[MoonAudio]

Matrix Audio X-SABRE 3​

$2,999.00
Order Now
​

With four years of technological expertise and research, Matrix Audio is now ready to announce the X-SABRE 3 and ignite a new generation in the X-SABRE line-up. Housed in a brand-new chassis, with a new user interface and sonic capabilities, the X-SABRE 3 DAC is now transformed to function fully as a network-capable streaming host.

Shop Nowhttps://www.moon-audio.com/x-sabre-3.html​

 

[BLacklWf]

Love to see its internal.

 

[normie610]

No reviews or impressions yet?

 

[nicolasnh]

Matrix Audio X-SABRE 3​

$2,999.00
Order Now
​

With four years of technological expertise and research, Matrix Audio is now ready to announce the X-SABRE 3 and ignite a new generation in the X-SABRE line-up. Housed in a brand-new chassis, with a new user interface and sonic capabilities, the X-SABRE 3 DAC is now transformed to function fully as a network-capable streaming host.

Shop Now​

Received it 2 days ago.
The detail information is insane. But it is a tad vivid in the midrange. Hope it settles down with more burn in hours. Heard to many hi-end dacs in my life but the micro details of the XSabre 3 is something else.
Had the XSabre Pro before for 4 months. While both share similarities I think this one is a step up in regards to transparency. If it calms down a bit it will be heck of a Hi-End dac for the money competing with anything out there regardless of price.
Once you have connect the dac to Internet (recommend using an Ethernet cable) Tidal Connect or Roon work without any issues.
I'm using a Mac mini as Roon core and is incredible to see the dac not connected with any wire to the Mac mini and sending you music from either Tidal, Qobus or from my hard disk in such quality.
I purchased the XSPDIF 2 as well and My AudioGD R8 is sounding a tad more tight in the bass with this unit. Seems like I2S is working very nice so far and the R8 is sounding very smooth and relax as well. The R8 sounds smooth in comparison to the Matrix dac but the XSPDiF 2 ads some extra focus I think.
To early to take conclusions but very promising so far.

 

[nicolasnh]

After roughly 150hs the XSabre 3 hasn't changed at all. Is super revealing.
I also received a new Denafrips Athena preamp, which is super transparent as well. I have spent over 100hs with this preamp already and also hasn't change yet.
I have a feeling the sound will continue like this. Both units are sounding crystal clear.
The amplifiers I'm using are the AudioGD Master 2H mono blocks and the Nord Acosutics NC500 MKII with Sonic Imagery op amps mono blocks.
Both amplifier brands sound very clean as well with very good control of the entire frequency bandwidth. Nothing stands out.
But the sound I'm getting is maybe a tad vivid in the midrange.
My other preamp is the AudioGD Master 1, which with my R8 ladder dac and either with the AudioGD or the Nord Acoustics mono blocks the system sounds smooth and balanced.
Can't wait to see some Measurements of the new Matrix XSabre 3.

 

[normie610]

After roughly 150hs the XSabre 3 hasn't changed at all. Is super revealing.

Is it a good thing or a bad thing?

 

[nicolasnh]

Can't tell right now. It all depends on the system you have and personal preferences.
If you are having a very revealing system, this dac maybe too much I guess.

 

[enricoclaudio]

Hi guys. First post on this forum. I'm posting here because I can see a review of the X-SABRE 3 which I also got 1 week ago. Sound is great and definitely better than my MA mini-i Pro 3 which I have next to the X-SABRE 3. Now the bad: as of today I have found 8 bugs so far. All of them have been confirmed by Matrix Audio and they are working in a new firmware to fix all of them. What worries me is that the owner posting in here says his X-SABRE 3 is performing well while mine not. Maybe am I too picky? I thought I got a faulty unit but according to Matrix Audio all the issues I have are firmware related and not hardware related. In any case, here is the bugs list so other owners could check if these bugs are present in theirs X-SABRE 3.

1. Auto Sleep function from Roon works most of the time but not always.

2. TIDAL Connect have a gap between songs of 4 secs when skipping tracks. It takes 4 secs for any song to start playing. Meaning there is no gapless playback. TIDAL is also looking at this bug as I reported it with TIDAL 2 days ago.

3. When playing Tidal Connect, once pause then play again there will be a short fade in occur.

4. Playing MQA, when pausing a MQA song, then replay, the song starts for about 1 sec, then stops then starts again with a fade in. All MQA songs start with a fade in, no matter if there is no change in sampling rate.

5. If X-SABRE 3 is on Standby and start playing a song from Roon, will get “Failed to open the Audio Device” error message on Roon. Pressing play twice makes the error message go away.

6. When playing with Roon DSD files at 2.8 or 11.2, no matter the sampling rate, if pause the song, as soon I press play again, there is a loud POP coming out of the speakers.

7.- PCM (FLAC) songs get cut by about 100ms to 250ms at the beginning of the song. This only happens with some songs, not all of them and mostly with songs from Qobuz.

None of the bugs reported happens with the Matrix Audio mini-i Pro 3 which I also own and it’s next to the X-SABRE 3 so it’s easy for me to discover new bugs.

Matrix Audio was able to replicate all the bugs reported above and they are already working to fix them. I also provided Matrix Audio with videos showing these bugs and songs playlist so they can easily replicate all the bugs discovered.

A new bug that happened yesterday while listening to some music:

The X-SABRE 3 screen got frozen. The X-SABRE 3 was playing but the screen remained with the same album cover for more than 10 songs. Skipping tracks had no change on the screen but the new track was playing. Tried to put it on standby with Roon, with the remote and with the standby X-SABRE 3 front panel power/standby button but after 1 sec on standby came back ON with the same album cover. Changing inputs did not solve the issue. I had to take the power cord out and after fully reboot the X-SABRE 3 screen cleared up. I know this could happen as it’s literally a computer and computers froze from time to time but it’s worthy to check if this is due to a firmware bug or just normal computer stuff.

