Tempotec Sonata HD Pro DAC/AMP-> Amazing sound, small size, affordable price!
Apr 3, 2021 at 8:29 PM Post #91 of 138
I would like to add that these measurements were made with a simple multimeter, without being able to analyse the waveforms, at least with the naked eye. Now, I have a small oscilloscope, how does this improve the measurements? Well, I can't analyse the THD, but you can see if the waveforms are pure or deformed or saturated. That can give you an idea: if the wave is clean there is no visible distortion, the THD will be lower.
I can make a small measurement now, to see if I have a similar impedance...

Edit:

Well, I had some time and did a quick measurement of the Sonata HD Pro with my little oscilloscope and some 33 Ohms and 48 Ohms resistors (33 + 15 Ohms) and these are the results:

33 Ohms: As expected, the oscilloscope shows a drop in voltage, which the multimeter is unable to detect. Anyway, almost 1.5V RMS at 33 Ohms is a good figure.

Sonata HD Pro 33.jpg

48 Ohms: With this impedance, you can almost use the device, at full volume, giving a voltage of almost 1.9V RMS over the entire range. I think that's pretty good for an SE output in a fairly inexpensive device.

Sonata HD Pro 48.jpg

It should be understood that the volume has been set to the maximum that allows the waveform to be seen without visible distortion, in 0.5dB steps, using pure waveforms, amplitude 1, in FLAC 96000 Hz format. For playback I have used the Foobar2000 connected to my Windows 10 PC, under the ASIO driver provided by Tempotec.
To get the maximum power that the HD Pro can give, I used the trick of the 3.5mm male-to-female angled converter, connected to the output (no load) when plugged into the PC. This "tricks" the Sonata into pretending it has a very high load connected and automatically sets itself to high gain.

By the way @baskingshark, thank you for your thoughtful words. I think you think highly of my reviews, but I think you're exaggerating ... :wink:

Finally, I think that when the Sonata HD Pro is set to low gain, I don't think it will give less than 1V. This gives 117dB for the Etymotic Research ER4XR. I think that's already a pretty high volume.

2021-04-03_212238.jpg

And at high gain you can push this headphone to the maximum of its supported power.

2021-04-03_212141.jpg

Thanks for the great info!

Anyways, can any folks here help @Jitu13 with some queries here (posted from another thread), I think the problem is that the ER4SR etymotic gets no sound with the Tempotec Sonata HD Pro. It shouldn't be a drivability issue as the etymotics aren't the toughest IEM to drive.

I'm not very technical so any advise for us is much appreciated!


I got my sonata hd pro (amp+dac, around $50 ish in us) and neoteck ntk059(just pure amp, $30 ish) yesterday. First the neoteck has lots of problem with hissing! Especially if your iem is not high impedance (16 ohm iem has lot of bg noise! Especially in high gain, the low gain mode suppresses a lot of noise). Even my er4sr suffer from hiss(small but noticeable) for high gain. There is also hissing when you charge, when you are near refrigerator, movement in the 3.5mm jack (I guess you git the drill) :sweat_smile::sweat_smile::sweat:. But the saving grace is when you are hearing music, I never heard them. Sonata hd pro on the other hand, has no hissing issue. The only problem I face with it till now is that it doesn't play well with my smartphone! For example it doesn't drive my er4sr at all from my galaxy s10e! It does drive other low impedance iem though. I will try the trick of using a 3.5mm to 3.5mm jack to drive it to highest voltage to see if it solves the issue with my smartphone.
Initial impression: both of them makes the sound from my er4sr sharper. They also retrieves more details. Not sure which one retrieves more. Once I hear them enough maybe I will have a definitive answer. Neoteck also colors the sound a bit (warmer, with more bass). On the other hand, sonata hd pro doesn't color the sound to my ear.
So as was pointed out above, maybe sonata hd pro is your best bet.

Well I use Spotify for music, is there any way to force it? Also as I was testing it with er4sr, I thought it would use the full power, no?
*Update* It can play my edx from my galaxy s10e. Also the sound is quite good and has high volume. On the other hand, there is no sound when I use my er4sr! Is this a hardware issue?
 
Apr 3, 2021 at 8:53 PM Post #92 of 138
I would like to add that these measurements were made with a simple multimeter, without being able to analyse the waveforms, at least with the naked eye. Now, I have a small oscilloscope, how does this improve the measurements? Well, I can't analyse the THD, but you can see if the waveforms are pure or deformed or saturated. That can give you an idea: if the wave is clean there is no visible distortion, the THD will be lower.
I can make a small measurement now, to see if I have a similar impedance...

Edit:

Well, I had some time and did a quick measurement of the Sonata HD Pro with my little oscilloscope and some 33 Ohms and 48 Ohms resistors (33 + 15 Ohms) and these are the results:

33 Ohms: As expected, the oscilloscope shows a drop in voltage, which the multimeter is unable to detect. Anyway, almost 1.5V RMS at 33 Ohms is a good figure.

Sonata HD Pro 33.jpg

48 Ohms: With this impedance, you can almost use the device, at full volume, giving a voltage of almost 1.9V RMS over the entire range. I think that's pretty good for an SE output in a fairly inexpensive device.

