Hi
I have been playing around with dacs on my raspberry pi to try and get best possible quality. I am looking at changing my exposure dac with a audiophonics sabre dac.
I have done a side by side comparison of these Dac's on my stereo through a Primare amp and some vienna acoustic speaker.
I have been using a logitech squeezebox touch with the exposure dac. so I have tested all the dacs with the picore software. running squeezebox server. After listening to various different type of music from rock, dance, folk, jazz and classical. here is my thought on the sound quality.
Hifiberry sabre comparison.
sabre bit more tighter bass little more forward, bit more separation between instruments. more relaxed listen. but with nice detail.
HIFIberry thinner bass, flatter sound, brighter highs, sounds a little more stressed but detailed.
Exposure 2010s DAC / squeezebox. closer to the sabre dac sound, with a nice warmer mid. A bit more enphasis on certain sounds bit more twang in guitar strings.
They all sound good but overall I prefer the sabre and exposure DAC's. the hifi berry still sounds good it just reminds me of a cheaper cd player not quite got the balanced sound of the sabre and exposure. to my ears.
So I shall be using the hifiberry on my second stereo. and keep the Sabre for my main stereo.
I am waiting for my linear PSU to arrive so next step will be with better linear PSU. to see if it improves things a bit more.
