smsl reports 118db a-weighted, so i think it'll come in, as we saw here, a bit over the 111db mark.What if the M500 almost reaches X Sabre Pro performance for $399?
i love mine though; it far outresolves the dsp that sits in front of my power amp. it has a good user interface (shocking for chi-fi) and has no weird USB bugs that i've seen in other xu2xx implementations. also the dual toslink is really convenient (ps4 + tv instead of ps4 through tv)