I bought the SMSL D200 after seeing information about the ROHM chip on another forum. Specifically, I was interested in 100% support for direct DSD playback without conversion to PCM. For home listening, I use a fairly complex audio system configuration for DSD upsampling using HQPlayer. The DAC in this system hasn't been updated in a long time, and all the improvements were mostly software-based. So, after replacing my Burr-Brown DAC with a ROHM one, I was very surprised by the improvement in sound quality.
The sound was evaluated using headphones, where the changes were particularly noticeable. The depth of the soundstage changed, becoming deeper. The focus of virtual sound sources improved, making them smaller and more recognizable. The sound shifted away from the head, becoming more like the sound of a real room or concert hall. The soundstage line also became more even, with central images lower and more aligned with the lateral ones.
I wanted to share my impressions on audio forums and was surprised to find that the most lively and extensive discussion took place only on the ASR forum, and even in the thread about the SMSL D1... I saw how unfriendly this forum was to subjective evaluations, so I organized a blind test of two DACs. To help, I invited two friends with good ears, one of whom is a professional pianist. They, like me, are passionate about high-quality sound and have already given their opinions on my system setup before.
I used various configurations for connecting two DACs to a single headphone amplifier. For listening, I always used the same audio file, feeding it to both devices simultaneously. To equalize volume levels, I used a 1 kHz sine wave files in FLAC and DSF formats. Measurements were taken at the headphone amplifier output with an accuracy of 0.1V. To instantly switch between the DACs, I custom-built a simple line-in switch.
My friends had previously read the comments on this forum, so I explained the blind testing rules to them in detail. For them, it was like an interesting game, sometimes with funny moments. Ultimately, they successfully passed their hearing tests and confirmed my conclusions about the ROHM chip. I highly appreciated their assessments of the sound differences, sometimes quite unexpected.
I won't hide the fact that I carefully selected the music tracks before testing. They all came from different genres, but they were united by the excellent quality of the sound engineers' processing, whether for mixing or live recording. All the tracks had a deep and wide soundstage with clearly defined foregrounds and backgrounds.
In conclusion, I'd like to say that the Japanese engineers at ROHM have created an excellent DAC chip with big potential. Apparently, the secret lies in their low-pass output filter after the delta modulator. On the chip's block diagram, it's modestly called the "current segment."
P.S. Sorry if I haven't explained anything clearly enough; English is not my native language. I'm happy to answer any questions.
I haven’t looked into it deeply yet, but the price tag seems to be, at the very least, as much as the DAC itself.
