No worries, I'm sorry to hear that.
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SMSL D300 Review (Balanced DAC)
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
It really is a malicious assumption that SMSL has selectively fitted the D300 with out-of-tolerance specification chips. And facts are stubborn things, as I have -so far- encountered at least 4 pcs such D300s. The 75+75 ohm/5+10 ohm is to compensate for this signal level difference (?) I hope no more things come out about the D300!There is a solution for all these - fortunately - but it takes a lot of time to trim and adjust. But at the end of the process, you get sound quality that is several times higher than its price range!
Have you had anyone look at the VMV D2R?
D
Deleted member 67533
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New owner of D300 firmware 1.21 (usb 1.30)
any way to backup firmware 1.21 ? (before downgrade)
can I downgrade to firmware 1.0?
or it will kill the s/pdif inputs?
regards
any way to backup firmware 1.21 ? (before downgrade)
can I downgrade to firmware 1.0?
or it will kill the s/pdif inputs?
regards
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See message #373 page 19. There is a link to FW 1.0. I did not use that link, because my D300 works flawless. I have no idea what FW mine has. I use it in COAX mode with a node 2i.
Does anybody successfully downgrade from MCU 1.21 or 1.20? Current fw version is visible in the reset menu.
My assumptions after reading this thread:
SMSL is currently selling D300 with MCU fw 1.21 and USB fw 1.30.
This fw causes pops (when switching sample rate) which led people to try to downgrade MCU fw to 1.1 or 1.0.
The firmware 1.0 and 1.1 (1.11 ?) was published in this thread by people who obtain it from @SMSL-Mandy.
Nobody succeeded to downgrade from 1.21 to 1.1 or 1.0. Downgrade from 1.21 makes inputs not working.
1.20 or 1.21 was never installed on units of people who successfully changed fw to 1.1 (1.11) or 1.0.
Am I correct with these assumptions?
My assumptions after reading this thread:
SMSL is currently selling D300 with MCU fw 1.21 and USB fw 1.30.
This fw causes pops (when switching sample rate) which led people to try to downgrade MCU fw to 1.1 or 1.0.
The firmware 1.0 and 1.1 (1.11 ?) was published in this thread by people who obtain it from @SMSL-Mandy.
Nobody succeeded to downgrade from 1.21 to 1.1 or 1.0. Downgrade from 1.21 makes inputs not working.
1.20 or 1.21 was never installed on units of people who successfully changed fw to 1.1 (1.11) or 1.0.
Am I correct with these assumptions?
D
Deleted member 67533
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Excellent sounding and working dac! it sounds better than an audio note dac
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I wonder what this is?
and USB
when the firmware is lowered on versions 1.0 and 1.11, there is no sound on both outputs and the Volume tab on the XMOS USB DAC driver control panel disappears. Do not lower the firmware of anyone with 1.21, there will be a "brick".
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Deleted member 67533
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I downgrade to version FW1.0 all the bugs went and the sound is much better nowmailto:[email protected] needs a picture.
Or 1.21 is @Anigma's release ... Could you please fix all the bugs?
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Veri
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I guess there is FW version and DFU bin version, most likely just confusion here.
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Deleted member 67533
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Fantastic device the sound is so perfect!!!! better than my 2500$ dac!!!
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Mine sounds totally fine. And no bugs at all. But I upsample everything to DSD256 in roon.
D
Deleted member 67533
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BUY This Dac is a true high-end device it worth several time his price. before it is out of stock, you will miss one of the best sub 2000$ dac
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@jeanpierr72 What you wrote about sound before editing your posts is your subjective personal opinion, not a general truth and nothing objective. In the world of listening experiences everybody is equally true. Different people are using different listening chains, have different hearing abilities, may be sensitive to different sound aspects, may have different opinion about what is good sound, which aspects of sound quality are most important. There is no point in fighting for your truth in this area. The opposite is appropriate: respect to others.
