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

[Leonm771]

I want to upgrade my very cheap DAC FIIO d03k on my active setup with SMSL M300SE because will make my system fully balanced.

Someone upgraded from cheap DAC to M300SE and notice an improvement in sound quality?

Tbh, no.

 

[TonyJZX]

oddly enough that dac has been tested

FiiO Taishan D03K DAC measurements

FiiO Taishan D03K is a pretty cheap DAC that was often recommended online to connect TVs (that now mostly provide only digital audio output) with analogue audio gear. I have one so I thought it might be useful to post my measurements. Cost was 21,99 GBP a few years ago. Here's a few pictures of...

www.audiosciencereview.com

i'd put forward that its quite easy to make a dac that performs better than that but whether you will notice a difference?

I have cheaper dacs that the m300 but i'd probably not pass a dbx

but i like the high standard the m300 brings to the table

eg. i like my c100 but i really prefer everything the m300 does

 

[Solveit]

Tbh, no.

If you run all balanced as me I would do it, but better sound?
I don't know.

 

[TonyJZX]

well put it this way

if you bought 2 x M300s, ran one XLR, ran another thru rca and do a double blind, would you notice a difference???

i dont think so

and XLR does nothing for you on short runs

i always say... if you have an XLR amp. buy an XLR dac to fill in one of the inputs you would otherwise not use

other people say its reasssuring to know that your XLR dac to XLR amp has ZERO interference

 

[Leonm771]

I see that a lot of people here write about "Pops, clicks, cracks...", I also had some problems when I connected the M300SE with a long Baseus TypeC cable.
I couldn't set high sampling rates (192, 384, 768kHz), there was a lot of distortion and noise, if I set 48kHz it seemed fine, but I heard some stuttering, not very noticeable, but a slight click... I thought it was a bad quality DAC.

But when I connected the M300SE through a short 1m Ugreen cable (US355), everything worked as it should, without any problems.
Maybe this will help someone.

same as my reply in last year, I mentioned the og cable of m300se , is terribly suck.
with the og cable , I feel like most people have the same problem, popping sound , crack sound.
After changing to a "qualified cable" , problem solved.

Here is my setup ,
Monitor -> (samsung USB-A to C cable) M300SE -> genelec 7040A -> genelec 8020D.

 

[sunjam]

Thanks to the follew member @KadoPT for providing the link to the lastest SMSL driver
All the noise with previous driver is gone. It works perfectly now! Yeah!