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SMSL M500 MKIII DAC & Amp Review

Rate this DAC & HP Amp

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 6 2.1%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 5 1.8%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 52 18.5%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 218 77.6%

  • Total voters
    281

srkbear

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On these new balanced Dac's it's great to see more companies starting to remove balanced form the 4.4mm headphone output.
They do this for our convenience.:facepalm:
IFi Audio is one outfit that is equipping its pentaconn jacks with true balanced architecture. Now if they’d only jettison those Burr Brown chips they could really start playing with the big boys…
 

jam

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What is up with Canada? Even in kind-of third world Brazil we have Qobuz now. But isn´t there QUB Music (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qobuz) ? Or using VPN?
I don't know how that work but Qub music is not high res, nor lossless. Quebecor is a huge media and telecommunication conglomerate in Quebec, They probably needed a way to have access to content and a framework and paying the big bucks to Qobuz is I assume was how they made it. I am not sure what was the deal but now that you mention it it may be why we don't have Qobuz. VPN would work but you also need a non Canadian Credit card to pay the bill.
Living in Montreal where Quebecor Inc. is based and having observed them through out the years, I can tell you that while they are a large media conglomerate into anything from the press to cable TV, movie/TV production and Internet telecomm services, they tend to run their business from a penny pinching perspective, a trait CEO Karl Pierre Péladeau inherited from his departed father and company founder Pierre Péladeau that grew up in a poor family during hard economic times.

It's always about money. Quebecor is an important invester in Qobuz to the tune of millions of Euros and entered into an agreement with them so that Quebecor could launch their "QUB Musique" streaming service in Canada. So QUB gets the music catalog from Qobuz with access to 75 million tracks but they operate the streaming service with an austere mindset that does not value quality while attempting to reduce streaming bandwidth. That's why they don't offer lossless FLAC and only MP3. Furthermore, in the true French separatist spirit of Karl Pierre Péladeau, their website (https://www.qub.ca/musique/bienvenue) doesn't even offer English webpages. I mean Amazon.ca offers their whole website in French. What is not reported in your average music industry press release however is that Quebecor obviously got an agreement from Qobuz to not have Qobuz's streaming service available in the Canadian market to compete with QUB.
 
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Garrincha

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Living in Montreal where Quebecor Inc. is based and having observed them through out the years, I can tell you that while they are a large media conglomerate into anything from the press to cable TV, movie/TV production and Internet telecomm services, they tend to run their business from a penny pinching perspective, a trait CEO Karl Pierre Péladeau inherited from his departed father and company founder Pierre Péladeau that grew up in a poor family during hard economic times.

It's always about money. Quebecor is an important invester in Qobuz to the tune of millions of Euros and entered into an agreement with them so that Quebecor could launch their "QUB Musique" streaming service in Canada. So QUB gets the music catalog from Qobuz with access to 75 million tracks but they operate the streaming service with an austere mindset that does not value quality while attempting to reduce streaming bandwidth. That's why they don't offer lossless FLAC and only MP3. Furthermore, in the true French separatist spirit of Karl Pierre Péladeau, their website (https://www.qub.ca/musique/bienvenue) doesn't even offer English webpages. I mean Amazon.ca offers their whole website in French. What is not reported in your average music industry press release however is that Quebecor obviously got an agreement from Qobuz to not have Qobuz's streaming service available in the Canadian market to compete with QUB.
So the investor in Qobuz has it's own streaming service, using their catalog but is only offering lossy streaming and forbidding Qobuz to operate their proper service. It does hardly get more absurd than this. Grim days for Canada.
 
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Grooved

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What about MP3 or AAC? Isn't it the same thing?
MP3 and AAC never pretended to be better than lossless FLAC. If it doesn't sound like FLAC, you know why: it's compressed with loss.
Anyway, there is still this paradoxical mystery of MQA saying to customers that they have the best sound quality, but saying at the time to labels that they should never offer their best master to customers... so if labels have to keep the best version, how MQA can provide to customers the best sound quality and what the artist wanted them to hear?
 

jam

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So the investor in Qobuz has it's own streaming service, using their catalog but is only offering lossless streaming and forbidding Qobuz to operate their proper service. It does hardly get more absurd than this. Grim days for Canada.
I think you must have meant lossy instead of lossless in your summary. FLAC is lossless, whereas MP3 and AAC are lossy. Well this is what can happen when certain dubious backroom business deals are made, i.e. I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine or when the free market "rules" aren't followed.
 

mediocrebutarrogant

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What do you want to say, MQA sounds better to you than what, red book CD, High-Res, or 320kbit/s mp3/AAC?
Apple lossless bitperfect over cck adapter to USB dac vs Tidal MQA shape of you song with DAC in pure dac mode , and amp at same volume Topping L30 bass response is night and day difference. Add Roon to the equation Daft punk Lose yourself to dance gets spatial effects that can’t be got in bit perfect apple lossless
 

mediocrebutarrogant

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Likely a consequence of superior masters on Tidal—remember that MQA has negotiated access to their “provenance” masters that are approved by the original engineers/producers/artists. That’s part of their scheme to force folks to use Tidal to access these proprietary remasters, to maintain dominance over the industry (just look at who owns Tidal).

