The best Raspberry Pi DAC on the market I have tested and listened so far!!!

The new Audiophonics I-Sabre DAC ES9028Q2M is not only the most featured Raspberry PI DAC, but more importantly miles away from the crowd in terms of audio quality! http://www.audiophonics.fr/en/diy-dac/audiophonics-i-sabre-dac-es9028q2m-raspberry-pi-3-2-a-b-spdif-i2s-p-12105.html

It is passive DAC build on a very good ES9028Q2M chip. http://www.esstech.com/index.php/en/products/sabre-digital-analog-converters/sabre-hifi-mobile-dacs/sabre-hifi-stereo-dacs/es9028q2m/

Out of the box I was running it on DietPi with standard I-Sabre driver from the DietPi distribution. It was able to play audio up to 384kHz, and DSD 128 over DoP!

For folks that like extra connections and features it has connectors for screen to show what format it is playing and even SPDIF digital audio input. Set up and configuration was few minutes - no special HW or SW configuration was this time needed, unlike for previous unfinished Audiophonics ES9018K2M DAC. It just worked!

Putting it in stack, and powering through Allo Kali reclocker was giving one amazing audio set.

In terms of audio quality it was blowing in to dust so far the best Raspberry Pi DAC, I have been reviewing and using till now - Allo Boss. Overall soundstage is much wider, richer, super big dynamic range, and detailed - touch to strings, flow of air - I didn’t hear before on Allo Boss nor any other Raspberry Pi DACs…

Bass goes even deeper to lower frequencies, is much richer, punchier, and powerful than Boss. Highs are amazingly detailed, accurate, transparent, and flying. And for me personally - the voice reproduction of this DAC is starting to approach high end equipment. Vocals voice is soft, velvety, and natural - not like TI PCM5122 chip decoding, which is harsh and metallic comparing to it.