This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL DA-6 stereo desktop class D amplifier. It was sent to me by Shenzhen Audio and costs US $99.
Ah, what a pleasure it was to unpack the DA-6 and see this nice thin packaging! That niceness extends to the back, fixing one of my main complaints with compact amplifiers:
Instead of stacking the binding posts on top of each other and thereby making it very difficult to put large binding posts, they are lined up horizontally. This allowed me to connect my locking banana plugs into them with relative ease. Of course we are saddled with large laptop power supply running at 24 volts at nearly 7 amps.
A remote control is provided to navigate through the menus to change bass/treble settings, volume control, etc. Same can be done with the front panel and rotary control.
A new Infineon class D amplifier IC is used here (didn't see the model number).
SMSL DA-6 Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard:
Relative sum of noise+distortion as expressed in SINAD lands the unit above average of some 350 amplifiers tested:
I am assuming volume is controlled digitally given the perfect channel balanced. Noise performance by itself is good for the class:
Frequency response in EQ bypass mode still has a bit of low frequency roll off:
Type of speaker you drive with this little amp could benefit from being pushed to play those low frequencies. I thought I could fix that by boosting the bass setting one notch. That tool though brings a sledgehammer to a nail being put on the wall to hang a picture:
Oh, I forgot to mention that there is no load dependency which is something we often can't find even in expensive class D amplifiers. Not only that, the response is quite extended, going beyond 100 kHz! I guess this is what they mean by "high-resolution."
There is no warm up requirement as the unit is stable out of the box, running quite cool:
Multitone performance is again good for the class:
Output power is more modest than I wanted to see but I guess you can't have miracles:
The response though seems dependent on level and keeps changing at micro level. We see the same when we sweep with different frequencies:
There is no headroom as expected:
Conclusions
SMSL nails the industrial design and usability of a super compact desktop amplifier offered in attractive aluminum case. A clear white display shows the volume control and inclusion of remote control lets you place it out of the way and still change its volume. I don't usually take price into account but in this class I must. For $99 this is a lot of performance and good lucks/design.
I am happy to recommend SMSL DA-6.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Ah, what a pleasure it was to unpack the DA-6 and see this nice thin packaging! That niceness extends to the back, fixing one of my main complaints with compact amplifiers:
Instead of stacking the binding posts on top of each other and thereby making it very difficult to put large binding posts, they are lined up horizontally. This allowed me to connect my locking banana plugs into them with relative ease. Of course we are saddled with large laptop power supply running at 24 volts at nearly 7 amps.
A remote control is provided to navigate through the menus to change bass/treble settings, volume control, etc. Same can be done with the front panel and rotary control.
A new Infineon class D amplifier IC is used here (didn't see the model number).
SMSL DA-6 Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard:
Relative sum of noise+distortion as expressed in SINAD lands the unit above average of some 350 amplifiers tested:
I am assuming volume is controlled digitally given the perfect channel balanced. Noise performance by itself is good for the class:
Frequency response in EQ bypass mode still has a bit of low frequency roll off:
Type of speaker you drive with this little amp could benefit from being pushed to play those low frequencies. I thought I could fix that by boosting the bass setting one notch. That tool though brings a sledgehammer to a nail being put on the wall to hang a picture:
Oh, I forgot to mention that there is no load dependency which is something we often can't find even in expensive class D amplifiers. Not only that, the response is quite extended, going beyond 100 kHz! I guess this is what they mean by "high-resolution."
There is no warm up requirement as the unit is stable out of the box, running quite cool:
Multitone performance is again good for the class:
Output power is more modest than I wanted to see but I guess you can't have miracles:
The response though seems dependent on level and keeps changing at micro level. We see the same when we sweep with different frequencies:
There is no headroom as expected:
Conclusions
SMSL nails the industrial design and usability of a super compact desktop amplifier offered in attractive aluminum case. A clear white display shows the volume control and inclusion of remote control lets you place it out of the way and still change its volume. I don't usually take price into account but in this class I must. For $99 this is a lot of performance and good lucks/design.
I am happy to recommend SMSL DA-6.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