 

[omniweltall]

Hi guys. First post on this forum. I'm posting here because I can see a review of the X-SABRE 3 which I also got 1 week ago. Sound is great and definitely better than my MA mini-i Pro 3 which I have next to the X-SABRE 3. Now the bad: as of today I have found 8 bugs so far. All of them have been confirmed by Matrix Audio and they are working in a new firmware to fix all of them. What worries me is that the owner posting in here says his X-SABRE 3 is performing well while mine not. Maybe am I too picky? I thought I got a faulty unit but according to Matrix Audio all the issues I have are firmware related and not hardware related. In any case, here is the bugs list so other owners could check if these bugs are present in theirs X-SABRE 3.

1. Auto Sleep function from Roon works most of the time but not always.

2. TIDAL Connect have a gap between songs of 4 secs when skipping tracks. It takes 4 secs for any song to start playing. Meaning there is no gapless playback. TIDAL is also looking at this bug as I reported it with TIDAL 2 days ago.

3. When playing Tidal Connect, once pause then play again there will be a short fade in occur.

4. Playing MQA, when pausing a MQA song, then replay, the song starts for about 1 sec, then stops then starts again with a fade in. All MQA songs start with a fade in, no matter if there is no change in sampling rate.

5. If X-SABRE 3 is on Standby and start playing a song from Roon, will get “Failed to open the Audio Device” error message on Roon. Pressing play twice makes the error message go away.

6. When playing with Roon DSD files at 2.8 or 11.2, no matter the sampling rate, if pause the song, as soon I press play again, there is a loud POP coming out of the speakers.

7.- PCM (FLAC) songs get cut by about 100ms to 250ms at the beginning of the song. This only happens with some songs, not all of them and mostly with songs from Qobuz.

None of the bugs reported happens with the Matrix Audio mini-i Pro 3 which I also own and it’s next to the X-SABRE 3 so it’s easy for me to discover new bugs.

Matrix Audio was able to replicate all the bugs reported above and they are already working to fix them. I also provided Matrix Audio with videos showing these bugs and songs playlist so they can easily replicate all the bugs discovered.

A new bug that happened yesterday while listening to some music:

The X-SABRE 3 screen got frozen. The X-SABRE 3 was playing but the screen remained with the same album cover for more than 10 songs. Skipping tracks had no change on the screen but the new track was playing. Tried to put it on standby with Roon, with the remote and with the standby X-SABRE 3 front panel power/standby button but after 1 sec on standby came back ON with the same album cover. Changing inputs did not solve the issue. I had to take the power cord out and after fully reboot the X-SABRE 3 screen cleared up. I know this could happen as it’s literally a computer and computers froze from time to time but it’s worthy to check if this is due to a firmware bug or just normal computer stuff.

Thanks for sharing

 

[enricoclaudio]

Can't tell right now. It all depends on the system you have and personal preferences.
If you are having a very revealing system, this dac maybe too much I guess.

Hi @nicolasnh would you be able to check please if your X-SABRE 3 shows the same bugs I reported to Matrix Audio? That would help Matrix Audio confirm if my unit is defective. However, they said that they were able to replicate the bugs in his test unit.

 

[nicolasnh]

Hi mate, yes the dac has some issues but I wasn't concentrated or looking for those bugs as I was more focus on the sound.
But it has some things that are not as smooth as they should be.
I bought another XSabre 3 for my partner and he received it yesterday. He found some issues as well but later he upgraded the firmware and looks like the Dac is working much better now.
I'm about to do the same and let you know.
Cheers.

 

[enricoclaudio]

Hi mate, yes the dac has some issues but I wasn't concentrated or looking for those bugs as I was more focus on the sound.
But it has some things that are not as smooth as they should be.
I bought another XSabre 3 for my partner and he received it yesterday. He found some issues as well but later he upgraded the firmware and looks like the Dac is working much better now.
I'm about to do the same and let you know.
Cheers.

Yes, Matrix Audio released a beta firmware that addressed most of the bugs I reported initially.

 

[nicolasnh]

Hi mate, yes the dac has some issues but I wasn't concentrated or looking for those bugs as I was more focus on the sound.
But it has some things that are not as smooth as they should be.
I bought another XSabre 3 for my partner and he received it yesterday. He found some issues as well but later he upgraded the firmware and looks like the Dac is working much better now.
I'm about to do the same and let you know.
Cheers.

Sorry I misunderstood him, he upgraded his Roon end point firmware, not the Dac firmware. Seems like Matrix hasn't release yet the new XSabre 3 firmware.
Is a new dac which does many thing right and it sounds awesome. I think we have to be patient and wait for the new firmware update.

 

[enricoclaudio]

Sorry I misunderstood him, he upgraded his Roon end point firmware, not the Dac firmware. Seems like Matrix hasn't release yet the new XSabre 3 firmware.
Is a new dac which does many thing right and it sounds awesome. I think we have to be patient and wait for the new firmware update.

The X-SABRE 3 current firmware is V1.01 Build 43. They have now a V1.01 Build 44 (beta). They sent it to me to test it but I sent back my X-SABRE 3 for an exchange. As soon I get the replacement end of this week, I need to check the beta firmware and report back to Matrix Audio. If all the bugs I have reported got fixed, they will make it public. I will let you by next week as the replacement will be shipped from China between tomorrow and Wednesday via DHL and it takes 4 days to get it here in the USA.

 

[nicolasnh]

Fantastic, thank heaps mate