[Loquah]

I didn't find massive change with burn-in after the first hour or two. It was a little dry in the treble straight out of the box, but to my ears that cleared up really quickly.

 

[18inch]

just got mine as well, i have to admit, this was one HELL of an upgrade from my x-fi soundcard... seriously, and boy the construction of this thing is awesome!! the only thing that im not fond of is the 3 leg thing.. why?
 
anyways, one pretty awesome DAC that i wont have to bother with for years to come!

 

[shultzee]

  just got mine as well, i have to admit, this was one HELL of an upgrade from my x-fi soundcard... seriously, and boy the construction of this thing is awesome!! the only thing that im not fond of is the 3 leg thing.. why?
 
anyways, one pretty awesome DAC that i wont have to bother with for years to come!

 
  
Congrats.   Love mine as well.  Shocking how well they are constructed.  I haven't figured out the three leg thing either but it doesn't adversely effect anything.    I do feel mine has gotten even better with burn in or its my brain playing tricks.

 

[project86]

Three legs is or was somewhat common as an alternative to the usual four corners. Something about a triangle being more solid and rigid than a square.... I've seen it on some pretty esoteric gear in the past, though I'm not sure which companies still favor it.

 

[BeyerMonster]

Three legs is or was somewhat common as an alternative to the usual four corners. Something about a triangle being more solid and rigid than a square.... I've seen it on some pretty esoteric gear in the past, though I'm not sure which companies still favor it.

 
Three legs can generally find stability on rough surfaces more easily, where four legs can't (it will rock back/forth). Then again, these devices are typically being placed on a flat table, so it's mostly a non-issue. Of course, 1 less leg reduces the cost of raw materials.

 

[18inch]

After listening to some more of the X-Sabre, thoughts will be shared;
 
Software friendly:
 
Yes. It took me not more than 2 minute to install the drivers with the provided CD.
1. Plug the X-Sabre
2. Put in CD
3. Install Driver
4. Wait
5. Listen to your favorite music
 
Didn't need to uninstall my X-Fi drivers or anything of the sort. Simple, quick, efficient and extremely user friendly...
 
Also, I asked this earlier in this thread but I can confirm now that you can use the computer's volume control through the x-sabre.
 
 
Although, computers do crazy things sometimes and wild they do get at times... so YMMV.
 
Build:
 
You guys are right, the 3 legs concept actually really do seem to grip and "clamp" itself to whatever surface it is put on, also the soft rubber at the end of the tip is pretty awesome... never saw such quality and "carefully chosen material choice" feel on an equipment like that... Also the switches are really refreshing instead of the usual push button, simply turning on the device is a fun process using that switch. Weird but, I find the small details are equally important than most details. For those who wondered, I haven't seen it mentioned anywhere and although some pictures showed it, other picture seemed a bit off but the lights are white and matte, another excellent detail that didn't fail. I mean, if you have different components from different brands in your rig, sometime just the LED light can be the drawback of choosing a component, blue, red, sometime yellow, purple, there are so many different LED color on audio equipment, but white is safe, neutral and will blend with any other component. And the connections in the back speaks for themselves, they feel just like how the pictures makes you think how they would feel. Solid.
 
Sound:
 
I've listened to the X-Sabre for couple of days now and have to say.. its truly a beautiful sound! I'm not going to start a huge block of text as I find project86 really explained it well and he's the reason I got the X-Sabre in the first place and I thank him for that. I'm just going to point out the most obvious changes I initially found;
 
1. There is some kind of amazing depth and resolution in the texture of the music.
 
2. I can literally play music louder without feeling a strain in the music/compression. Kind of feel like it has amazingly huge lungs, heart/ cardiovascular capabilities. It actually reminded me of the sport bike i use to have, whoever had the chance to try one might understand. Just think slightly above speed limit is your standard hearing limit, X-Sabre is the motorcycle, and your the one riding the motorcycle. On the road, sports bike have unreal amounts of headroom, with RPM redlining from ~12000 for the bigger engine to ~16000 for smaller ones, you reach the speed limit with such tiny effort... for example, with a 1liter bike you can reach ~150 to 170 km/h in first gear, as much as this is crazy, its real and so is the X-Sabre... back to the point of what im trying to say is that the X-Sabre breaths effortlessly, has tons of volume headroom.
 
3. texture depth, tons of headroom, well these 2 things explains pretty much everything else. I wont get in the bass-mid-treble section, lets just say that its fairly neutral and does the frequencies do not squeeze and fall apart when the volume knob goes higher up, it stays tight and solid.
 
 
I'll leave it at that.
 
Thx for reading
 
BTW i would like to add that for those that are worried about not having a headphone jack with the X-Sabre, don't have a headphone amplifier and don't really need/want one, a great alternative is this: I found a really great quality RCAs Male to 3.5mm female (see picture) on ebay, it really is of great quality , thought i'd mention it since I had a hard time finding this type of adapter.
 
