SMSL D400EX DAC Review

[DonR]

I think ranking DACS that perform beyond the limits of audibility is rewarding them for nothing. All they have accomplished is an interesting result that is useless to the consumer.

Best to pay $129 and getting the cheapest, measurably transparent dac you can find. Unless you care about things other than sound.

If you care about sound, this is a waste of money that will do nothing you can't get done for far, far less.

Yes, it's a spec war. The lowest numbers win.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Looks similar to some beautiful Cairn equipment I used to own.

 

[neukrisz]

@amirm : Thanks Amirm for the great measurements!

Did you measure the output impedances of RCA and XLR?
Based on the info what I got from the manufacturer by email, the output impedances are 100 Ohm on both. (but they never published these data officially)
Can you please confirm this?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[Doodski]

It’s as if a child designed the display.

That and if one looks at each character in the display There are contrast and color variations between the same fonts. That's a new display and I can imagine after a year or so what it will look like.

 

[TNT]

It’s as if a child designed the display.

Agree - one would like something a bit more refined for 1000 grands...

//

 

[xaviescacs]

It’s as if a child designed the display.

It was worse in previous models, we've tried to help (@sam_adams and @Timmeon know what I'm talking about), but they seem to lack a senior designer.

In this one they seem to have fixed the rude mistake that the "dB" word was not aligned with the volume figure. But... why on earth they thought this was the only aspect of this design that needed to be fixed?

 

[amirm]

@amirm : Thanks Amirm for the great measurements!

Did you measure the output impedances of RCA and XLR?
Based on the info what I got from the manufacturer by email, the output impedances are 100 Ohm on both. (but they never published these data officially)
Can you please confirm this?

Many thanks in advance!

Hi there. It is my pleasure. AP hardware/software makes it a pain to measure impedance of any sort. I have built a fixture for headphones to do that manually, but not for line out/in. I need to put one together and then can run the test. It is not a big deal but everything takes time.....

 

[don'ttrustauthority]

Good catch. Interesting. Wonder why they made this choice since the MSRP is at a premium. Saving the MQA liceinsing fee maybe the driver here but at this price point that should not be a factor. MQA should be included at this price and the user can elect to use it or not. Big miss regardless of where you stand on MQA.

I will not buy anything not in the portable realm that uses MQA.

 

[GaryH]

 

[Billy Budapest]

Nice collaboration - AKM chip featuring ESS hump

Now THAT’S funny!!!

 

[Billy Budapest]

Silly question.

Given our ability to hear high frequencies drops off as we age (it might all be over by the time we are 40... see below) what is the point (for older listeners) to have a DAC with a multitude of filters, given they work at the high frequencies?

And how can older reviewers claim to hear differences/prefer a specific filter..pure fantasy?

Peter

PS. Yes I accept that one filter out of the bunch can roll off quite early (i.e. anyone could hear the difference but maybe no one would ever pick it as the best/preferred) so the question is related more to the remaining sane ones


View attachment 250463

High Frequency Hearing Loss - an overview | ScienceDirect Topics

www.sciencedirect.com

Anyone who says they can hear the difference between any modern DACs (and digital filters in the same DACs) are subconsciously deluding themselves. They hear differences because they are looking for differences.

 

[GaryH]

The simplest deviation from flat is probably a spectral tilt. There is some evidence that we can detect slopes of about 0.1 dB/octave, which translates into a 1 dB tilt from 20 Hz to 20 kHz — not much.

Dr. Floyd Toole

 

[Rottmannash]

All these companies are owned by Shenzenaudio right? Like Topping and SMSL?

They just keep churning out products every few weeks?

I don’t understand this marketing strategy but personally I couldn’t care less about these brands as all their products are anonymous and “obsolete “ in a few months.
Are there really people chasing higher and higher Sinad well into the realms of inaudibility?

Sounds as stupid as buying silver headphone cables to improve your headphones

My Topping D90 SE isn't obsolete. Nor is my Topping E30, nor is my Topping D70. Neither is my Topping D10 Balanced. Furthermore @Amir has just a few posts above clarified Shenzenaudio does not own Topping or SMSL but is a distributor.

 

[Anthony LoFi]

It's not HDMI like what comes out of your AVR. It's an I²S input via an HDMI jack. You need special audio equipment to make use of that port.

Thanks for the heads up. I have seen this protocol on Hypex amps I have made.

 

[xeizo]

Anyone who says they can hear the difference between any modern DACs (and digital filters in the same DACs) are subconsciously deluding themselves. They hear differences because they are looking for differences.

The filters affects FR, Phase and impulse response pre/post-delay and ringing. Differences can most definitely be heard, and they are clearly measured too.

Why, you may ask, because there are no such thing as a perfect digital filter. All are different kind of compromises, nice if you get to choose which compromise you prefer.

And you can't use no filter, since there is a lot of digital noise that needs to be filtered. A DAC is not a perfect entity even if SINAD is very good.

The filter problem has been around since day one of digital converters.

 

[Chilli]

Nice work SMSL!
I don’t know why people complain so much. It measures well and looks great. It also has i2s and aes inputs which a lot of dacs don’t have. Good on them for continuing to sport these.

 

[Haruko]

D90LE still measures better. I applaud Topping for using OLED... ips glow is annoying...

 

[Trell]

Anyone who says they can hear the difference between any modern DACs (and digital filters in the same DACs) are subconsciously deluding themselves. They hear differences because they are looking for differences.

For some filters the differences can be audible a they have a frequency roll off.

Look at this post just above [edit: fix typo] yours.

SMSL D400EX DAC Review

I think ranking DACS that perform beyond the limits of audibility is rewarding them for nothing. All they have accomplished is an interesting result that is useless to the consumer. Best to pay $129 and getting the cheapest, measurably transparent dac you can find. Unless you care about things...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Sokel]

That's a new display and I can imagine after a year or so what it will look like.

According to some friends here IPS displays don't degrade,according to some other they do under temp or dust,so we won;t know about it till time will pass.
But yes,multicolor,different fonts,etc are a no-go.

 

[Robbo99999]

I think it's hard to vote any DAC as "Great" that costs around $1000 whilst taking into consideration all the excellent performing good value DACS out there. Otherwise not much to say about this DAC that there's very little else wrong with it.