Too much sabre glare! ;-)One could get an Element-X from Matrix Audio for this price... Or for a thousand less, their latest Sabre DAC..
But ideal for listening to the Sabre Dance.Too much sabre glare! ;-)
I do think this is where my cognitive dissonance was triggered. My expectation of SMSL has always been great value for performance but not exactly Mark Levinson or McIntosh aesthetic snob appeal I'd put under the lights. Yet here we have SMSL attempting to be a showpiece to impress your friends - obviously I couldn't accept this possibility so I just assumed the owner bought it for cutting edge measurements (a la Topping). If the DAC measured exactly the same but was encased behind glass with blue glowing meters - I wouldn't blink an eye because I know exactly why the owner purchased it.A DAC by it's very nature is kind of a boring component, so subjective factors (not measurements) are why people pay more. Not that the SMSL really has the it factor at $3k+ either.
Well it's a Slow variant not shooting for Nyquist but yeah.-5dB at Nyquist and no other options is fairly bad.
I've communicated with Thomas and have watched many many of his videos - I believe his position is that he first listens to the product, then if he likes it he will do a formal video about it, but if he doesn't like it - he tells the manufacturer that he won't do a review and returns the product to them. I don't believe he chooses to review a product because he expects to like it without first hearing it.I see the Thomas Stereo YouTube guy is expecting a showdown about this review when he reviews it... I'm expecting him to love this of course but he has already said he doesn't review anything he doesn't already know he is going to like so there you go
Has anyone listened to the unit?
I've always been interested in implementations of 1704 dacs from a technical point of view. There are many interesting DIY projects around these DACs that I would have loved to dip my toe in. But, as they are unobtanium, lost interest (just assumed Audio-GD gobbled them all up).
I wouldn't be surprised if these mfg's were buying up all the old DVD-5000's and harvesting the chips out of them since these DAC chips haven't been made in quite some time now.Find a used Denon DVD-5000 for $100-200, better yet if the transport is broken as it will be cheaper. It has 4 of the chips same as the D3, well implemented.
That's splitting hairs - that's like me being a film critic, not liking a movie I watched and letting the director know but nobody else knows what I think.I've communicated with Thomas and have watched many many of his videos - I believe his position is that he first listens to the product, then if he likes it he will do a formal video about it, but if he doesn't like it - he tells the manufacturer that he won't do a review and returns the product to them. I don't believe he chooses to review a product because he expects to like it without first hearing it.
even at $3500 it is not trash ? even nostalgia can not justify it's 3.5k price tag.Interesting review. Some of the measurements are quite good. In particular, the linearity is pretty good, compared to dacs made a long time ago with this chip. The jitter test is great. The THD is not amazing, but each order is below the CD threshold.
Of course it doesn’t measure as well as the latest ds designs. However, for the time when they were designed for 16 bit CD playback, doesn’t this meet reasonable standards? I mainly listen to this format. If I was well heeled and nostalgic I would consider it. But I don’t need to, as I already have a Dac with an old chip like this. To most of you this dac doesn’t have any relevance in the market.
This is not trash. It’s someone trying to squeeze everything they can out of 20+yr old chip and making it useful. Its admirable. It’s engineering. It’s recycling as well.
So glad your measured this.
That's splitting hairs - that's like me being a film critic, not liking a movie I watched and letting the director know but nobody else knows what I think.
His reasoning is summarised as:
- it's easy for me to select what I review
- I like to watch movies with happy endings - do you really want to see a movie with a sad ending? I don't want to waste your time telling you something sucks
- I dont review some items as I dont have anything to compare it to
- most importantly...I don't do bad reviews because I can be wrong..and I don't want to cause irreversible damage
Or maybe I misinterpeted his words