SMSL DA9 - Wait and see, or solid buy?

[escape2]

Hello everyone. does anyone have the Elac dbr62? i have a problem with my new da9. the sound is very strange, too much bass is heard which completely covers the middle sounds, the voices are really very backward. The soundscape is very poorly balanced. Do you think it is a faulty unit? or are the Elac speakers too difficult to drive?

Is the issue only with DBR62 or with all your other speakers?

Are the speakers wired out of phase?

Flip the +/- wires on one of the speakers and see if things improve.

 

[mario_rouge]

Is the issue only with DBR62 or with all your other speakers?

Are the speakers wired out of phase?

Flip the +/- wires on one of the speakers and see if things improve.

Thank you so much you are very kind. but i didn't understand i am not very experienced. could you explain me how to do it?

 

[escape2]

Thank you so much you are very kind. but i didn't understand i am not very experienced. could you explain me how to do it?

Turn off DA9.
Disconnect the wire from one of the speakers (not both speakers) and re-connect it in reverse.

 

[mario_rouge]

great! thanks are you really great? But why should the phase be reversed? thank you!!!

 

[SOUNDSONIC]

Hello everyone. does anyone have the Elac dbr62? i have a problem with my new da9. the sound is very strange, too much bass is heard which completely covers the middle sounds, the voices are really very backward. The soundscape is very poorly balanced. Do you think it is a faulty unit? or are the Elac speakers too difficult to drive?

Hi, mario_rouge.

Have you tried to set the DA9 to 'direct' mode? Rooms have very significant impact on bass. They can make or break low freqs. Try also to adjust your listening distance from your speakers.

 

[escape2]

great! thanks are you really great? But why should the phase be reversed? thank you!!!

In a rare event that your da9 was miswired at the factory. Unlikely though.

 

[mario_rouge]

In a rare event that your da9 was miswired at the factory. Unlikely though.

Everything works fine now! But now is it better to replace the amplifier or not?

 

[SOUNDSONIC]

@SOUNDSONIC
That's great! How it should be!
I was so annoyed by this faint whining sound that forced me to open the case where I found an amazing lack of thermal anything! I think I probably fixed the high pitched noise once I applied the paste, but silly me, I applied that tape too around the display driver.
I'm glad both of your amps are doing well! I think Shenzenaudio is having a sale on many items right now. Amazon has lowered their pricing on many SMSL items!

A YT DA9 teviewer, Tharbamar, encountered this whining sound on the unit he was testing. And its loud it was heard less than a meter distance according to him. But still, he was very impressed of the quality of sounds.

My SA300 has joined my 2 DA9s in my setuo creating 6 channels stereo. I found that its a joy to hear symphony orchestra and military band march with thus setup. Yes, its still stereo not a real multichannel sounds but I can tell its much better than conventional 2 channel system specially with thiese genre of music. The varying characters of my speakers made the stereo sound seems to have improved the soundstage and layering.

Interestingly, I made some search after Ive created my "multichannrel" setup and I found numerous experiments re multichannel recording and its reproduction system.

https://www.nhk.or.jp/strl/english/publica/bt/28/8.html
https://www.aes.org/e-lib/browse.cfm?elib=13800

 

[escape2]

Everything works fine now! But now is it better to replace the amplifier or not?

Are you saying that rewiring one of the speakers fixed the problem?

 

[mario_rouge]

Are you saying that rewiring one of the speakers fixed the problem?

Yes, although I suspect the problem could be the speakers. do i have to reverse the polarity of the other speaker?

 

[escape2]

Yes, although I suspect the problem could be the speakers.

Test the speakers with another amp to find out.

If it's truly a miswiring issue, then it's most likely inside the DA9. SMSL's quality control seems to be all over the place with these things.

do i have to reverse the polarity of the other speaker?

If everything sounds fine now, then no.

 

[jokan]

Make sure that you didn't accidentally cross the left and right channels.
It's possible that you mistakenly connected left positive to right negative and visa versa. Or in more simple words, you might have crossed the positive and negative leads from one channel over to the other channel, be it left channel or right channel.