 

 
 

 

 

[Shini44]

^
 
hey i would suggest getting an XLR cables with RCA plug(or XLR to RCA) , trust me you will notice the difference immediately. 
 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013HT6JU/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
i am using this one with an RCA adapters, Huge difference, i did compare it with RCA to RCA 
 
the X-Sabre is made to be used as a Balance DAC to begin with. 

 

[kugino]

deciding whether i should pick up the x sabre or the anedio d2, both of which have units being sold in the FS forum. the x sabre is better-looking (IMHO) and has DSD, but the d2 seems to get some very high praise, though the sabre is no slouch either. i have two other DACs coming in that are both DSD-capable (pulse x and the micro iDSD, both of which should ship in the next few months) so DSD capability is not a must. hmmm...

 

[Loquah]

  ^
 
hey i would suggest getting an XLR cables with RCA plug(or XLR to RCA) , trust me you will notice the difference immediately. 
 
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013HT6JU/ref=oh_details_o01_s00_i00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
 
i am using this one with an RCA adapters, Huge difference, i did compare it with RCA to RCA 
 
the X-Sabre is made to be used as a Balance DAC to begin with. 

 
It's definitely worth using the XLRs if you have an amp that takes balanced input, but there's no need to worry about it if your amp takes unbalanced (RCA) input only. If you compensate for the much higher voltage from the XLRs, the sound is identical from both when running into an unbalanced input.
 
I tried this extensively with my Mainline amp by switching between the XLRs and RCAs. So long as I adjusted the volume up for the RCAs / down for the XLRs, the quality of sound was identical.

 

[Shini44]

   
It's definitely worth using the XLRs if you have an amp that takes balanced input, but there's no need to worry about it if your amp takes unbalanced (RCA) input only. If you compensate for the much higher voltage from the XLRs, the sound is identical from both when running into an unbalanced input.
 
I tried this extensively with my Mainline amp by switching between the XLRs and RCAs. So long as I adjusted the volume up for the RCAs / down for the XLRs, the quality of sound was identical.

i had to get the RCA adapter anyway cause this was a HQ cable where my RCA cables are normal LQ copper etc, the other one is as you see from the link copper/silver hybrid, good one for the price.

btw i got few more items that i am considering, 
 
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0030EXA32/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1ED8WLW4CR1G3&coliid=I26MVCW8BEN1TP
 
and
 
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005AWYC9I/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_S_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1ED8WLW4CR1G3&coliid=IZ4CEDPIEFPNP
 
two of the 1st one for the dac and amp,  since i got an amp that i wont change and X-Sabre will still be number one for  now then i guess i will upgrade the minor stuff not looking to get another headphone or CIEM atm, i got the TH900 and a CIEM made for me from Custom Art, super treble and bass + forward warm mids <3

i think your last CIEM were the Miracle right? remember when we had SE535LTD-J with Bladur MKII cable? haha the time is moving so fast ha  

 

[project86]

  deciding whether i should pick up the x sabre or the anedio d2, both of which have units being sold in the FS forum. the x sabre is better-looking (IMHO) and has DSD, but the d2 seems to get some very high praise, though the sabre is no slouch either. i have two other DACs coming in that are both DSD-capable (pulse x and the micro iDSD, both of which should ship in the next few months) so DSD capability is not a must. hmmm...

 
 
Both are really nice. Anedio is more neutral, "reference" sounding, very detailed and well defined. X-Sabre is more of a "listener's" DAC, slightly more colored in a pleasing way, and of course has the DSD option if you might use it. 

 

[Loquah]

X-Sabre friends, I have a question for you and I hope someone can help. Today I tried a short and imperfect comparison (to the best of my ability with the available options) between the USB and coaxial input of the X-Sabre. I used my laptop with Chord Silver Plus USB cable and my Fiio X5 with coaxial cable and had both playing the same tracks. I found that the sound from the coaxial was louder, but also that (once volume matched) the sound from coaxial seemed smoother and cleaner with more details. I am trying to work out if a USB-to-SPDIF converter would benefit my computer audio or if this is a difference in source quality rather than a reflection on the X-Sabre.
 
I re-read Project86's original review where he discusses this so hopefully I don't need to buy an extra box for the system, but can anyone comment on their own experiences in this area?

 

[Gibalok]

You can try Berkeley alfa usb converter. But the price 2x to X-Sabre. I believe that will improve usb signal processing.

Matrix sells its own usb to spdif converters, but not sure it make sense to use before x-sabre.

 

[Maxvla]

X-Sabre uses the tech from Matrix's USB converter. Probably won't make a difference. I don't hear anything different between the inputs.

 

[Loquah]

Thanks Maxvla and Gibalok. I am probably going to test the Matrix X-SPDIF just out of curiosity.
 
Quote:

X-Sabre uses the tech from Matrix's USB converter. Probably won't make a difference. I don't hear anything different between the inputs.

 
Maxvla, for my peace of mind, can you tell me what you used to compare the 2 inputs? I am trying to determine if perhaps it's a difference of cables / source output at my end.