Soncoz is offering it in two color options: matte-black (our review unit) or matte-gray - which aren’t attracting a lot of eyes to them.
The front panel has a sheet of glass with a Soncoz logo under it, they seem to care about its looks and build-quality and that can be immediately felt after closely inspecting their unit. All the screws were moved on the back panel for a clean and elegant look. I’m usually placing a heavy desktop headphone amp on top of my DACs in my office and with Benchmark HPA4 on top of it, SGD1 is almost touching the table, completely blocking the air intake.Īs for its case, it is an aluminum one milled on a CNC machine, with very tight tolerance numbers. The only thing that I dislike about it are those short feet under the unit, I would put longer ones (at least 4 times their actual depth). Instead of letting that an open area, where dust particles could enter freely as it happens on my Matrix Audio Element X, they added a dust filter to prevent that - pretty clever. Soncoz put some ventilation holes under the unit and on its side panels, so that hot air would move away from the unit. You can control every feature of it by using its volume knob or the included remote and it is really up to you. I don’t know who designed this simple yet effective user interface or its casing, but so far, I’m impressed. Just a simple, elegant solution that works and it’s extremely easy to use. No more complicated user menus (I’m looking at you Audio-GD), not more hidden user menus that can only be accessed from the remote (I’m looking at you Topping and SMSL). There is an LCD screen in the middle and it will show you only the selected digital input, that Coaxial out is engaged and your digital filter, nothing more and nothing less.
I’ve never seen such a clever and extremely easy to use user interface. When it’s fully lit, you will be unleashing its full signal power of 4V over XLR and 2V over PCM, it looks cool and quite unique actually. For example, the volume knob has an LED strip around it and only by looking at its light it should be clear where is your volume position. There are several things which I didn’t expect, nor seen in other DACs. I have to say that SGD1 looks and feels exactly as premium as any top-of-the-line DAC. I didn’t find a user manual inside or any other papers, but don’t you worry as you can download its USB driver and manuals from their downloads section right here.
An accessory compartment will be holding a power cable, a high-quality golden-plated USB Type-B cable and a matte-black remote control with Soncoz branding on it - suggesting that it can also work as a preamp. SGD1 looked considerably bigger and heavier compared to units of the same price. SGD1 came well-protected with a huge amount of bubble foam wrapping the entire unit. SGD1 came in an extra-large box suggesting that there is an XL sized unit lurking somewhere inside. I’m genuinely super excited to be making an objective and comprehensive review in a headphone and speaker-based setup, so let’s get it started. SGD1 is currently their second product and for now it’s their top-of-the-line unit. Their first such device is of course a normal sized unit called SGD1 DAC/Preamp/Bluetooth receiver/digital to coaxial interface that I will be testing today. With this fresh new company, Ben and his men would have a total freedom to unleash their geniuses, without any kind of space or budged limitations. According to them, their mission is to design only the very best audio products that can achieve balanced, full range and bit perfect reproduction of every note, frequency and detail of your music. That is precisely why Soncoz Audio was created – it’s a fresh ‘n young team and you can learn more about them on their website right here. Khadas was created to offer you the best bang for the buck, I’m sure that Tone 1 sounds incredibly good for its size and price, but I’m also sure that a well-designed desktop DAC that is not limited by internal space, power consumption and budget will simply outperform it in all key aspects, including measurements. It shouldn’t be surprised to anyone, considering that the mastermind behind it is no other than Ben Du that created those super affordable and immensely popular Khadas Tone boards. Soncoz LA-QXD1 simply ticked all the boxes for me, it sounded marvelously close to mid-range DACs that I’ve felt the urge to honor it with our Bronze Award for getting everything right, including its price. About a month ago I’ve tested an affordable true-balanced ESS-Sabre DAC that also happened to be the best sounding entry-level unit I ever stumbled upon.
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