There’s absolutely no scientific basis for why MQA’s lossy format should sound “better” than lossless, unless the master itself is superior.
Ofcourse the master is superior. My Topping E50/L30 stack maybe midfi, but they are SOTA , and there are discernible differences , that at least I can’t ignore
 

xnor

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IFi Audio is one outfit that is equipping its pentaconn jacks with true balanced architecture. Now if they’d only jettison those Burr Brown chips they could really start playing with the big boys…
Some of their devices perform worse than cheap dongles but cost 10x to 100x, and yet they still have a following of audiophiles that claim to hear the oh so "fine details" and improvements ... over gear that's actually technically superior.
Goes to show for the millionth time that human hearing is pretty poor in an absolute sense and that people just hear what they want to hear/imagine.
Ironically, if you call them out on these fact you get personally attacked with allegations of being deaf.

Regarding "true balanced" and at the risk of beating yet another dead horse like MQA, if you refer to bridged amplification then this has nothing to do with "balanced audio". Balanced refers to equal impedances, not differential signalling. In other words, it does not matter if you have 2V-0V or 1V-(-1V) across the speaker or line-in. Balanced interconnection would not work if it were not for that fact.
That's why "balanced headphone" is a misnomer.
Anyway, while bridged amplification adds 6 dB of (voltage) headroom you're trading that for double the noise, double the output impedance and each amp has to drive half the load impedance. Nothing is for free.
 
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srkbear

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Some of their devices perform worse than cheap dongles but cost 10x to 100x, and yet they still have a following of audiophiles that claim to hear the oh so "fine details" and improvements ... over gear that's actually technically superior.
Goes to show for the millionth time that human hearing is pretty poor in an absolute sense and that people just hear what they want to hear/imagine.
Ironically, if you call them out on these fact you get personally attacked with allegations of being deaf.

Regarding "true balanced" and at the risk of beating yet another dead horse like MQA, if you refer to bridged amplification then this has nothing to do with "balanced audio". Balanced refers to equal impedances, not differential signalling. In other words, it does not matter if you have 2V-0V or 1V-(-1V) across the speaker or line-in. Balanced interconnection would not work if it were not for that fact.
That's why "balanced headphone" is a misnomer.
Anyway, while bridge amplification adds 6 dB of (voltage) headroom you're trading that for double the noise, double the output impedance and each amp has to drive half the load impedance. Nothing is for free.
OK thanks, I was just offering a little benign comment, admittedly off topic. I have the iFi xDSD Gryphon, one of their latest offerings, and it’s on deck to send to Amir for review. I’m actually very pleased with it, and I know of no other unit with its feature set from any other manufacturer at a lower price point—and I’m also very happy with how it sounds. We’ll see how it measures up.

IFi’s Zen Stream is also a very fine Volumio-based streamer that does a very nice job transporting PCM 384/native DSD 256 via USB, at $399–which is quite fairly priced in my opinion when compared to their competitors that offer streamers at equivalent bandwidths.

I’m also well aware of how balanced connections work, and all I was saying is that the Gryphon doesn’t include a fake single ended pentaconn jack—it’s a balanced connection with a substantial increase in power output compared to its 3.5mm equivalent. Cheers.
 

Garrincha

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Apple lossless bitperfect over cck adapter to USB dac vs Tidal MQA shape of you song with DAC in pure dac mode , and amp at same volume Topping L30 bass response is night and day difference. Add Roon to the equation Daft punk Lose yourself to dance gets spatial effects that can’t be got in bit perfect apple lossless
What is the character of the source, redbook CD? You claim that MQA sounds better than Apple lossless bitperfect and not only this, but it is even night and day?
 

Garrincha

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I think you must have meant lossy instead of lossless in your summary. FLAC is lossless, whereas MP3 and AAC are lossy. Well this is what can happen when certain dubious backroom business deals are made, i.e. I'll scratch your back and you scratch mine or when the free market "rules" aren't followed.
True, corrected.
 

PeteL

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MP3 and AAC never pretended to be better than lossless FLAC. If it doesn't sound like FLAC, you know why: it's compressed with loss.
Anyway, there is still this paradoxical mystery of MQA saying to customers that they have the best sound quality, but saying at the time to labels that they should never offer their best master to customers... so if labels have to keep the best version, how MQA can provide to customers the best sound quality and what the artist wanted them to hear?
Fair enough, I didn't know the MQA had the pretention of being better than lossless FLAC
 

PeteL

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MP3 and AAC never pretended to be better than lossless FLAC. If it doesn't sound like FLAC, you know why: it's compressed with loss.
Anyway, there is still this paradoxical mystery of MQA saying to customers that they have the best sound quality, but saying at the time to labels that they should never offer their best master to customers... so if labels have to keep the best version, how MQA can provide to customers the best sound quality and what the artist wanted them to hear?

i am sorry but I don't fully understand the second part. What do you mean they tell the labels they should never offer their best masters to customers? Isn't the whole authentification thing about the labels confirming they get the true masters? What you mean "keep the best version"? You mean they have to use for other high res versions a modified master from the original? In your previous post you said it was just a conversion. I am confused.
 

mediocrebutarrogant

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"midfi, but SOTA", do you even think before writing?
Midfi is a price tier , and SOTA is tech teir, so it’s not as oxymoronic as you think, I wonder if you listen to music or just a/b test all day to convince yourself to stay stuck in midfi hell
 

pseudoid

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Is this still the DAC review page?
Depends... on what page you are on.
I learned how to properly cook sushi in one review page.
I forget what page of the thread I was on.:facepalm:
 
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