Very interesting cute little DAC.
It’s very small but hides some high tech ingredients under the hood.
USB input is powerful XMOS Xcore200XU208 with 8 cores and 500 MIPS, with two high quality ultra-low phase noise crystals. Employing two modern ESS SABRE9018Q2C in dual balanced configuration for digital to analog conversion.

Everything is powered from multiple low impedance SMD capacitors at USB input, through couple of voltage regulators. Final touch must be the two ultra-low noise LDO’s, powering two Sabre DAC’s, the heart of this product.

The PCB is of very high quality, connections are gold plated and everything is putted together in a brushed aluminum box. There’s a silicon rubber glued under the box. Very practical, because we are talking about very small and lightweight DAC that needs a firm grip on the table. And it works great, even big heavy cables cant move it easily.

There is some logic ic’s and clear informative o-led display in combination with three buttons for changing the volume, toggling between single ended and balanced output, also possibility to change the output filters from the Sabre DAC’s. There are three of them: Fast rolloff, Slow rolloff and Minimum phase.
A lot of info can be found on official Sabaj link: [ Ссылка ]

Sabaj Da3 is great little USB DAC on paper and in real life, but what can it do with music in everyday use?
First of all, the specs are really impressive:
Dynamic range: 125dB
THD: 0.0004%
Signal to noise ratio: 118dB
Supported sampling rates are the best you can get: from 44.1 kHz all the way up to 768 kHz. From DSD64 to DSD512. All of that natively with excellent Thesycon based drivers. Asio or DoP mode, take your pick. They work flawlessly under Windows 10 on my PC, with Foobar2000 like my main music player with needed plugin components (Asio, Wasapi and DSD transcoder).

But what about the sound?
I have at my disposal Audioquest Dragonfly Black 1.5 & Red, also DacMagic 100 from Cambridge Audio. None of them was a worthy competitor to Sabaj Da3. I’m not talking about wide format support which is lacking in other contenders, but about sound quality.
Sabaj Da3 can paint extraordinary sound pictures with any music format. It’s scary how real solo piano can sound in DSD (I tested it even in DSD512!). But not just piano, acoustic guitars, saxophones, violins... Every instrument is spooky real, set in the right place in big three dimensional soundstage. Details are abundant and music flows naturally like it should.

My latest purchase in my extensive hi-def sound collection is “Jazz at the Pawnshop - Late Night” from Naxos & nativedsd.com in DSD256 sound quality. Completing this great live sessions from Pawnshop series and Arne Domnerus was natural thing to do, but what a surprise! Best sounding of them all, hands down. Vibes played by Lars Erstrand magically hangs in three dimensional space and leave me speechless. Bass and drums are on fire, with fast & rhythmical piano and Arne Domnerus alto sax or clarinet, spot on in front of me... Pure magic.
In audiophile circles there are some terms like veil or curtain lifted, etc. Here we have concrete walls demolished between you and the music. You are in the same room with the musicians. Period.

There’s some criticism about ESS Sabre DACs that are bright and cold sounding. With this Sabaj DAC, nothing is remotely like that. Overall sound is crystal clear, well balanced and not bright at all. Maybe because here we have two Sabre DACs working in dual balanced configuration, or best in the industry newest XMOS USB receiver doing some magic. Whatever the reason, Sabaj Da3 is in a class of its own and for just a $100 is a real steal.

This kind of technology was unimaginable few years ago, or was priced with four figures price tag. Now can be bought for a mere $100.
If you decide to buy it, I suggest official Sabaj store on Aliexpress: [ Ссылка ]
The staff is very responsive and will give you precise answer on any question you may have. Shipping was fast (for Aliexpress standards), and package was highly secured against damages.

What a great time to be an audiophile on a budget!

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