SMSL M500 DAC and HP Amp Review

[VintageFlanker]

Really? I'd read a lot of good reviews about their NFB amps system and R2R DACs...

Subjective reviews with no value once their units always measured terrible.

R2R dacs are the devils in this forum. They can never reach good measurements to satisfy the cult of this forum. 90% of people here are distortion-ist free types. Not the pleasurable types. They wil

Sure... Seems you simply went to the wrong place. Why not leaving then?

 

[amirm]

Of course it will! We living in 2019 now. Anything that is AKM/ESS will score highly. Unless the company truly screws up on a already perfected easy to implement measure rated chip.

There are screwed up implementations using those DAC chips. See https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...and-measurements-of-hifime-uda38pro-dac.4064/

And further, only a few avoid the ESS IMD Hump. So it is not a given.

 

[amirm]

R2R dacs are the devils in this forum.

No, the devils are the ones that destroy the fidelity of your musical samples. If an R2R DAC performs well, it will get my recommendation. Here is an example: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...rements-of-soekris-dac1421-multibit-dac.3956/

So leave your generalizations at the door. Here, we go by logic and what we can demonstrate.

 

[protoss]

There are screwed up implementations using those DAC chips. See https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...and-measurements-of-hifime-uda38pro-dac.4064/

And further, only a few avoid the ESS IMD Hump. So it is not a given.

Come on thats a cheap shot. That dac suck lol and the company.

Those Humps never bother anyone. And it seems like it was the companies causing that Hump. Now most companies figure out on how to fix that hump and its not an issue.

 

[protoss]

No, the devils are the ones that destroy the fidelity of your musical samples. If an R2R DAC performs well, it will get my recommendation. Here is an example: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...rements-of-soekris-dac1421-multibit-dac.3956/

View attachment 37302

So leave your generalizations at the door. Here, we go by logic and what we can demonstrate.

How is that generalization? The dac1421 has horrible measurements. Are you kidding me!?? This dac is in the red and you going to justify that is your rebuttal to me?

Jeez man....

Back to my non-generalization answer. R2R dacs are the devil.

 

[amirm]

Come on thats a cheap shot. That dac suck lol and the company.

There are more. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...n-da9-1-es9038pro-dac-and-headphone-amp.3618/

So you tell me why think it is "easy" to design these DACs. What is your electronic design experience?

 

[VintageFlanker]

What is your electronic design experience?

Not that much, I guess...

 

[amirm]

How is that generalization? The dac1421 has horrible measurements. Are you kidding me!?? This dac is in the red and you going to justify that is your rebuttal to me?

You said R2Rs are the devil here. I showed you a review where no such bias exists on my part. So no, I am not kidding you. I am countering your attempt at some high-school level debating logic. Don't generalize. We don't waste our time here because everything is the same on one front, and not the other.

 

[amirm]

Those Humps never bother anyone.

Oh? You said these DACs were easy to design. I tell you one aspect many companies get wrong and you say this? Work on your arguments before shouting them.

 

[protoss]

Oh? You said these DACs were easy to design. I tell you one aspect many companies get wrong and you say this? Work on your arguments before shouting them.

Where did i say it was easy? Oh, dont worry i work on my accurate arguments. Shouting? I laugh at the absurdities thats all.

Experiences? I have friends in china making these for $10. They tell me its a problem that the companies are causing doing their fancy work on their own dacs.
Why I need electronic design experience? I am the customer.

 

[amirm]

Where did i say it was easy?

Here:

Of course it will! We living in 2019 now. Anything that is AKM/ESS will score highly. Unless the company truly screws up on a already perfected easy to implement measure rated chip.

 

[amirm]

Why I need electronic design experience? I am the customer.

Then don't trivialize the work that goes into creating state-of-the-art products. Across 150+ DACs I have tested there is one constant: internal architecture doesn't matter. Careful engineering does. And that can only be confirmed through measurements. Going by this or that chip making a DAC good is a totally false notion.

 

[protoss]

"already perfected easy to implement measure rated chip". Yes, a chip that is created to easily be implemented.

I am surprise you take such a offense stances on this?

AKM/ESS chips just measure better to perfection.
and
R2R chips and custom-based chips are the devil. Okay lets not call it the devil. They just horrible at these measurements.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Why I need electronic design experience? I am the customer.

Yes, It's better to have some knowledge (you clearly don't) before coming here, arguing against our host, with nothing relevant to say.

 

[protoss]

Yes, It's better to have some knowledge (you clearly don't) before coming here, arguing against our host, with nothing relevant to say.

Sorry i offended your cult leader.

Your leader needs to be checked. And I will be questioning him.

You just watch over in the corner cheerleader.

https://drop.com/talk/18010/cult-of-audio-science-review-amirs-faithful

 

[VintageFlanker]

Sorry i offended your cult leader.

Your leader needs to be checked. And I will be questioning him.

You just watch over in the corner cheerleader.

No need to start a dispute with the ignorant random guy you are. Something I'm pretty sure at: you won't last long here, anyway.

 

[nscrivener]

No need to start a dispute with the ignorant random guy you are. Something I'm pretty sure at: you won't last long here, anyway.

This guy is either a troll or just so far gone with his own subjectivist beliefs that he won’t consider anything that even slightly counters his views. The cognitive dissonance is too much for him to bear.

Given the tone perhaps our admins would consider showing him the door?

 

[protoss]

This guy is either a troll or just so far gone with his own subjectivist beliefs that he won’t consider anything that even slightly counters his views. The cognitive dissonance is too much for him to bear.

Given the tone perhaps our admins would consider showing him the door?

Such a weak-ling you are. Arent you little duck-ling.

So what if I leave. The kool-aid party continues, drinking the host blood and everyone circle jerks each other to infinity. Never knew such weaklings are found at a science base forum.

 

[nscrivener]

No. I explained the reasons. If you are going to build a perceptual DAC that encodes high resolution audio most efficiently, you would start by including the audible band, and then exponentially preserve less and less of the ultrasonics. By the time you get to 48 kHz, you have covered anything good that might be there. There is no reason to perceptually encode stuff above that, especially if that may come at the expense of fidelity in the audible band.

This is covered by the Stuart et. al. paper on potential need for higher sample rate (AES paper, the audibility of typical digital audio filters in
a high-fidelity playback system):

View attachment 37301

Notice that at around 50 Khz or so, we are at the minima of the music spectrum and from there on, it is just noise that is rising up. So no need to encode that.

PCM is highly wasteful format. The goal here is not to preserve it all for the sake of it.

So no, there is no scam here with respect to upsampling to 192 kHz. It is the right thing to do to preserve music information but no more.

Amir, with respect, isn’t this just proving the futility of higher than 96khz sampling rates?
The “scam” is indicating to the consumer that there is anything different or better in the higher rate - whether that’s in a wasteful PCM encode at 192khz, or MQA saying that it is delivering a 192khz file.
I for one use Roon and am completely happy with MQA core only doing the “first unfold” no matter what the source master was originally encoded at. Because I know that it’s doubtful I’d ever hear a difference between 44khz and 88khz, let alone 192.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Such a weak-ling you are. Arent you little duck-ling.

So what if I leave. The kool-aid party continues, drinking the host blood and everyone circle jerks each other to infinity. Never knew such weaklings are found at a science base forum.

Thank you so much for making things easy. Bye.