I thought I would share my review of this DAC with you.
Alas, I think it shows that my original Active Speakers do not benefit ( in my opinion ) from upgrading the DAC as the one it has was perfectly good. This could be different if you have amps and passive, driven speakers.
I wrote this on the original product that was manufactured and would preface it that I don't do separates and pref simplicity of Active speakers and I'm currently running Buchardt A500's. I also found that if running off a Mac SoundSource did all I need to alter or tweak the audio to my personal preferences.
If anyone wants to test something before it goes to market, I'm pretty OCD about details.
****************
Firstly I would like to say total respect to the developer of this product. His knowledge and insight to produce this product far outweighs what most people can do by a long shot. The complexities of design, manufacturing and software development are way beyond most people. To then actually produce a product and ship it, my hat is well and truly off to him.
I’m 53 and from a technical background and have to admit I do suffer slightly with OCD !! Equally, I am quite normal and can be exposed to normal people. I have some
friends you can’t even put them in-front of normal people as they just don’t do social situations, I’m sure we all have friends like that.
I hope you / manufacturer view my comments in the manner they are meant and that is constructive allowing the manufacture to improve the areas which they choose to do so.
1. Product Delivery
1. Delivery from you. Perfect. Quick effective transaction followed up with tracking information and online interaction.
2. Packaging of the product itself is very good. Very well protected enough so even with quite heavy impacts it would survive without effecting the product.
3. The clear cover over the cables, nicely sealed. The seal over the product itself, perhaps apply the same sticky seal to that as well.
4. On Packaging logo / signature, nice clear and elegant.
5. In a new world of reusability I prefer the fact this is a simple brown box.
6. No batteries with remote. At £400 one would ‘expect’ batteries.
7. No UK power adapter was included. As it’s going into the UK market I would ‘expect’ at least an adapter.
8. No manual included in the box. At worst a booklet or Boucher should be included pointing to the appropriate web site. See 2.3.C.
2. Product Erganomics
1. Perhaps 1 more mm on the top of the chassis to give it a more ‘solid’ / ‘professional’ feel because everyone gives the case of products a ‘tap’. Remember the days of the open / close mechanism of a CD player
2. Look / Finish. The Finish is very nice. I’m guessing there is a plastic cover over the display as there seems to be a ‘crease’ top right. I didn’t try to remove this.
3. The rear of the product, very nice. The spacing and organising is perfect. The only improvement I could see in this is to print what is currently present, but also an upside down version, so when you lean over the top of the device you know what’s going on. This should not increase costs at all, but makes it feel a bit more polished.
4. Sides, nicely vented and nicely designed.
5. If the knob at the front was milled aluminium that would feet so much better.
3. Front panel. Mmmm… This is very very subjective and dependant upon the market the manufacturer is aiming for. But my thoughts are :-
A. Needs a Db Indicator.
B. No incoming format indicator ( 24 / 32 / 64 bit … ) to allow you ‘know’ your getting what you think your feeding the unit. C. Icons are nice. However for me, too small. I would prefer a digital panel read out as per above.
D. It is not at all intuitive to figure out what’s going on and you need to go online to do so because no brochure. ( see 1.8. )
E. The colours used, very nice, stylish.
F. When you get close and look at the icons ( sorry for being old ) they are crisp clear and a very nicely designed
3. Product Operation
1. Switching between input devices is VERY nice. Keeping levels, no clipping / noises… Smooth
2. The way in which the product exposes itself to Bluetooth and via USB is different, not sure if this is an effect of the OS. But I like the same thing to show in a certain way.
At the moment
Bluetooth Interface Soncox-SGD1
USB Interface SGD1
Would prefer
Bluetooth Interface Soncox-SGD1
USB Interface Soncox-SGD1
However, not sure if anything can be done about that as it could be OS dependant.
3. Keeps cool after a few hours of operation. No noise from the box.
4. Has not hiccuped once during my short usage, no loss of signal sound, icons ect.
4. Online Product Documentation
1. The main product brochure is very nice and clear. However more effort must be made to firmware upgrades and if possible interaction with the host OS.