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Didn't understand the question, what should I fix? I have nothing to do with SMSL - I just have two such DACs, both work with clicks on these firmware, I lowered the firmware on one and got a negative result - no clicks and no sound. Photos for review, so that people do not make such mistakes. Here, in fact, the question is different - in the position of SMSL on this issue. @jeanpierr72 attached a screenshot of the engineer's response - do they really not know what they are releasing? And why for free download (https://download.shenzhenaudio.com /) then the firmware that kills the DAC?
It was thought primarily as a joke from my side. But I also wanted to make clear how it is possible to post a photo of a non downgraded unit and at the same time to perfectly know what happens after downgrade. I didn't know you bought more D300's and broke one of them. Thanks for your explanation and sorry if I confused you too much.
Thank you very much for doing so. You confirmed my assumptions I formulated in this post.
It looks to me your point is correct. It was shown before in this thread that 221012 points to 1.11 MCU fw. It seems to me they are providing 1.11 MCU fw for download and at the same time they are selling devices with 1.21 MCU fw. Applying 1.11 MCU fw on a "popping" device with 1.21 MCU fw bricks the device. New owner, experiencing pops, may be looking for fw update. Numbers like 1.21 or 1.11 are shown on DAC display but are not included on their download page - see my picture below. Mess and incompetence!
From my point of view these concerns are main point of this thread. SMSL releases new and new DAC devices n times in a year. Amirs measurements are making them advertising for free - many times in a year. SMSL uses their development resources primarily for new device development. User satisfaction and support of products which are still in production or on stock worldwide seems to be secondary for them. Look how much DACs they released after D300. I doubt there will be any fw update fixing 1.21 issues. They have other priorities ... Their cheap devices are massively sold worldwide, so their business model seems to be successful. Things are not changing quickly, but companies behaving so deserve ruin of reputation.
Then, their support seems to be non competent. Their support person is not able to understand that a requested fw version may be MCU fw version and not USB fw version. Or development stuff is not informing correctly their support persons. Other indications show the same about Topping and SMSL. Previously supportive persons like JohnYang and smsl_mandy disappeared.
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Here's the thing...
It's just that the speakers are decently more expensive than this DAC and they are somehow more sorry... It is impossible to use it in DSD at all, and no settings help, and I was not 100% sure that rolling back the firmware in this way would affect the DAC, since it is not explicitly stated anywhere, usually normal and responsible manufacturers always talk about it.And here everything is simpler, nor SMSL nor Topping, nor SABAJ are engaged in software development, in fact, like many others, but take reference boards with reference software and only change the names there, that's why such a mess... The same problem, for example, in TOPPING RD3, it is made on the same board ...
You can, of course, remove the firmware dump from a serviceable DAC, but to be honest, I have neither the desire nor the time to do this, and I'm too old for this already... The only pity is that, in principle, the device is not bad in terms of functionality and design and it cannot be used normally.
Update...
Maybe it will be useful to someone... By using different configurations in my case, it turned out that rolling back to the XMOS driver version 4.47 (min 10) significantly improves the situation. There are practically no clicks, there are only one-time clicks when starting any player, or in parallel with any other program (and then not always) and they have become quieter. The obvious conclusion is that something somewhere in the D300 is simply not optimized. I immediately answer a question like what is the problem in my win 10 - another DAC (Sabaj D5 is also XMOS) in the same conditions works without clicks at all.
Maybe it will be useful to someone... By using different configurations in my case, it turned out that rolling back to the XMOS driver version 4.47 (min 10) significantly improves the situation. There are practically no clicks, there are only one-time clicks when starting any player, or in parallel with any other program (and then not always) and they have become quieter. The obvious conclusion is that something somewhere in the D300 is simply not optimized. I immediately answer a question like what is the problem in my win 10 - another DAC (Sabaj D5 is also XMOS) in the same conditions works without clicks at all.
Interesting! I guess it is not about the broken one but about the working one running MCU fw 1.21.
Maybe USB fw downgrade could help with the broken one. Because upgrade to MCU 1.1 was provided together with USB fw upgrade to 1.30. But I don't know about public availability of original USB fw which worked with MCU fw 1.0.
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