Hi Amirm,
thanks for your measurements. As an owner of a Sabaj DA3 myself, I read your review thoroughly however not being an expert when it comes to electronics I am having some troubles understanding one of the tests and its practical significance.
I am talking about the THD+N vs OUTPUT test :
As stated, the DA3 starts clipping at only 1 volt. To me it sounds surprisingly low to be considered a good dac am I wrong? (Your conclusions do not seem to give this too much importance to this result and I would like to understand why)
I would expect any decent dac to be able to put out at least 2v without clipping or rising distortion too much, no?
Another thing I do not understand is: if DA3 clips @ 1volt, why does the first "dashboard" view show it putting out 1.9 volts with a nice, non-clipped signal and distortion at about 0.003%? Should it not reflect clipping and distortion as seen in the output test?
It is very possible, as a noob, that I misunderstood the output test. What practical consequences does this clipping@1v have in real life usage?
What volume levels (given its 0-38 digital levels, 19 being the default) are safe to use into a 32 ohm load to avoid the above mentioned clipping and raised distortion?
Can the DA3 drive a high impedance load such as an ext amp decently without distorting and clipping?
Sorry for the many questions, just trying to understand as I said I own the device and I am wondering if it is worth keeping or not.
Me personally I like the way it sounds, generally, just I always noticed it seems to be very sensitive to noise coming into the usb interface, and in some cases i do hear some "glare" in the treble so maybe that is that infamous clipping/distortion mentioned earlier.
Thanks in advance
thanks for your measurements. As an owner of a Sabaj DA3 myself, I read your review thoroughly however not being an expert when it comes to electronics I am having some troubles understanding one of the tests and its practical significance.
I am talking about the THD+N vs OUTPUT test :
As stated, the DA3 starts clipping at only 1 volt. To me it sounds surprisingly low to be considered a good dac am I wrong? (Your conclusions do not seem to give this too much importance to this result and I would like to understand why)
I would expect any decent dac to be able to put out at least 2v without clipping or rising distortion too much, no?
Another thing I do not understand is: if DA3 clips @ 1volt, why does the first "dashboard" view show it putting out 1.9 volts with a nice, non-clipped signal and distortion at about 0.003%? Should it not reflect clipping and distortion as seen in the output test?
It is very possible, as a noob, that I misunderstood the output test. What practical consequences does this clipping@1v have in real life usage?
What volume levels (given its 0-38 digital levels, 19 being the default) are safe to use into a 32 ohm load to avoid the above mentioned clipping and raised distortion?
Can the DA3 drive a high impedance load such as an ext amp decently without distorting and clipping?
Sorry for the many questions, just trying to understand as I said I own the device and I am wondering if it is worth keeping or not.
Me personally I like the way it sounds, generally, just I always noticed it seems to be very sensitive to noise coming into the usb interface, and in some cases i do hear some "glare" in the treble so maybe that is that infamous clipping/distortion mentioned earlier.
Thanks in advance