Hi guys, today got delivery of the New Matrix Audio X-SABRE 3 DAC/Streamer which is the updated version of the X-SABRE PRO MQA reviewed by @amirm exactly 2 years and 2 days ago.
First let me tell you that I'm a big fan of Matrix Audio products. They are to me the Oppo of streamers. Their products show a level of quality and attention to detail that excels over other companies, including some that charge almost 3 times for products with even less performance. I got a Matrix Audio mini-i Pro 3 at the beginning of the year and I have been using it every single day for about 6 hours every day without a single glitch. I use Roon as my streaming platform with local library stored in a Synology DS1019+ NAS, Qobuz and TIDAL services and everything works like a charm. I also have an ARCAM ST60 and Bluesound NODE. All 4 streamers are Roon Ready and all of them work perfectly fine in my Roon ecosystem.
Here some photos of the unboxing process:
Attention to details:
Here it is:
Top is tempered glass. Did I said that this thing weights a TON?
Rear connections:
Bottom:
X-SABRE 3 next to mini-i Pro 3:
Screen:
Paired with Raspberry Pi 4 and Display with RoPieee to show metadata as the X-SABRE 3 screen is too small to show metadata:
Full desk system:
Want to thanks @MatrixAudio for answering all my questions before making my purchase. Also asking @MatrixAudio officially to send one of these bad boys to @amirm for testing and review
I will post my listening impressions in a few hours after listening to my favorite "Calibration" playlist but as of right now, I have found a couple of minor bugs (not deal breaker but certainly annoying) that pretty sure can be fixed in a future firmware update. Feel free to ask any question regarding the X-SABRE 3 functionality and I will do the proper test.
First let me tell you that I'm a big fan of Matrix Audio products. They are to me the Oppo of streamers. Their products show a level of quality and attention to detail that excels over other companies, including some that charge almost 3 times for products with even less performance. I got a Matrix Audio mini-i Pro 3 at the beginning of the year and I have been using it every single day for about 6 hours every day without a single glitch. I use Roon as my streaming platform with local library stored in a Synology DS1019+ NAS, Qobuz and TIDAL services and everything works like a charm. I also have an ARCAM ST60 and Bluesound NODE. All 4 streamers are Roon Ready and all of them work perfectly fine in my Roon ecosystem.
Here some photos of the unboxing process:
Attention to details:
Here it is:
Top is tempered glass. Did I said that this thing weights a TON?
Rear connections:
Bottom:
X-SABRE 3 next to mini-i Pro 3:
Screen:
Paired with Raspberry Pi 4 and Display with RoPieee to show metadata as the X-SABRE 3 screen is too small to show metadata:
Full desk system:
Want to thanks @MatrixAudio for answering all my questions before making my purchase. Also asking @MatrixAudio officially to send one of these bad boys to @amirm for testing and review
I will post my listening impressions in a few hours after listening to my favorite "Calibration" playlist but as of right now, I have found a couple of minor bugs (not deal breaker but certainly annoying) that pretty sure can be fixed in a future firmware update. Feel free to ask any question regarding the X-SABRE 3 functionality and I will do the proper test.
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