Sabaj D5 - Owners' Thread

[eboleyn]

I'm abusing the Sabaj D5 headphone amplifier balanced (4-pin XLR) output to effectively drive a set of speakers (actually using the Raal SR1a "impedance matching box" which expects to be connected to a normal speaker amp at 8-ohm-ish impedance and ~91 db/watt sensitivity).

I like relatively quiet listening compared to most, so we're talking averaging maybe 10mW or 100mW when it's loud to me. After a maybe 1 hour listening session the box got reasonably warm but not hot, but I have seen various commentary saying that there are not heatsinks on some parts... For example, if you look at the fact that it can deliver ~1.3W for a 50 ohm load, then if I deliver 1 watt into that ~8 ohm load (call it a factor of 6), the internal amp (which is 3 ohm) will see ~36x the heat dissipation it would have otherwise.

So, I guess I'm curious if anyone officially knows how much power the internal parts of the headphone amp are rated to take safely.

EDIT: Turns out the Sabaj D5 amp is not delivering the full power into 8 ohms (or I was driving it harder than I thought) and was doing some kind of soft clipping (that's good at least). It was nice to play with it but I think I'm going to play it safe and not use it this way regularly.

 

[officialsm]

User manual Is not so useful.
Anyone could explain me DIMMER menu level and home set It?

About filtets which do you suggest to use?

Anyone can explain means of DIMMER menù?

 

[Patrick1958]

Anyone can explain means of DIMMER menù?

Function to dim the display

 

[officialsm]

Function to dim the display

Thank you. Do you know in what means the settings in OUTPUT menu?
Which i have to choice?

 

[Patrick1958]

As described in the manual page 17:
- Line out
- HP SE Out (Headphone Single Ended Out)
- HP BAL Out (Headphone Balanced Out)

 

[officialsm]

Hi all,
seems firmware versione 1.7 has been released. I cannot find changelog, in your opinion will be useful to upgrade?

 

[Malis]

Can you provide link for the version download?

 

[officialsm]

Can you provide link for the version download?

found here

Sabaj Audio Official-Sabaj音频官网

Since the establishment of our company, we have been committed to an enterprise integrating audio product design, R&D, production, market operation and service.There are mainly three categories: decoder/headphone amplifier/power amplifier. Our company is composed of a group of members who love...

www.sabaj.com.cn

 

[Mr. Olinad]

Nice!!!
Good to know that the company still cares for the "old" products.
@peterwen are you still around?
Do you know something about this new firmware version?

 

[Mr. Olinad]

I just did it anyway.
The instructions are way better this time and they also included the needed software, so it was almost NNF.
But... IT'S NOT TURNING ON!!!
PLEASE, BE CAREFULL!!!
I'll let you know what's the outcome.

 

[RickSanchez]

But... IT'S NOT TURNING ON!!!
PLEASE, BE CAREFULL!!!

 

[Mr. Olinad]

Ok guys... so it'll be here for the eternity...
I just played dumb and Erased the chip but forgot to Program Device after.
That was in the manual, it's completely my fault and I failed on a simple NNF task.

It's turned on now and the display shows V1.7 2021-10-8
So it's a safe update unless you suffer from ADHD.

 

[RickSanchez]

Thanks for testing this out and for the updates @Mr. Olinad!

Hopefully we hear something from @peterwen as to what features/fixes are in v1.7.

 

[Mr. Olinad]

As I'm already in the mood, I looked for an XMOS USB DAC DCP update and found a version 5.12.0 from SMSL.
In Sabaj's site the latest version is the 4.67.0 from 2020-05-07.
The v5.12.0 is from 2021-06-15.

Do you guys know if these versions are compatible?
In SMSL's site there are DACs using v4.67 (Sanskrit 10th MKⅡ), v4.82 (Sanskrit 10th), v5.00 (M10) and v5.12 (M500)
https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/downlist/id/11.html

Sabaj used to have an additional file that was called "USB anti-interference" that disappeared with the release of the new firmware.
Maybe they did something in the firmware that made the USB anti-interference file obsolete?

As the driver is something way easier to rollback, I'll try the v5.12 from SMLS and see what happens.

 

[DACslut]

As I'm already in the mood, I looked for an XMOS USB DAC DCP update and found a version 5.12.0 from SMSL.
In Sabaj's site the latest version is the 4.67.0 from 2020-05-07.
The v5.12.0 is from 2021-06-15.

Do you guys know if these versions are compatible?
In SMSL's site there are DACs using v4.67 (Sanskrit 10th MKⅡ), v4.82 (Sanskrit 10th), v5.00 (M10) and v5.12 (M500)
https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/downlist/id/11.html

Sabaj used to have an additional file that was called "USB anti-interference" that disappeared with the release of the new firmware.
Maybe they did something in the firmware that made the USB anti-interference file obsolete?

As the driver is something way easier to rollback, I'll try the v5.12 from SMLS and see what happens.

Any luck with the newer SMSL driver or f/w changelog info? Thanks.

 

[Mr. Olinad]

Any luck with the newer SMSL driver or f/w changelog info? Thanks.

it worked but at some point I started listening distortion in some tracks when playing on my steteo speakers.
Unfortunately (or fortunatelly in my case), it's hollyday in my country and I'll be out up to Tuesday so I had no time for investigation.
But I clearly could hear distortion where I've never listened to so I don't know if it's the firmware, the driver, the connection (I disconnected everything when refreshing the firmware) or even the source as I've changed to Tidal recently.
It was pretty clear that when some higher notes were played it was coming with a buzz.
As it's just a driver I think you can try it even before the firmware update, but I'll investigate what's happening in my system and I'll tell you ASAP.

 

[Mr. Olinad]

Any luck with the newer SMSL driver or f/w changelog info? Thanks.

Unfortunately we still don't have any changelog.
About my previously related distortion problem I just realized that it's a track problem.
It happens on Queensrÿche's Out of Mind track, between 1:40 and 1:45.
I did some updates and rollbacks between v5.12 and v4.67 and the only difference I felt was that it was sounding brighter, then I realized that it wasn't set as Full-Range speakers on windows speaker setup.
So I'll keep the v5.12 and report back if I find any issue.

 

[DACslut]

Any final word or judgement on the latest firmware? I haven't gotten around to updating my D5 yet and probably won't until I see a worthy enough need for it. I'll likely try the newer SMSL v5.12 driver soon tho. Are you happy with it so far?

 

[Carlo2AC]

What changed between the unit that Amir review and the latest firmware? what quirks should i know about the Sabaj D5? has there been any attempt at taming the ESS hump?

 

[RickSanchez]

What changed between the unit that Amir review and the latest firmware?

You'll probably have to read through this thread as I don't think there's a definitive list of the firmware updates (and the features of those firmware updates) that have occurred since Amir's review. I believe firmware v1.6 included 90 step volume control, up from 40 or something like that. But that's all I can remember off the top of my head.

what quirks should i know about the Sabaj D5?

You might have to be more specific with your question. If you read Amir's review that will tell you a lot, including that the D5 takes a little while to warm up after power on to reach peak performance. The amp section is great but not SOTA in that it's a bit under-powered; that may not matter to you depending on your headphones and/or if you're using the XLR (balanced) out.

has there been any attempt at taming the ESS hump?

Short answer: no. (AFAIK that is not something that can be addressed via firmware, but I could be wrong.) But that ESS hump is pretty tame and likely not audible.