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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

kostago

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Dec 30, 2022
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I just bought SMSL D6, and was running it through usb from my laptop and I have the same clicking popping noises while playing Tidal or Foobar on Windows 10. I dissabled the Power managment of the USB ports in Control Panel and no success. These clicking noises occur randomly during the playback of the tracks (not between the tracks or changing the sample rate). I tried what @pjoh suggested in this thread, to activate Streaming Always On in the Control Panel of the XMOS driver, but that didn't change anything. Does anyone have the same problem and have some instructions about this problem?
 

xeizo

Active Member
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Dec 5, 2022
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I just bought SMSL D6, and was running it through usb from my laptop and I have the same clicking popping noises while playing Tidal or Foobar on Windows 10. I dissabled the Power managment of the USB ports in Control Panel and no success. These clicking noises occur randomly during the playback of the tracks (not between the tracks or changing the sample rate). I tried what @pjoh suggested in this thread, to activate Streaming Always On in the Control Panel of the XMOS driver, but that didn't change anything. Does anyone have the same problem and have some instructions about this problem?

I have had my D6 a couple of weeks now, exactly zero problems, I can stream for hours and not a single click/pop/noise. Sound is very stable. I use Tidal HiFi, Youtube and Foobar 2000(non exclusive mode for EAPO to work).

You could have a Windows resampling problem, it sometimes leaves artifacts, see to it you have 24/44.1 for the DAC in the Windows control panel(Tidal is always 44.1 unless you have the Master subscription and some tracks go higher).

Disabling "USB port power management in control panel" is maybe not enough, you have to go into "Device Manager" and find all "USB hubs", those are the ones needed to have Power Management turned off for each and every one for having stable USB audio. In particular on a laptop, as it should have strong power management, which is in effect "anti-audio".

I use EAPO + PEACE on Windows 11 and it works great, I have tuned my HE400SE to Sennheiser HE-1 LoL
 

mrjayviper

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Jun 27, 2022
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can someone please tell me the opamp used on this dac? thanks
 

xeizo

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Whatever OP amps they are, Chinese copy or whatever, they seem to be pretty good as measurements are pretty good. You don't really need to know more than that.
 

doug s.

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Jan 10, 2021
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can someone please tell me the opamp used on this dac? thanks
based on pics i found on line, smsl uses opa1611 and 1612 in the da-s8 and m400, so there's a possibility that's what's used here. but are you really wanting to replace smd opamps?

doug s.
 

xeizo

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Dec 5, 2022
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From what info I've gathered, OP amp rolling is mostly placebo as different OP:s have different loudness it's easy to believe one sounds better(the loudest). If a OP does what it is intended to do within a certain circuit it is good enough.

I did some OP rolling on my old Xonar ST back in the day, couldn't hear any particular difference in actual quality.

For music creation it gets more interesting as different OP have different types of distortion when overdriven. In a Fuzz box, choice of OP matters a lot.
 
Last edited:

rentaclaus

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Nov 25, 2022
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OP amp rolling with IC's is for absolute beginners.
Real men have discrete OP amps, even mounting will be a challenge o_O

 

xeizo

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OP amp rolling with IC's is for absolute beginners.
Real men have discrete OP amps, even mounting will be a challenge o_O


Bordering on the extreme, but does it sound better? LoL
 

Veri

Master Contributor
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Feb 6, 2018
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OP amp rolling with IC's is for absolute beginners.
Real men have discrete OP amps, even mounting will be a challenge o_O
Not really they're just a bit tall. Also for the record Burson (used to) send these around on head-fi if you're active for an "honest" review as in they publish whatever sweet syrup you conjure getting a free tall discrete OP amp gift :rolleyes: reminds me of those scam 5-star amazon products.
 

doug s.

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there's so many different opamps - discrete or otherwise. not sure it would be worth it for this; you could end up spending as much or more for the set-up as for the dac.

first, you need these:
2021-06-05-00.09.40-1.jpg

then, for discrete opamps:
DIP8-Op-Amp-Socket-Extender-1-1200x1200.png


good luck,

doug s.
 

mrjayviper

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never said I was going to change the opamp. just more like wanting to know. like on the do100, SMSL clearly mentions it's using OPA1612x4. I'm guessing the ones on the D-6 are not special?
 

xeizo

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never said I was going to change the opamp. just more like wanting to know. like on the do100, SMSL clearly mentions it's using OPA1612x4. I'm guessing the ones on the D-6 are not special?

Really doesn't matter what magic label they have or not have, obviously they do the job(low distorsion, low noise, wide and straight frequency range)

I remember when OP really was ******, like when I was starting out as a musician and the mixer consoles of the day had built in noise like the Niagara falls. Almost. Eventually OP:s became better.
 

Veri

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never said I was going to change the opamp. just more like wanting to know. like on the do100, SMSL clearly mentions it's using OPA1612x4. I'm guessing the ones on the D-6 are not special?
It'll be similar. Seems to be some TI SoundPlus™ OPA1611/OPA1612. As are most very low distortion output stages nowadays, actually.
 

doug s.

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never said I was going to change the opamp. just more like wanting to know. like on the do100, SMSL clearly mentions it's using OPA1612x4. I'm guessing the ones on the D-6 are not special?
maybe if you query smsl, they will tell you. or someone can open one up and look...

doug s.
 
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