New S.M.S.L. M300 SE 120$

[777]

M300 SE

Foshan ShuangMuSanLin electronics Co., LTD. founded in 2009 which located in Shenzhen, China. And our branch company VMV Technology(HK) Company Limited registered in HK in 2013. Our company is specialized in the audio DAC, stereo headphone amplifier, power amplifier, and with own R&D...

www.smsl-audio.com

 

[gvl]

DAC chip speced up to 384kHz, yet they advertise up to 768, odd.

 

[TonyJZX]

i cant say the Chinese dont constantly surprise me

how are they doing this for $120??? it has the std rc8c remote and it has XLR out (!!!)... cant say i'm a huge fan of trs

the reason why its probably cheap is because its using dual Crystals which isnt as popular these days... it has a vol. knob it has a proper dot matrix display and not a crappy segment display

i really really dislike the half loaf of bread format but jeez... this could be a winner if you're not fully set into the ESS and AKM duopoly

assuming the graphs look the same as the C100 and SU1 then why the hell would you buy those less featured units?

also BT but I think its only AAC and it has MQA if you want to throw a few coins to the Witcher

my reading of the manual is telling me the headphone power isnt anything but average so it has dual headphone ports for convenience rather than actual decent amplification there

 

[bogi]

DAC chip speced up to 384kHz, yet they advertise up to 768, odd.

It contains 2x CS43131, it may be switching input.

 

[_thelaughingman]

It’s cheaper because of the Cirrus Logic chips.

 

[TonyJZX]

i notice there's a 4 page white paper on the CS 43131 right here

A Thread Dedicated to Cirrus Logic CS43131

The USB-C Dongle Market Apparently CS43130 was a Wolfson chip. It was Hidizs / Tempotec / Meizu that first drew my attention to CS43131. Later in 2020 products with dual CS43131 such as iBasso DC03 began appearing. We’ve had these pages...

www.audiosciencereview.com

am i not mistaken in that this is mainly a processor designed for the mobile market and is limited to 384 but when used in dual can go to 768?

my opinion about that is... who cares... who is using this hi res format anyway

on an academic level it would be nice to see how a dual setup charts next to the ess/akm set

i notice there is only a 3.5mm out for SE analog as no room for dual rca?

also they went to dual type c, one for power, one for data

my prediction is that it comes close to ess/akm models of a similar price but doesnt quite get there but it'll be inaudible anyway

 

[Mojo Warrior]

It makes me wonder how much would it cost if assembled in Mexico or USA?

 

[Dunring]

I just ordered one from Hifi-Express. Will be probably 2+ weeks from China but I'll take it for a spin. Also will be happy to send it in for measurements if they don't send Amirm an evaluation unit. It's got low power, but as a DAC I can make use of it, then maybe try some IEM's with the amplifier outputs. As soon as it gets here I'll post and see if it's wanted to testing.

 

[audiofun]

price is low because of CS43131, which doesn't requires i/v conversion, output buffer stage, and headphone amp buffer. the power supply is also quite easy to do, which significantly reduces the IC needed.
noise is super, super low.
To those who needs rear balanced output / don't need a lot of power for their headphones, this is a perfect option.
The only major thing I find missing is filter selection. I hope they could add the feature as a firmware update.

Currently the cheapest balanced output DAC (Topping D10B) lacks single ended output / headphone output / remote / various inputs / etc and costs $20 more.

 

[TonyJZX]

i do notice in the manual that there is no filter/shaping whatever

like we are used to whatever shaping functions is standard baked into the silicon with akm ess so its funny to see nothing here but most of us realise that these things are useless anyway

the lack of rca kind of bums me out but a 3.5 to 2 x rca isnt a big deal i guess

the topping balanced is way way too cheap on functions to justify $140!

Topping D10 Balanced Review (USB DAC)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the new Topping D10 Balanced. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $139. The D10 Balanced as the name implies, comes in my favorite USB DAC package with the same cute orange display: Back panel is where the difference is: Balanced...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Kagemusha]

Maybe is only me, but I never liked that "squared" case enclosure.

