Bencat
10-05-2020, 11:10
Not sure if anyone else has seen this and perhaps many are groaning over yet another DAC thread but I found this to be very intersting . Soncoz has been started by the original designer of the Tone Board which gained very good reviews and support . This was very much a DIY DAC board with main use with Raspberry Pi as a DAC addition.
The new company has moved away from the DIY and instead is making proper well finished items . Still using ESaber chip sets . Thing is that the all singing all dancing top unit as noted above can be had in the UK for around £450 which in the scheme of things is not that much . For those that are interested have a look at the site and the product page and take a few minutes to look at the Audio Science link thread. Now I have never been a great measurements man and have heard too many musical pieces of equipment that do not measure that well to use this as a main criteria to buy .
However if you read the inital measurement thread this unit does exceptionally well in all areas except one . Then if you look in the bottom left hand corner at the linked threads there is one that is by the designer to cure the ESS hump . Give that a good read through , firstly it is such a real eye opener to read from a designer his open thinking and work on how to solve this issue and what he was doing . It is also surprising that as this is a Chip fault then what he has published will enable any other designer using these chips to also solve the issue in their designs. He then goes on to say he recalled all units that were not fixed by this and had them upgraded . All current production units have been changed and now use the new capcitors and resistance values he changed so they now read across all the tests as faultless.
Given what I have read and ignoring the really high test figures I would love to hear one of these units more because I have respect and trust for for the designer and his openess and willingness to listen and change . I hope that someone in the UK takes this product on and lets it be easily purchased in the UK . In the mean time Audiophonics in France sell the both units and while we are still in the EU we can order them without import duty or VAT . If the top unit is still too expensive there is a cut down version at around £210 .
If anyone has already bought one of these would really like to hear your views on the unit. I fully understand that perfect test figures do not always translate in to perfect audio but I have a strong feeling that this design given the quality that was already present in the Tone Board will be very much a sonic quality DAC as well as a well perfoming test unit.
www.soncoz.com
https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/dac-with-volume/soncoz-la-qxd1-dac-balanced-es9038q2m-32-bit-768khz-dsd512-xmos-black-p-14529.html?search_query=SONCOZ&fast_search=fs
The new company has moved away from the DIY and instead is making proper well finished items . Still using ESaber chip sets . Thing is that the all singing all dancing top unit as noted above can be had in the UK for around £450 which in the scheme of things is not that much . For those that are interested have a look at the site and the product page and take a few minutes to look at the Audio Science link thread. Now I have never been a great measurements man and have heard too many musical pieces of equipment that do not measure that well to use this as a main criteria to buy .
However if you read the inital measurement thread this unit does exceptionally well in all areas except one . Then if you look in the bottom left hand corner at the linked threads there is one that is by the designer to cure the ESS hump . Give that a good read through , firstly it is such a real eye opener to read from a designer his open thinking and work on how to solve this issue and what he was doing . It is also surprising that as this is a Chip fault then what he has published will enable any other designer using these chips to also solve the issue in their designs. He then goes on to say he recalled all units that were not fixed by this and had them upgraded . All current production units have been changed and now use the new capcitors and resistance values he changed so they now read across all the tests as faultless.
Given what I have read and ignoring the really high test figures I would love to hear one of these units more because I have respect and trust for for the designer and his openess and willingness to listen and change . I hope that someone in the UK takes this product on and lets it be easily purchased in the UK . In the mean time Audiophonics in France sell the both units and while we are still in the EU we can order them without import duty or VAT . If the top unit is still too expensive there is a cut down version at around £210 .
If anyone has already bought one of these would really like to hear your views on the unit. I fully understand that perfect test figures do not always translate in to perfect audio but I have a strong feeling that this design given the quality that was already present in the Tone Board will be very much a sonic quality DAC as well as a well perfoming test unit.
www.soncoz.com
https://www.audiophonics.fr/en/dac-with-volume/soncoz-la-qxd1-dac-balanced-es9038q2m-32-bit-768khz-dsd512-xmos-black-p-14529.html?search_query=SONCOZ&fast_search=fs