How to connect Sabaj A4 and EDIFIER C2XD 2.1

[Darnn]

Hello dear forum members, I need your help

 

Today I unpacked my early christmas gift and run into troubles connecting my old Sabaj A4 with new Edifier C2XD 2.1 . Previously I had Sabaj running from USB port on motherboard (Ggigabyte aorus7 Z270 with integrated SB card) into dac box, then out into basic logitec speakers with single cable that came with them. However this method doesnt work with new Edifiers. No matter how I try to connect them via Sabaj, no sound at all comes out. Speakers and sub work fine, running them atm via pc directly.

 

Ways I tried to connect it

- optic from mobo into sabaj, then from sabaj coax into Edifier

- optic from mobo into sabaj, then from sabaj aux into edifier

- optic from mobo into sabaj, then from sabaj headphone port into edifier

- usb from mobo into sabaj, then from sabaj coax into Edifier

- usb from mobo into sabaj, then from sabaj aux into edifier

- usb from mobo into sabaj, then from sabaj headphone port into edifier

- USB from mobo into sabaj, then optic into edifier

 

As far as I know, sabaj amp/dac should go first, so I did not try to connect first edifier amp and then sabaj. Is it correct? Any ideas how should I connect them? I know Edifiers alone are plenty enough but since Sabaj is perfectly fine I dont want to get rid of it.

[saintlouisbagels]

The Sabaj A4 is a DAC, headphone amp, and speaker amplifier. This unit is suppose to be used for passive speakers.

 

Your new Edifier's are powered / active speakers.

It should only be receiving line level inputs like a Line Out from a motherboard, or a headphone port (not ideal, but not wrong). It also has an optical input, meaning there's a DAC inside, so you can directly do optical from Mobo as well.

 

You seem to be ignoring the "in" and "out"

The only outputs from your Sabaj would be the headphone port and the speaker binding posts. If you want to use the Sabaj with your Edifiers, then you need to connect a 3.5mm cable from the Sabaj headphone port to the Edifier Aux port.

 

The most simple solution would be connecting optical from Mobo to Edifier, and connecting USB from Mobo to Sabaj and then simply switching between the two inputs on your computer depending if you want to use headphone or speakers.

 

- - - -

 

In my opinion, I would not have bothered with the Edifier speakers.

You have an amp for passive speakers, you should buy passive speakers. They sound better and all of the money is going towards sound quality.

 

Powered speakers inherently have a lot of the cost going towards other electronics to make them usable as standalone units.

[Darnn]

Okay, will there be an actuall improvement tho when connecting C2XD via headphone port from Sabaj? Sorry im green in this field, I dont know if there is going to be some difference in quality or any actually noticable improvement. I can spend 10$ extra for cable, I just need to know if there is a point in doing it.

 

 

[saintlouisbagels]

8 hours ago, Darnn said:

Okay, will there be an actuall improvement tho when connecting C2XD via headphone port from Sabaj? Sorry im green in this field, I dont know if there is going to be some difference in quality or any actually noticable improvement. I can spend 10$ extra for cable, I just need to know if there is a point in doing it.

If you do USB-C/Optical cable from motherboard to Sabaj A4, it will use the Sabaj A4 DAC.

Then, if you use the Sabaj A4 headphone port, it will use the Sabaj headphone amplifier too.

THEN, it will go through the Edifier amplifier before it gets outputted from the speakers.

 

Ideally you don't want to double-amplify the signal.

Optical cable from motherboard to Edifier will use the Edifier DAC, and it will use the Edifier amplifier before it outputs from the speakers.

Line Out cable from motherboard to Edifier will use the motherboard DAC, and it will only use the Edifier amplifier before it outputs from the speakers.

 

It is likely you will not notice the quality of the Sabaj A4 DAC compared to the Edifier DAC (and compared to the motherboard DAC) because it is a "solved" product category where all of the "improvements" are outside of human hearing capabilities.

 

Additionally, you might not notice the sound difference between the double-amplified signal from "Motherboard -> Sabaj A4 -> Edifier" compared to the single amplified "Motherboard -> Edifier"

 

So this all comes down to a matter of convenience.

[Darnn]

thank you very much for help, Merry Christmas!