Sabaj D5 vs Topping DX7 Pro vs SMSL M500 - battle of the ES9038Pro

[TC!!]

No it is not. See below

And here is another guy who has it working: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...l-m500-dac-and-hp-amp-review.9606/post-276560

Z Review also reported that SMSL M500 has signal leakage which is a hardware issue. Can it be repaired? Maybe in v2

I've seen the Z video but I haven't seen anyone on this forum mention the same problem.

Not trying to say the M500 is perfect but you calling it out as a buggy device when most people have very positive things to say about the sound quality is going too far.

 

[NorthGraves]

And here is another guy who has it working

Plays perfectly fine for me too...

 

[pcdinh]

Not trying to say the M500 is perfect but you calling it out as a buggy device when most people have very positive things to say about the sound quality is going too far.

SMSL M500 fits perfectly in the definition of a buggy device because lots of people reports annoying issues when using it. SMSL team has delivered 3 firmware updates and issues are still there. For now I still think that SMSL M500 v1 is hard to fix. SMSL M500 v2 should be hopefully perfectly fine.

History repeats: SMSL SU-8 v1 vs SMSL SU-8 v2

 

[headwhacker]

I'll take buggy 32-bit/DSD256 playback as long as it plays the most important formats namely 24/88.2-96Khz and 16/44.1-48khz. (for me anyways) really well and does not cost too much.

I have the SMSL SU-8 v2 and Benchmark DAC2 HGC never had issues playing back the common formats I mentioned. Benchmark don't even support anything higher than 24bit/192Khz/DSD64 (at least not natively)

I end up using my SU-8 + 789 amp most of the time because it's a pain using the DAC2 as headphone amp when I need to adjust gain settings a few times.

I remember when I first got my SU-8 there is an itch to "play DSD512" that needs scratching. I think just for the sake of finding out if it works or not. Once it happened, I could care less about DSD (let alone DSD512).

 

[ReaderZ]

And here is another guy who has it working: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...l-m500-dac-and-hp-amp-review.9606/post-276560



I've seen the Z video but I haven't seen anyone on this forum mention the same problem.

Not trying to say the M500 is perfect but you calling it out as a buggy device when most people have very positive things to say about the sound quality is going too far.

Dude, go read the M500 review thread, it looked more and more like a tech support thread.

 

[TC!!]

Dude, go read the M500 review thread, it looked more and more like a tech support thread.

No need, I have an M500 sitting here working perfectly for me for the past 5 months.

 

[ReaderZ]

No need, I have an M500 sitting here working perfectly for me for the past 5 months.

The point is topping DX7 pro and D5 thread look like normal review thread, the last 10 pages of M500 thread are filled with nothing but tech support post, which says a lot about difference between these products.

 

[TC!!]

The point is topping DX7 pro and D5 thread look like normal review thread, the last 10 pages of M500 thread are filled with nothing but tech support post, which says a lot about difference between these products.

Really? I remember a lot of posts about the D5 when people had to get the firmware tool delivered to be able to upgrade it.
Also, read around a bit more, a lot of negative posts about Topping.

At the end of the day we're getting top of the line DAC chips at chinese prices, there's a reason these cost a lot less than German DACs. It's a choice you need to make when you buy one. For the price I paid I'm very happy with the sound of my M500.

If they bring out a MK2 which fixes the thermal issues I'll take a hit when I sell it on eBay and upgrade. Right now it still sounds a lot better to me than the DAC it replaced which cost me twice as much.