High-rez digital: two Sabre-based DAC’s, evaluated and compared

Review by Mark Morris Matrix X-Sabre Audio DAC Yulong Sabre DA8 DAC with pre-amplifier and Class A Headphone amplifier Both imported and sold exclusively by Grant Fidelity (www.grantfidelity.com) who supplied the review samples Associated equipment used: Pioneer DV-09 used as CD transport Cambridge Audio Azur 650BD Blu-ray player Cambridge Audio DAC Magic Plus Home-built PC running Windows 8.1 Sonic Frontiers SFD-2 Mk III DAC Sonic Frontiers Line 2 tube pre-amplifier Sonic Frontiers Power 1 and Radford STA-15 MkIII power amplifiers KEF 107 Reference loudspeakers As I have continued my exploration of digital sources for Wall of Sound, I am beginning to be counted among the converted. We’ve probably all heard an audio lover claim that those high bit rate files are just so much hype. “96? 192? You just can’t hear the difference.” Well, you can, and perhaps for the first time since the advent of the CD digital sound quality is finally coming into its own. So we are in a new and rather complex age. On the one hand we have the down-dumbing of audio quality for the mp3 mass market, exemplified, for example, by Bruce Springsteen’s more recent CDs, where the dynamic and frequency ranges have been massively [...]