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SMSL DACS

Tigerjones

Tigerjones

Bagpuss
Does anyone have any experience of these DACs? Interested in the M500 with MQA decoding. Seems quite a lot of kit for the money?

Cheers
PJ
 
That depends if you believe the measurements characterise everything.

With usb jitter down at -140db, and thd and noise being 0.000% or better and with no ess imd hump and a really clean 32 tone intermodulation performance the worst you can say about it is it'll tell you if you like the sound of ess dac chips and filters.
 
My Sanskrit 10'th Mk II DAC arrived today which I bought out of curiosity after reading the review on Audio Science Review. For £100 delivered it seemed too good an opportunity not to at least try it considering how well it measured. Took exactly 2 weeks from China.

If I don't like it I can probably use it on my desk headphone system or even sell it on.

I'll report back once I've plugged it in.
 
One thing I have learned in my journey in hifi is that you can never rely on something well-reviewed to sound excellent, too, in your own set-up. I am sure the same goes for perfect-measuring DACs.
- I wanted to love the Ayre QDB-9 DAC (24(192) but it never sounded right.
- I wanted to love the Van den Hul "The Grail" phono stage - it sounded exactly like my ripped files.
- I wanted to love the McIntosh C47 preamp - it never sounded anything but bland in my set-up.
- I wanted to love Magnepan MC1s wall-mounted speakers+ 2 subs but the highly resolved treble made my ears ring, sort of like the effect of metal ribbons on my ears.
- I wanted to love the Herron VTSP2a preamp - and I did - but I swapped it on as I could not get my Benz Micro Gullwing to sound really great through it - even with very good phono stages. It wasn't the fault of the Herron, I'm sure.
- I sold the Gullwing that I wanted to love but never seemed to be able to load correctly and bought a Denon 103D which I love to death.
- I wanted to love John Westlake VFET mono amps but ... they never showed up.
 
I've had a M300 Mk2 now for a couple of weeks and you know what it sounds good. It might not have the latest AKM chip found in the Topping D90, the bling of other audiophile manufacturers, require a £4k power supply to improve it, it just works.

I used HiFi Express to buy and selected shipping from UK warehouse. Ordered Thursday evening and noticed the following morning on the shipping notification they scheduled to ship from China. Quick email to them, they responded within 30mins saying they'd sort it....it arrived on Tuesday delivered by Amazon
 
I had about an hour to play with the Sanskrit 10 II tonight and so far I'm very impressed. I've not had any chance to do any comparisons with my other DAC (Schiit Modi 1) and don't have any high level DACs to compare it against, but it's at least on par with the Modi. It seems very detailed but is also musical and for instance it seemed to make a better job of bringing out the complexity of Tori Amos's grand piano than I've heard before.

I was playing FLACs through the USB into my headphone system. BD DT880 Pro 600 ohms and my home made valve amp (a 'Starving Student'). I had the DAC powered via the second USB rather than take power from the primary USB. Reports on Audio Science webpage had said that this made a big difference.

My first impressions are that it's well worth £100.

Let me know if you'd like any more details and I'll turn on the reviewer mode and start talking about 'inkier blacks' and how there's 'more space around instruments' if that's what you want.

I will be spending more time with it over the next few days and will report back. I want to try the coax input to compare it with the inbuilt DAC in my Roksan Caspian CD player and if I can find any DSD encoded files will try those as well.
 
I have the M500 and it's been exemplary, sounds great and is nice to use. It accepts usb from my SotM SMS200 and plays local library files in any resolution, as well as internet radio and Tidal. It also accepts optical from an LG TV and has been rock solid with both sources. I haven't tried MQA at all. I've only used it with single ended outputs. I would be happy recommending it to anyone.
 
I bought an SMSL dac off ebay late 2108, abut £100, can't remember the name (M8?), it's tiny, silver. Partly I was swayed by audiosecincerevew saying how riubbsih the Shchiit Bifrost I'd had for years was (modified from Uber to Multibit), yet the SMSL exhibited a lot of annoying clicks through USB (which was supposed to the worst part of the implementaion in the Bifrost), especially with occasional 24-bit material (I don't pay more for that, e.g. Sunn0))) White 1 same price for 24/88.2). So annoying I bought a different dac. Also it wouldn't put out two channels through old interconnects that other sources had no troouble with.

I have never, ever heard such clicks before. And these thing according to ASR are supposed to be technically as good as it gets...
 
Well, the thread title is "SMSL DACs" but I have to admit in my haste to finally get that off my chest I missed the OP asking about the M500 specifically. Other SMSL dacs get a mention.

I do still use it as TV has coax out and it sits neatly behind.
 
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