This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL D400 Pro balanced stereo DAC with Bluetooth support. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $619.
The scalloped front together with the high resolution and bright display make this one of the most beautiful products SMSL has released. The processor behind the display is very speedy as well. I like that the volume level is now in big letters and sample rate is small. You have the usual connections in the back:
SMSL D400 Pro DAC Measurements
As usual we start with our dashboard using balanced XLR Out with volume set to 0:
We expect top performance from SMSL and we get that here, landing the D400 Pro in our top 20 list of best DACs tested:
Note that company dashboard is at 5 volts output and I suspect with a-weighting and hence the reason its higher rating. RCA has the usual hit in SNR but still superb:
As noted, you have more output than 4 volts and performance keeps getting better as a result of it:
Dynamic range is superb:
Linearity is perfect:
I expected better performance in multitone for this class of DAC:
Similarly, there are some jitter/spurious tones in Jitter test which while inaudible, shouldn't be there:
50 Hz performance is excellent but again, it should be a few dBs better:
Can't complain about IMD performance though:
We have the usual set of filters:
Despite the excellent attenuation of the filter, THD+N vs frequency is not as good as I like to see in this class:
Conclusions
The D400 Pro sports a new and attractive look for SMSL's high-end products. On performance front, we start very well with SINAD and DNR essentially at state of the art level. In some other tests though, we lose a bit of that which would be forgivable in lower cost products but given the positioning, it should have been ironed out. Mind you, they are not audible issues but you know, in this price range we like to see perfection. Net, net, you get better looks and give up a bit of objective performance.
I am going to recommend the SMSL D400 Pro as it provides excellent performance.
Outputs - RCA, XLR
Output level - XLR: 5Vrms | RCA: 2.5Vrms
Output impedance - XLR: 200Ω | RCA: 100Ω
THD+N - XLR: 0.00006% | RCA: 0.00008%
Dynamic range - XLR: 132dB | RCA: 126dB
SNR - XLR: 132dB | RCA: 126dB
USB transmission - Asynchronization
USB compatibility - Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11 (needs driver), Mac OSX 10.6 or later, Linux
MQA decoder - USB, optical, coaxial
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome. Click here if you have some audio gear you want me to test.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The scalloped front together with the high resolution and bright display make this one of the most beautiful products SMSL has released. The processor behind the display is very speedy as well. I like that the volume level is now in big letters and sample rate is small. You have the usual connections in the back:
SMSL D400 Pro DAC Measurements
As usual we start with our dashboard using balanced XLR Out with volume set to 0:
We expect top performance from SMSL and we get that here, landing the D400 Pro in our top 20 list of best DACs tested:
Note that company dashboard is at 5 volts output and I suspect with a-weighting and hence the reason its higher rating. RCA has the usual hit in SNR but still superb:
As noted, you have more output than 4 volts and performance keeps getting better as a result of it:
Dynamic range is superb:
Linearity is perfect:
I expected better performance in multitone for this class of DAC:
Similarly, there are some jitter/spurious tones in Jitter test which while inaudible, shouldn't be there:
50 Hz performance is excellent but again, it should be a few dBs better:
Can't complain about IMD performance though:
We have the usual set of filters:
Despite the excellent attenuation of the filter, THD+N vs frequency is not as good as I like to see in this class:
Conclusions
The D400 Pro sports a new and attractive look for SMSL's high-end products. On performance front, we start very well with SINAD and DNR essentially at state of the art level. In some other tests though, we lose a bit of that which would be forgivable in lower cost products but given the positioning, it should have been ironed out. Mind you, they are not audible issues but you know, in this price range we like to see perfection. Net, net, you get better looks and give up a bit of objective performance.
I am going to recommend the SMSL D400 Pro as it provides excellent performance.
Technical Details/Specifications:
Inputs - USB, coaxial, optical, I2S, Bluetooth, AESOutputs - RCA, XLR
Output level - XLR: 5Vrms | RCA: 2.5Vrms
Output impedance - XLR: 200Ω | RCA: 100Ω
THD+N - XLR: 0.00006% | RCA: 0.00008%
Dynamic range - XLR: 132dB | RCA: 126dB
SNR - XLR: 132dB | RCA: 126dB
USB transmission - Asynchronization
USB compatibility - Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11 (needs driver), Mac OSX 10.6 or later, Linux
MQA decoder - USB, optical, coaxial
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome. Click here if you have some audio gear you want me to test.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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