Sonata HD Pro 48.jpg

It should be understood that the volume has been set to the maximum that allows the waveform to be seen without visible distortion, in 0.5dB steps, using pure waveforms, amplitude 1, in FLAC 96000 Hz format. For playback I have used the Foobar2000 connected to my Windows 10 PC, under the ASIO driver provided by Tempotec.
To get the maximum power that the HD Pro can give, I used the trick of the 3.5mm male-to-female angled converter, connected to the output (no load) when plugged into the PC. This "tricks" the Sonata into pretending it has a very high load connected and automatically sets itself to high gain.

By the way @baskingshark, thank you for your thoughtful words. I think you think highly of my reviews, but I think you're exaggerating ... :wink:

Finally, I think that when the Sonata HD Pro is set to low gain, I don't think it will give less than 1V. This gives 117dB for the Etymotic Research ER4XR. I think that's already a pretty high volume.

2021-04-03_212238.jpg

And at high gain you can push this headphone to the maximum of its supported power.

2021-04-03_212141.jpg
I can’t seem to be able to use that calculator. How loud does it get if inserting 0.5v of the Apple dongle?
 
Apr 3, 2021 at 9:04 PM Post #93 of 138
Thanks for the great info!

Anyways, can any folks here help @Jitu13 with some queries here (posted from another thread), I think the problem is that the ER4SR etymotic gets no sound with the Tempotec Sonata HD Pro. It shouldn't be a drivability issue as the etymotics aren't the toughest IEM to drive.

I'm not very technical so any advise for us is much appreciated!
Thanks for pointing me in the right direction! Can someone help me on this regard? So far I tried edx and er4sr. I will try some more iem, and update this post.
Update: Nothing works with my Galaxy S10e, while every iems paired with sonata hd pro works with my MacBook Pro.
 
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Apr 3, 2021 at 9:42 PM Post #95 of 138
You’re using the ER4SR and KZ EDX and get no sound at all?! Am I understanding correctly? What sources did you use?
Well I tried most of the iems I have, none of them work when I use my Galaxy s10e as my source. All of them work for my MacBook Pro.
*EDIT* iems tested: ER4SR, EDX, BLON bl03, ZS10 Pro, AKG EO-IG955.
 
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Apr 3, 2021 at 10:41 PM Post #97 of 138
Apr 3, 2021 at 11:21 PM Post #98 of 138
Update: Finally it's working on my smartphone! I did a lot of thing in my settings, like using midi for usb config, debugging on, and still it was not working. Turns out all I needed was a reboot!! :rolling_eyes::rolling_eyes: Thanks for all the help guys.:slight_smile:
 
Apr 4, 2021 at 1:29 AM Post #99 of 138
Update: Finally it's working on my smartphone! I did a lot of thing in my settings, like using midi for usb config, debugging on, and still it was not working. Turns out all I needed was a reboot!! :rolling_eyes::rolling_eyes: Thanks for all the help guys.:slight_smile:

Haha so it appears that the adage of IT support's first universal solution to any electronic or computer problem is to ask "have you restarted your device?" is legit.

Glad it works now friend, but your journey has only begun!!! I think next step is to explore a 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm adapter to make it sing at max 2V output all the time. Or if u are more adventerous, to flash the BHD firmware on it (do at own risk!)
 
Apr 4, 2021 at 2:33 AM Post #100 of 138
Haha so it appears that the adage of IT support's first universal solution to any electronic or computer problem is to ask "have you restarted your device?" is legit.

Glad it works now friend, but your journey has only begun!!! I think next step is to explore a 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm adapter to make it sing at max 2V output all the time. Or if u are more adventerous, to flash the BHD firmware on it (do at own risk!)
I already ordered the adapter, I forgot to bundle it with my sonata.
Oh I suppose the purpose of flashing is to get it to output 2V all the time! I will go through this thread then, I guess it should be here. Thanks again! 😊
 
Apr 4, 2021 at 5:15 AM Post #101 of 138
Thanks @jeejack for the pro tip, I've flashed my Tempotec Sonata HD Pro to the BHD firmware (DO AT OWN RISK!), works like a charm (I used the same numbers as the HD Pro firmware).

Indeed it got louder (ball park I would say 2x louder than the non flashed version), no need for the 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm trick anymore. It does get noticably warmer post BHD firmware, possibly cause more power is used, been using it for a few hours, no other issues so far.
I'm glad you succeeded. 🤘
 
Apr 4, 2021 at 4:13 PM Post #104 of 138
Haha so it appears that the adage of IT support's first universal solution to any electronic or computer problem is to ask "have you restarted your device?" is legit.

Glad it works now friend, but your journey has only begun!!! I think next step is to explore a 3.5 mm to 3.5 mm adapter to make it sing at max 2V output all the time. Or if u are more adventerous, to flash the BHD firmware on it (do at own risk!)
I went the 3.5-to-3.5 route instead of the firmware flash. Less risky, and the adapter was a whopping $6 at Amazon.
 
Apr 4, 2021 at 4:20 PM Post #105 of 138
Does the performance of the dac and amp of the Tempotec Sonata HD Pro outperform the Chord Mojo?
The Sonata measures much better than the Mojo for signal-to-noise distortion as a DAC. It's also better with jitter.

The Mojo has much more power but a lot more noise, too. Also consider that the Mojo is $500, and the Sonata HD Pro is $40/$60.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-measurements-of-chord-mojo-dac-and-amp.5120/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...dizs-s8-usb-c-headphone-adapter-review.10823/

Note: The Sonata HD Pro is identical to the Hidizs S8 but in different casing and from a different brand. It's also half the price. I also know what some people think of Amir and ASR around here, but it's the only place I can find comparable measurements for both units.
 

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