This is a review and detailed measurements of the Tempotec Sonata HD USB-C DAC and headphone amplifier. A member kindly donated the $30 for me to buy it from Amazon for testing.
The Sonata HD (not to be confused with the Pro version) has a premium look compared to $9 ones you get from phone companies:
The braided cord is nice and soft but seems very delicate. Someone in Amazon review said that it shorted out already (?).
Typical of these products, they only turn on if they have a load. Upon plugging it in on Windows, it activated and was usable there. Alas, a number of my test results were weird and I found out that out of the box it only exposed 48 kHz sampling rate. They have firmware to enable the rest of the functionality which I downloaded and wrote to its EEPROM. Alas, other than exposing the rest of the sample rates, it had no effect on performance of the device:
Tempotec Sonata HD Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard, treating the device if it were a DAC:
Well, this is disappointing on multiple fronts. First and foremost, it only has 1 volt output. This translates to low output playback level with high impedance headphones (think Sennheiser HD-650). Distortion is high resulting in an "OK" SINAD score:
Company advertises very high dynamic range but I could not remotely get close to their number:
Maybe that is a chip spec rather than actual device (or unknown filtering is used).
Multitone performance was really poor and strange:
Jitter performance is not at all desktop class but for a dongle, not bad:
IMD test shows good distortion levels at higher amplitudes:
Power is everything in a headphone dongle so let's see how it does:
I like the low noise and no clipping behavior but 3.5 milliwatts is just not that loud. My standard for desktop products is 100 milliwatts by the way. Here is the ranking for this:
The situation is not that different for 33 ohm load:
Tempotec Sonata HD Headphone Listening Tests
I tested the Sonata HD using my Sennheiser HD-650. There was just enough loudness to be usable in a quiet environment. I compared that output to the native output of my Samsung S8+ and the volume was essentially the same.
Conclusions
My rule for headphone dongles is simple: aim for one with 2 volt output. If this is not specified or is less than this, walk away. There are plenty of choices with 2 volt output. This will give you the ability to drive many headphones otherwise you are limited to sensitive headphones.
The Tempotec Sonata HD misses the above mark so I can't recommend it.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Our non-stop canning routine continues. Running out of space to store all these jars! Had to empty a shelf in the kitchen to free up space:
My wife doesn't like to eat sour stuff so it is up to me to consume all of this! And this is a fraction of what we have canned. Oh well. Couldn't let the stuff rot and go to waste.
Went to empty the RV tanks and realized it still had anti-freeze in it from last year! We have not used the thing due to Covid. Made me depressed. If you want me to feel better, please donating generously using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The Sonata HD (not to be confused with the Pro version) has a premium look compared to $9 ones you get from phone companies:
The braided cord is nice and soft but seems very delicate. Someone in Amazon review said that it shorted out already (?).
Typical of these products, they only turn on if they have a load. Upon plugging it in on Windows, it activated and was usable there. Alas, a number of my test results were weird and I found out that out of the box it only exposed 48 kHz sampling rate. They have firmware to enable the rest of the functionality which I downloaded and wrote to its EEPROM. Alas, other than exposing the rest of the sample rates, it had no effect on performance of the device:
Tempotec Sonata HD Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard, treating the device if it were a DAC:
Well, this is disappointing on multiple fronts. First and foremost, it only has 1 volt output. This translates to low output playback level with high impedance headphones (think Sennheiser HD-650). Distortion is high resulting in an "OK" SINAD score:
Company advertises very high dynamic range but I could not remotely get close to their number:
Maybe that is a chip spec rather than actual device (or unknown filtering is used).
Multitone performance was really poor and strange:
Jitter performance is not at all desktop class but for a dongle, not bad:
IMD test shows good distortion levels at higher amplitudes:
Power is everything in a headphone dongle so let's see how it does:
I like the low noise and no clipping behavior but 3.5 milliwatts is just not that loud. My standard for desktop products is 100 milliwatts by the way. Here is the ranking for this:
The situation is not that different for 33 ohm load:
Tempotec Sonata HD Headphone Listening Tests
I tested the Sonata HD using my Sennheiser HD-650. There was just enough loudness to be usable in a quiet environment. I compared that output to the native output of my Samsung S8+ and the volume was essentially the same.
Conclusions
My rule for headphone dongles is simple: aim for one with 2 volt output. If this is not specified or is less than this, walk away. There are plenty of choices with 2 volt output. This will give you the ability to drive many headphones otherwise you are limited to sensitive headphones.
The Tempotec Sonata HD misses the above mark so I can't recommend it.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Our non-stop canning routine continues. Running out of space to store all these jars! Had to empty a shelf in the kitchen to free up space:
My wife doesn't like to eat sour stuff so it is up to me to consume all of this! And this is a fraction of what we have canned. Oh well. Couldn't let the stuff rot and go to waste.
Went to empty the RV tanks and realized it still had anti-freeze in it from last year! We have not used the thing due to Covid. Made me depressed. If you want me to feel better, please donating generously using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/