2. I’m not a windows user, so can only comment about Apple stuff - A little bit on how to start up the ‘Apple Midi Interface’ utility, otherwise the user will be prob be stuck in 24bit @ 44.1khz. Now, it could be the case the manufacture expects the user to have this knowledge, perhaps all manufactures expect this. Don’t be like the others, help the user out. You might be explaining something
to the user they had no idea about.
3. On page (
http://www.soncoz.com/sgd1.html#/) at the bottom group those Links as :-
Windows ( Thesycon Driver ), Android ( OTA Tool ) and the two other non-platform related - User Manual & RoSH. At the moment it is inconsistent.
4. On page (
http://www.soncoz.com/sgd1.html#/ the DOWNLOADS link at the bottom of the page is broken and takes you too - (
http://www.soncoz.com/downloads.html ) Which gets a 404 Errors.
4. Software Updates
I think this has been pointed out in the forums. Personally the approach taken is perfectly acceptable and works.
The BIG problem is, this has not been communicated at all well to the customers.
There is ambiguity to which app to download - this can be resolved by more distinctive icons and actual images from the App Store or
Android equivalent along with a dummy set of instructions, preferably written by a technical author not the developer ( I say this being a developer !! ).
Due to the lack of any LCD or display panel you don’t know if it’s worked or not, what level your at ect. Now, it could be that this ‘app’ resolves these issues by communicating the firmware level on the device, but I have no idea what the hell the app was for.
5. Product Performance
( Listening to Kate Bush / Some Rock
I am using Active Speakers that have both a built in DAC and RCA inputs.
My ‘normal’ system is :-
Mac -> USB -> Behringer UC202 -> Optical -> Speaker’s DAC -> Amp -> Speakers
The ‘SONCOZ’ system is :-
Mac - USB - > SONCOZ -> RCA - Speaker -> Amp -> Speakers
I then played ( he says ) by setting up the levels so the following inputs were running at 75db via pink noise on a db meter.
I then switched between
A. ‘Normal’ sytsem
B. ‘SONCOZ’ system
C. ‘Bluetooth’ interface ( Mac -> Bluetooth -> SONCOZ -> RCA - Speaker -> Amp -> Speakers
When switching between the three I could tell a ‘slight’ difference between A and B&C, but not much and to be honest I would have to spend a few days with other forms of music to verbalise it.
However if I mute my Mac and listen to :-
A. No hiss - nothing
B. hiss.
Now, I did try a couple of RCA cables inc. Atlas Equator 75 ohm. However it could be the case the under scenarios A. the speaker is dejecting no signal / sound and just cutting the amp in the speaker.
6. Summary
Can I hear a difference between using my active speakers with a built in DAC and this external DAC and the RCA connector. If I’m honest, I can’t, I really can’t. Perhaps a slight ‘richer/smoother’ or warmness
from the SONCOZ but that could be for many different reasons. I might give it a few more days to see if I can notice, but as a gut feel I can not.
This might not be a fault of the DAC itself but that I have got used to the speakers with built in DAC, which is super simple, elegant and seems to work. I was looking to see if perhaps external DAC’s would improve the sound.
Now the speakers I’m using are VERY clinical and are a set of ( sorry for perhaps being controversial ) AVI ADM9.1RSS’s. I think the DAC on these speakers is a Burr-Brown 24bit unto 96kHz. I did have the ADM10’s and could hear a difference between the two modals and the 10’s were better prob due to the drivers they used.
In my book, I would have the preference that my sound is not coloured even it makes it sound bad due to a poor recording. Is it my ears are not attuned to the differences in sound, due to my age, this could be the case but my wife will attest to my very keen ear at hearing the slightest of noise.
This probably means I will be returning the product to you, if that is ok. And perhaps seek your advise on a potential speaker upgrade if you now know I like a clinical uncoloured speaker and the only addition I would like to add would be room eq’ing.
My main objective here is to assist the developer / manufacturer.