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

[audiofun]

ok here's where i have a see a few downsides...

the headphone support is kind of... hmmm

firstly you have to select "HP" from "LINE"... so the socket isnt live until you turn it on with the menu... sure why not?

2nd it doesnt have enough power... I'm at vol 35 with a max of 40... this is the Bowers P7 which I never found to be all the power hungry?

I also tried my Bowers PX5 and my AKG NC700 and its the same story... I dont think it sounds all that good either... unlike my dedicated units like my Xduoo XD5.

BUT I mean you have to expect a dedicated unit to beat whats a 'freebie' on a desktop dac. Its not good, not terrible... 3.6!

You are using low impedance headphones and are difficult to drive.
Try using the balanced headphone output. it will give you much more power than single ended.

Yes the headphone output comes directly from the chip and is pretty weak. But as long as it's not clipping for your headphone, it should sound good.

 

[TonyJZX]

ok because i was bored i tried a crappy old Huawei 500ma charger and to my surprise it works fine on xlr anyway?

 

[audiofun]

CS43131 doesn't require much power and 500ma charger can sufficiently supply 2.5W. maximum consumption is <3W (with everything such as bluetooth on and maximum headphone output).
if you have a 5V1A charger it will be more than enough.

 

[TonyJZX]

no surprises here

also his Topping LA90D test unit is doing Topping things

 

[Solveit]

I wanted balanced output so I bought this.
Very nice sounding and dead quiet.

 

[TonyJZX]

this unit is actually quieter than every amp i own... every one of them, even the digital ones

 

[newbe]

Update: The Hart cable multi kit came today so I was able to test the 4.4mm balanced plug for power using a phone soundmeter app and keeping it in the same spot using the quick connect to swap ends. Tried both with the Samsung phone charger on the supplemental power plug and USB only connection. Hifiman HE5xx headphones for test.

The 440hz test tone was 73db using the 6.35mm, and 78db on the 4.4mm balanced with everything staying the same. I did it when the AC wasn't running and everything else was quiet. Using USB and also having the supplemental power hooked up made no difference (I was testing the other inputs for function, so had it hooked up anyway). It gets the He5xx louder than I would ever listen to, so there's some EQ headroom to play with if you use the 4.4mm with it. No functional problems, I've thrown every file type at it, smooth playback on wasapi event and ASIO. Downside is it takes 3+ weeks to arrive, and no filter selection. Looks really nice if you need a small footprint compared to a stack.

View attachment 288601

Did you test with DSD 512 file?

 

[Toku]

Japanese users report that the beginning of the song is not played when playing DSD.
SMSL has long incorporated a fade-in behavior to prevent pop noise when switching songs. Perhaps the M300SE has a large effect and appears as a symptom. In particular, it seems that the symptoms are more pronounced in songs with short silences at the beginning of the song.
In addition, the user points out that the HP amplifier is so poor that it is a practical problem.

 

[audiofun]

Japanese users report that the beginning of the song is not played when playing DSD.
SMSL has long incorporated a fade-in behavior to prevent pop noise when switching songs. Perhaps the M300SE has a large effect and appears as a symptom. In particular, it seems that the symptoms are more pronounced in songs with short silences at the beginning of the song.

There's an xmos driver setting to disable this behavior.

In addition, the user points out that the HP amplifier is so poor that it is a practical problem.

This unit uses CS chip, which is designed specifically for headphones. It can detect headphones resistance automatically and switch to the right mode for your headphone --- no other HP amp has this feature. If you have a normal headphone it should work great. It will work even better if you are using IEMs, given the super low 90mv SNR. This device's headphone output is not designed for those hard to drive phones, for which you need a separate amp.

 

[Dunring]

Did you test with DSD 512 file?

It just supports 256, it's in the manual so I didn't try it. I can't even find a DSD512 test file like a 10 second test tone just to try that on a DAC. DSD256 does work though.

 

[mccririck]

Japanese users report that the beginning of the song is not played when playing DSD.
SMSL has long incorporated a fade-in behavior to prevent pop noise when switching songs. Perhaps the M300SE has a large effect and appears as a symptom. In particular, it seems that the symptoms are more pronounced in songs with short silences at the beginning of the song.
In addition, the user points out that the HP amplifier is so poor that it is a practical problem.

Cheap Audio Man says it works great with headphones.

 

[Toku]

Cheap Audio Man says it works great with headphones.

Thank you for providing the information. But I do not trust any information from Youtubers who receive free products from the company.
They aim to disseminate and advertise product information on behalf of manufacturers. So I can't tell you the truth.
In the past, I have received products from several manufacturers, and I have received requests from the companies to advertise their products. However, once I explained the truth in detail and posted it, no more products were sent after that.

 

[TonyJZX]

Cheap Audio Man says it works "great" with headphones.

there's caveats which even he admits

i have been playing with mine with various headphones and I can get a good sound and good sound level with the 300.

Its a good headphone amp. But its not the best even among the few amps I have.

Would you use it to push $1,000 Dan Clarks? No.

But for many common headphones its fine. Like my favorite AKG N700s they work perfect.

But for hard to drive units, no.

I mean for the money it does a lot of things great and it does a few things quite well.

 

[Toku]

The CS43131 DAC chip used in the M300 SE supports up to DSD256 and PCM384kHz.
However, the product description and manual for the M300 SE states that PCM supports up to 768kHz.
What does this mean? When PCM768kHz is input, will it be down-converted to 384kHz?
The AL200, which uses the same DAC chip, is also described as supporting up to PCM768kHz. This is very strange.

 

[TonyJZX]

i think people are guesstimating that since a SINGLE CS43131 can do 384 that SMSL are doing something wacky in firmware to squeeze out 768

they themselves say that the dac uses one CS dac for each channel so it is a differential design which means the XLR is serving a fully balanced design

this isnt new... LG were doing quad dacs with ESS.

 

[Mark K]

Just, just started using my year old Loxjie D30 and the headphone output is quite...quite suitable for IEM than my K712pro. Had a M300 SE on order...and I cannot find its earphone output level thought.
I have been using gen 1 M500 for sometime with its 700mV output, my larger headphones can be driven, with effort.

 

[Toku]

Just, just started using my year old Loxjie D30 and the headphone output is quite...quite suitable for IEM than my K712pro. Had a M300 SE on order...and I cannot find its earphone output level thought.
I have been using gen 1 M500 for sometime with its 700mV output, my larger headphones can be driven, with effort.

The CS43131 used in the M300 SE is a DAC chip with a built-in headphone amplifier, and the M300 SE uses it as is.
So the output is 148mW/32Ω and 15mW/300Ω, which is small compared to the absurdly large outputs of recent HP amplifiers, but I think it is sufficient for practical purposes.

 

[Mark K]

The CS43131 used in the M300 SE is a DAC chip with a built-in headphone amplifier, and the M300 SE uses it as is.
So the output is 148mW/32Ω and 15mW/300Ω, which is small compared to the absurdly large outputs of recent HP amplifiers, but I think it is sufficient for practical purposes.

At least it won't burn my IEM as my M500 did

 

[TonyJZX]

i dont think there's enough power to burn IEMs... like trying to burn a frozen turkey with a candle.

 

[Toku]

At least it won't burn my IEM as my M500 did

i dont think there's enough power to burn IEMs... like trying to burn a frozen turkey with a candle.

The CS43131 DAC chip was originally designed for portable audio and USB dongles. Therefore, the power of the headphone output is small.
SMSL used the CS43131 for desktop products such as the M300SE and AL200 instead of its original purpose, resulting in a half-finished specification.
I also don't understand why SMSL designed it this way.