these DACs I guess.

Did you have a chance to compare Idea/Da2 to Da3 ?  Is there any real noticeable improvement in sound?

Da3 uses x2 - x3 times more battery of my Note 4 so I may make a OTG cable with charging hack following here:
https://sites.google.com/site/sonicboomworld/my-projects/otg-diagrams

Finding a suitable angled microUSB to microUSB OTG Y-cable with charging capabilities is a challenge on its own, but it's a must-have for long distance traveling in particular. Any idea where to get one?

[karnana]

How fast you battery percentage go down per average 3-4 min song? Also how fast your fully charge battery goes out of juice with nonstop listening vs regular use with no DAC attached? Some simple subjective statistics should be good enough to understand the power consumption impact of these DACs I guess.

Did you have a chance to compare Idea/Da2 to Da3 ?  Is there any real noticeable improvement in sound?
Finding a suitable angled microUSB to microUSB OTG Y-cable with charging capabilities is a challenge on its own, but it's a must-have for long distance traveling in particular. Any idea where to get one?

I sort of compared it to normal listening (x2-x3 battery drain of da3) I will test the battery percentage out for you. Power saving helps too. Just buy a separate battery until you sort things out!

I looked around for angled micro usbs with or without usb-c's. I couldn't find any that won't ruin my note 4's micro usb socket while walking, running etc...

Long story short you have to make your own cables:

1. For otg + charging: DONT! ruin your OTG cable while trying to do it. OTG cables come 4 5 pins already shortcircuited.
What I bought 2 days ago is:
https://www.aliexpress.com/item/IMC-Hot-10-Pcs-Micro-USB-Type-A-Male-5-Pin-Connectors-Plug/32438319581.html

and I already have 100k resistors (10 of them for 10 cents) and usb cables.

2. If you want to make your own usb c to micro usb cable just buy a couple of these and cut an otg cable and solder it:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/USB-3-1-Connector-Type-C-Male-to-USB-3-0-Female-Converter-Data-Adapter-Convenience/32828660364.html

you can make any micro usb angled if you are willing to silicone it later :

This what I use: https://ibb.co/m8eLCw

I used more silicone on da3's part for the disconnects that randomly occur without it. I'm going to make a new one with otg charging hack with 100k resistor and also add a power socket using this:

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/IMC-Hot-20-Pcs-Micro-USB-Type-B-Female-Socket-180-Degree-5-Pin-SMD-SMT/32438682712.html

So I can add charging whenever I want without changing the cable  I hope that hack works. Will update on it if you want in a couple of weeks I think :/