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SMSL D-6 DAC Review

Rate this DAC:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 4 1.4%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 10 3.4%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther

    Votes: 90 30.8%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 188 64.4%

  • Total voters
    292

sarumbear

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Read my post again.

The Question was WHY is it a class II and why is the D100 a Class I device.
I read. It is here and you do not ask that question on it. Besides, the answer is because they are designed two different ways.

There is no reason for a DAC to have a C13 plug even if it is Class I
There is no reason to use a power connector that has an earth connection when there is no earth connection on the device. I do not understand why you are even asking such a question?
 

HorizonsEdge

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I think we need a new way to dislpay the ranking. Even at full size, the device names are getting hard to read :)

index.php


I vote for a histogram!
I think the simple solution is to display each range by itself and stack them.
 

Ryeno

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I think the simple solution is to display each range by itself and stack them.
Most people won't buy anything that isn't excellent (or currently in production), so it's best to move everything else to a different page.

DAC names should be listed horizontal for readability rather than vertical.
 

WhyNotHad

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Really? When did you test it?

here

So many users of it have reported this issue.

SMSL has already recognized this issue through the report, and is probably working on a firmware update. We are just hoping that this issue will be resolved.
 

Palladium

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Many things are reaching 14 NM now. Global foundries has decided to basically stop at 12 nanometer because of the amount of older designs which are moving down to 14 NM now. The overall tape out cost for something on 7 NM today just does not make sense for anything other than an extremely high volume high yield product. Even though seven nanometer has been out for a few years now the price is still not low by any means. Chips like DACs and amp and other similar IC's I would say are a few years away from even being on 14 nanometer. I would be very surprised if any of them are on 14 NM today.
. Another thing which is happening is that larger companies are making SOC with all of these different chips integrated. So smaller companies will either sell or license their designs to larger companies in order to be integrated into an soc. Or they will be almost made irrelevant by the larger company designing something similar to put into their SOC thus eliminating the need for their chip entirely.

This is especially true for the largest companies which are on the smallest most advanced nodes of today. Some of the chips integrated today include memory controllers and power management IC as well as decode and encode ASIC codecs for various common audio, video and photo formats.

The mass availability of smaller and better lithography will guarantee more advancements in everyday consumer electronics for at least the next decade even as lithography technology slows down in its advancement.

The world is now so awashed with transistors that the bleeding edge nodes only matter for the bleeding edge CPUs and GPU designs. Nobody gonna care if their microwave oven IC uses an extra 2W on an "ancient" node.
 

reddie.k

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SU-6 is highlighted instead of D-6 in the SINAD graph of the review.

I chose to get SU-6. One of the reasons is that D-6 has plexiglass (PMMA plastic) display and I was worried about scratches. SU-6 has tempered glass display.
 

Jimster480

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The world is now so awashed with transistors that the bleeding edge nodes only matter for the bleeding edge CPUs and GPU designs. Nobody gonna care if their microwave oven IC uses an extra 2W on an "ancient" node.
Well yes and no. Maybe not for a mainstream standard cheap microwave. However more features can be available and work better.. When it comes to things like phones, flash lights, cameras, Bluetooth headsets, temp probes, wireless cameras, etc
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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How about one that just contains more pixels so that it can be read more clearly when clicked on & zoomed in?
It already has nearly 4000 pixels horizontally. More pixels will make the image even larger.
 

laudio

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Price point looks good for a DAC (a good DAC should cost < $200). Balanced TRS doesn't seem to offer better performance improvement over other single ended DACs on the chart. Agree on the build in power supply and really like the smaller power connector vs IEC. I'd buy it if I didn't already have a ton of other DACs that are going to sound the same. When will somebody offer a DAC with more inputs and other features (multiple inputs, DSP)? This is a respin of the same old same old.
 

srrxr71

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Maybe the colors need to be split up into their own files. Maybe a text list of the tiers for people looking up their DAC. Vertical graph is probably better than horizontal.
 

Robbo99999

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It already has nearly 4000 pixels horizontally. More pixels will make the image even larger.
Yeah, I know, but it would just mean that when you click on it to zoom in on it then you'd have to scroll the image left & right more than you do currently to see the total range, but that's not much of a problem for the user really.

EDIT: I do like the other idea too, the stacked bar graph, but would need a way to see which DACS were in which bars, or conversely just adding this one onto your current graph, and presenting your original SINAD graph (but with more pixels) as an expandable thumbnail (so two graphs, one being the original just as a little expandable thumbnail so it doesn't take up room on the review page, or instead a simple large table which would also be an expandable thumbnail to compliment the stacked bar graph):
index.php
 
Last edited:

Jimster480

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Maybe the colors need to be split up into their own files. Maybe a text list of the tiers for people looking up their DAC. Vertical graph is probably better than horizontal.
I just download it and rotate it on my pc lol. I make screencaps to send people sometimes with just a segment if they ask me about performance.
 

Lorenzo74

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If these smaller companies are able to get this kinda performance out of these chip dacs for this kinda price why can't the larger companies with big financial backing get close or equal these dynamic and low distortion numbers in their mid and upper priced AVR's? Or any of their gear..is it a money thing, not cost effective?
I believe this is not a smaller company and could easily acquire what you name larger companies…
 

SpaceMonkey

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here

So many users of it have reported this issue.

SMSL has already recognized this issue through the report, and is probably working on a firmware update. We are just hoping that this issue will be resolved.

There's been discussion on this DAC since early June...
Thank you!
Really a shame that they can't build something that works without some caveat.
 

Merifon

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Damn that's lucky. I wanted to sell my sanskrit 10 but I decided that giving away a good functional DAC for maybe 60€ wasn't worth it.
I'll just wait until the DO100 is cheaper now or the D-6 is on amazon prime
I was waiting for many reason (waf included) when suddenly decided to buy and this time gone well. The problem is when I buy shares on stock exchange, generally the opposite happens...
Turning to dac's, I replaced a SMSL mk100II. I didn't do instant comparison tests but I can say that recordings problems have now much more evidence and dac residual background noise (with ear close to speaker, pause and max volume) are now totally absent.
 

Walter

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Re: Eliminating the bar outline - Please share more on your thought/reasoning here
The outline serves no purpose and actually worsens usability as it makes the difference between devices slightly more difficult to determine. It also takes up space that just makes the graph look more crowded. The vast majority of bar charts do not use such an outline, unless it is important to show how an individual item compares to a perfect score.

While it would certainly be more work--you might also consider having the chart display in landscape when the viewport is above 1200px wide, or whatever breakpoint you use to differentiate desktop devices from mobile. Not critical, however.
 

Walter

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I like this, very much (FWIW).
Not least because it provides a little meta-analysis of the data: to wit, the distribution of quality across the population of tested devices.

View attachment 222425
Biased towards the excellent/very good, but far from normal (or even Poisson), and far from monotonic -- with a long, lingering tail of losers. ;)

In fairness, the current graphic conveys the same information but in a less obvious way ;)

Adding the third dimension of price to the meta-analysis would be tonnes of fun to look at! :)
(I guess one could calculate a SINAD per dollar ratio and just look at that)
I personally do not like this at all. However, if it was interactive, so that hovering over a bar would show me the name of that device (and yes, adding list price at the time of the review would be nice, also) then I could live with it. As a static image I find it almost useless.
 
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