Pi3 Audio: Hint for DIY ES9018K2M I2S Decoder Boards..

Many many thx to You !!! for your wonderful,wonderful Dietpi !!! so great !!, really :slight_smile:

no, bought the 2 on ebay-> http://www.ebay.com/itm/ES9018K2M-ES9018-I2S-input-DAC-decoder-board-for-Raspberry-Pi-/332008203526?hash=item4d4d3b2506:g:6r4AAOSwHMJYCH87 → 12,50$

and->http://www.ebay.com/itm/ES9023-24Bit-192KHZ-Decoding-Board-I2S-Input-DAC-Decoder-Module-For-DIY-Use-K3V9-/172451317939?hash=item2826e648b3:g:dOEAAOSwo4pYV-LX ->8$

the thing about the “sabre”-sound is this high-analytic, spaciousness and vividness (sorry for my bad english, im german(sorry about that :wink: )…

In the high-end hifi area its meanwhile the way to go…some little small factories use only this chips (XMOS-Chips, Gustard, Schiit, and so on)…

I myself for example, just bought a Cambridge Audio Dac Magic 100 of about 150$, it has Wolfson/BurrBrown Chips inside…normally this is “high class” but compared to the sabre-sound its absolut flat, less spacious- and vivid…
I couldnt believe it by myself, but they found really another “approach” of converting (its maybe this delta-sigma converting)
someone said:“forget about dual mono BurrBrown/Wolfson, this new unit shows what the ESS Sabre chip is truly capable of…
Just fantastically detailed all along the entire frequency range, wide open, huge soundstage and separation, no noticeable coloration, but slightly warm and ultimately spot on timbre. There’s more than sufficient dynamics and air. A very worthy musical experience…”

curiously, this ES9023 for about 8$ has more spaciousness, but is really “crappy”, u get a lot of distorted noise because its got the 5V from the Pi…(but curiously II: with the ES9023 u maybe get a better “idea” of the Sabre-Sound->absolut unbelievable spacious,vivid and analytic…)
The 12,50$ has its own power supply/needs 9-25V and is really “high-end”; absolut no noise and such things…it has a SNR of 127 !! db; and that for 12 bucks…unbelievable…

but soo many thx again for your wonderful,wonderful Dietpi !! :slight_smile: