Furthermore, SMSL lets you change the brightness of the screen and set a dimmer timer between 5 to 60 seconds. I know many of my night owl audiophile friends are going to be happy because of this!

HEADFONICS—SMSL M400 REVIEW

There isn’t much to say about them design wise, one is smaller and one is bigger, one has 6 Watts on tap and one is doubling that number, one has a preamp output and SH-9 doesn’t have it. SP400 is pretty much a dual-mono version of SH-9 and it costs twice as much too. Apart from that, their UI is the same, I/O is the same, they look almost the same too. Overall, I liked how it performed on its own in my living room and I didn’t feel the need of a Benchmark HPA4 or Topping PRE90 in between it and my power amplifiers. Truth to be told, D2 doesn’t have an actual line amplifier circuit inside, but it’s higher voltage output and low impedance design worked more like a passive preamplifier, tightly controlling the drivers of my speakers, sounding speedy and dynamic. When I moved it to my living room, its sound staging capabilities that stretched wide open were felt immediately, its smooth and liquid delivery made an appearance as well. I must say, it added just a bit of character of its own, making everything a little sweeter and denser sounding, like someone swapped it with a technical sounding R-2R ladder DAC. Unsurprisingly, after adding a dedicated preamplifier like Benchmark HPA4 into the mix, the sound didn’t change as much as I pictured. I was getting the same natural performance, defined and rumbling bass notes, plus an inoffensive but extended treble delivery. It seems that D2 is one of those DACs that aren’t improving with a dedicated preamplifier and that’s great news as I’ll be shortening the signal path by using it directly with my power amps. The DO300 has everything you could expect from a SMSL DAC – incredible detail retrieval, fantastic resolution, speed, control, and spot-on tonality. Actually, because it’s slightly warmer than their other DACs, I like the DO300 the most out of everything else I tried.

As I mentioned a couple of times before, the D1SE is a very capable DAC. The instrument separation and layering are impressive, the soundstage is wide and the depth is good. The airiness and effortlessness of the presentation contribute to the realistic layering of the DAC. Furthermore, the D1SE has a solid PRaT performance. The transients are clean and precise but never sharp. The resolution and the detail-retrieval capability of the DAC are certainly impressive. The D1SE punches above its price tag with its brilliant technical capability. Pairings & Comparisons SMSL VMV D1SE & SMSL SP400 If you are interested only in headphone drive and you really despise the dryness of your Drop THX-789, then SMSL SP400 should provide a warmer tonality, it would restore some lost midrange density, offer a bigger stage, a better driver control and more importantly a lot more power on tap to drive a wider variety of headphones.

SMSL M500 MKII Review — Headfonics SMSL M500 MKII Review — Headfonics

Regarding the overall design and build quality…you can relate to our DO200 review, as these two devices are just identical apart from the model number on the front. The dimensions, the weight, and the design are all perfectly the same between the two devices. I’m not saying it’s a bad thing at all, it’s cheaper for SMSL to utilize the same chassis to cut costs, resulting in you being able to buy the new DO300 cheaper. Being green is cool. Honestly, if you don’t know SMSL, you have to get acquainted as soon as possible because you’re missing A LOT. They’re a Chinese company that focuses on a wide range of devices , the most notable ones being DACs & AMPs. They are famous for their value for money-oriented products and that’s the main reason I found them online about 5 years ago. The DAC in the D1SE comes with a slight sound color adjustment option via the integrated DSP. SMSL included this feature in their menu and labeled the setting as ”Sound Color”. In my opinion, this setting has a more distinct effect on the sound signature and can be used to slightly tune the device according to your preferences. There are 3 options here excluding the Standard setting. Rich, Tube & Crystal. As far as I/O goes, you’ve also got everything you could need. RCA and XLR outputs, AES/EBU, I2s, coaxial, optical, and USB inputs. Sadly, no USB-C this time, and it’s about time for it to be a golden standard in our hobby. Apart from that slight inconvenience, the DO300 is a highly functional device that will make you connect basically everything you’d want. Oh, and a Bluetooth antenna if you want to use it wirelessly.Compared to their former flagship DAC chip (AK4497), the newest silicon doubled its pin numbers, die-size increased substantially and it’s their first silicon that outputs current instead of voltage. Since this is a quad-channel DAC, a single piece is enough to create a fully balanced signal, but a precise I/V (current to voltage) conversion stage needs to be built around it. For that SMSL used several OPA op-amps that are known to be on the warmer and smoother side of neutral. Its analog output stage was built around two OPA1612 dual op-amps, suggesting that D2 is indeed a true-balanced design.

SMSL M400 High-Fidelity MQA Bluetooth Distortion-Free Audio

Today we’re taking a look at their newest DO300 DAC, which is built on the newest ES9039MSPRO chip. Being the most powerful THX-AAA amplifier has its perks as you can drive pretty much any headphone you want with flying colors. Yes, including the notorious Hifiman Susvara, add the Abyss 1266-TC in here too and the Audeze LCD-4 seems like a child’s play for it. As you can imagine, all those IEMs, portable dynamic headphones, desktop dynamic and planar magnetic headphones were driven to their fullest and there is nothing more to say about it. I felt an absolute control over the drivers, lightning-fast notes sounded exactly as they should, dynamics were pressing the gas pedal and SP400 was keeping up with all of that. Sincerely, everything except for the Susvara, sounded pretty much the same on the HPA4 by Benchmark, it was always fast and engaging, it was always visceral, it had a perfect pin point imagining and a well-spread and layered sound. With most headphones I didn’t even reach its half volume position on high-gain, even Hifiman Arya and Audeze LCD-4 felt like a feather weight load for it. I know that most of you are focusing on your speakers, headphones, maybe on amplifiers, cables or room acoustics. Some are swearing that low-priced digital to analog converters like SMSL SU-9N can’t get any better and that’s perfectly fine. However, I will remind you that everything happening in your stereo or headphone setup, starts with your source. A good source will never limit dynamics, stage size, detail retrieval and it will never increase the noise floor. From a dozen of digital sources I’ve tried in the last two years, the ones that had no cons were counted with three fingers on a hand and SMSL’s D2 seems to be one of them. I was not surprised hearing gobs of details brought to the surface, a vast and expansive soundstage and a punchy low-end delivery, but I was surprised having them all, while putting a higher accent on the act of music listening. Sounding squeaky clean and noiseless isn’t a challenge anymore, but sounding extremely dynamic, yet organic and full-bodied is still a big challenge, especially when it comes to chip-based converters. Each of these, I presume, plays around with EQ and phase to provide a different type of sound that was subtle, but distinguishable sometimes.So, the DO300 is yet again another SMSL device with a very slight twist – it’s a bit warmer than most of their stuff in my opinion. No, the DO300 is NOT a warm-sounding DAC, but compared to their other models, it’s warm-ish. But, this comparison is not really fair is it? The DO300 is 2.5 times more expensive than the DO100, and it’s certainly not 2.5 times better. Audio is not about that though, so if you have the DO100 and you’re looking for something better but in a similar fashion, the DO100 might be the perfect upgrade for you.