 

[TonyJZX]

i hate it... it reminds me of the lab equipment i had at work

BUT if the thing has a glass front and all the features and it does what i expect for $120 i can forgive a lot

It doesnt match my A300 and I bet the remote will clash with my SMSL amp because they're still in the stone ages as far as rack compatibility goes...

 

[jeroboam]

I'm a bit confused ( not difficult ) about using this as a preamp with volume control for a power amp. If I plug a chromecast audio into the optical input will it function as a dac with volume control to the power amp. Grateful for your advice thanks.

 

[notsodeadlizard]

i cant say the Chinese dont constantly surprise me

how are they doing this for $120??? it has the std rc8c remote and it has XLR out (!!!)... cant say i'm a huge fan of trs

the reason why its probably cheap is because its using dual Crystals which isnt as popular these days... it has a vol. knob it has a proper dot matrix display and not a crappy segment display

i really really dislike the half loaf of bread format but jeez... this could be a winner if you're not fully set into the ESS and AKM duopoly

assuming the graphs look the same as the C100 and SU1 then why the hell would you buy those less featured units?

also BT but I think its only AAC and it has MQA if you want to throw a few coins to the Witcher

my reading of the manual is telling me the headphone power isnt anything but average so it has dual headphone ports for convenience rather than actual decent amplification there

There is no mystery here.

2 DAC ICes are about $20 in volumes if the supply chain is international (worldwide big distributors). So, for Chinese manufacturers it will be $15 maximum.
OLED screen's retail price is less than $4, so it will be less than $1.
Remote is something unified and "branded" of high volume from third party, so it will be $2 maximum.
+$30 for everything else (overestimation).
Let it be $60 in total cost.
+ cost of work which is assembly and packing primary.

 

[audiofun]

There is no mystery here.

2 DAC ICes are about $20 in volumes if the supply chain is international (worldwide big distributors). So, for Chinese manufacturers it will be $15 maximum.
OLED screen's retail price is less than $4, so it will be less than $1.
Remote is something unified and "branded" of high volume from third party, so it will be $2 maximum.
+$30 for everything else (overestimation).
Let it be $60 in total cost.
+ cost of work which is assembly and packing primary.

That's surely overestimation. the total bom cost should below 35%. so probably $45 at most.
other things also have significant cost (amazon/dealer fee, transportation, return/replacement, etc) so they can't do it at $120 if bom is $60.

 

[TonyJZX]

that must be true because you have a situation where SMSL are literally cutting the ass out of everything to make the SU1 and C100 work with no remote, no display, no vol. knob and all these QoL minuses to make that price.

 

[pos]

Interesting unit for sure!
This is tempting!
I don’t recall reading any report of smsl units doing crazy things like forgetting volume control settings and such, and my good old pair of m8 have been flawless and well behaved fir many years now in my active system (no volume control tho...).

What I would love to see would be some sort of "gain" setting in the menu that would set the max level at 0dBFS (eg 0.5V, 1V, 2V, 4V) with volume at max. No need for an analog circuit given the crazy high dynamic range, just a digital limit that would avoid user errors, as well as (hopefully) firmware errors.
I guess that would be pretty easy to do and would add a layer of security.

 

[Berwhale]

I'm a bit confused ( not difficult ) about using this as a preamp with volume control for a power amp. If I plug a chromecast audio into the optical input will it function as a dac with volume control to the power amp. Grateful for your advice thanks.

Yes, it will work as a digital pre-amp or as a DAC with a fixed output.

 

[HappyMetalGuy]

that must be true because you have a situation where SMSL are literally cutting the ass out of everything to make the SU1 and C100 work with no remote, no display, no vol. knob and all these QoL minuses to make that price.

Smsl c100 has a remote, display and Bluetooth this are non existent in su-1.

 

[TonyJZX]

SMSL M300 SE DAC Headphone Amplifier 2x CS43131 XMOS Dual Clock NDK Bluetooth 5.0 32bit 768kHz DSD256 MQA - Audiophonics

The SMSL M300 SE is a powerful and compact DAC in an atypical format. Integrating high quality components, it is the perfect ally to offer your HiFi audio system a high quality digital-to-analog converter.

www.audiophonics.fr

the french has blessed the euros with this thing

i already got one from hifi express