If you have speakers connected out of phase, then you will lack bass. If you disconnect an RCA, or XLR cable and the bass improves then one of the speakers is wired in reverse polarity.

If you have accidentally crossed left and right channel positive and negative leads, the amplifier should go into some sort of protection, or it would work but sound very odd indeed.

Just a thought. There are very few people here who are judgemental or don't want to help. Most of us want to help make the community a friendly, cooperative space. I highly doubt that a fundamental mistake of internal wiring has happened to you. I would be more suspicious of a blown tweeter or two before I suspect the amplifier. The quality control issues seem to be limited to DC-Offset which is beyond the control of the owner and might not ever be noticed without someone measuring the specific amplifier. Freezing issues are a programming issue of the Chipsets that control the amplifier, or the volume control that doubles as source control. Noise issues seem to be entirely dependent on sheer luck. I don't think I've heard of a fundamental internal wiring issue yet. Which isn't to say that it's not possible.

You can check your tweeters by putting your ears up to them. If there's no sound, then it's probably blown or on it's way out if it sounds like bass is trying to come through the tweeters. In which case the crossover network inside the speaker could be bad. But these are extremely rare issues.

It's more likely that some wires got accidentally crossed. Follow the speaker wires and RCA/XLR cables all the way from the amplifier to the speakers. Check that you have whichever wire you chose to be positive (happy wire) is connected to the positive input on the speakers. Do this for both left and right speakers.

Let us know if you have any other audio equipment such as a pre-amplifier or DAC in your system. Anything that carries an audio signal is suspect at this juncture.

I'm certain that collectively we can figure out exactly what is going on. A list of your audio equipment would be very helpful for us who are trying to help you via the internet and without pictures or video.

I can't stress this enough, we were all new to this hobby at one point. Very few of us got everything right the first time.

 

[mario_rouge]

Make sure that you didn't accidentally cross the left and right channels.
It's possible that you mistakenly connected left positive to right negative and visa versa. Or in more simple words, you might have crossed the positive and negative leads from one channel over to the other channel, be it left channel or right channel.

If you have speakers connected out of phase, then you will lack bass. If you disconnect an RCA, or XLR cable and the bass improves then one of the speakers is wired in reverse polarity.

If you have accidentally crossed left and right channel positive and negative leads, the amplifier should go into some sort of protection, or it would work but sound very odd indeed.

Just a thought. There are very few people here who are judgemental or don't want to help. Most of us want to help make the community a friendly, cooperative space. I highly doubt that a fundamental mistake of internal wiring has happened to you. I would be more suspicious of a blown tweeter or two before I suspect the amplifier. The quality control issues seem to be limited to DC-Offset which is beyond the control of the owner and might not ever be noticed without someone measuring the specific amplifier. Freezing issues are a programming issue of the Chipsets that control the amplifier, or the volume control that doubles as source control. Noise issues seem to be entirely dependent on sheer luck. I don't think I've heard of a fundamental internal wiring issue yet. Which isn't to say that it's not possible.

You can check your tweeters by putting your ears up to them. If there's no sound, then it's probably blown or on it's way out if it sounds like bass is trying to come through the tweeters. In which case the crossover network inside the speaker could be bad. But these are extremely rare issues.

It's more likely that some wires got accidentally crossed. Follow the speaker wires and RCA/XLR cables all the way from the amplifier to the speakers. Check that you have whichever wire you chose to be positive (happy wire) is connected to the positive input on the speakers. Do this for both left and right speakers.

Let us know if you have any other audio equipment such as a pre-amplifier or DAC in your system. Anything that carries an audio signal is suspect at this juncture.

I'm certain that collectively we can figure out exactly what is going on. A list of your audio equipment would be very helpful for us who are trying to help you via the internet and without pictures or video.

I can't stress this enough, we were all new to this hobby at one point. Very few of us got everything right the first time.

i have a su9 connected with xlr cable to my amplifier. the Elac dbr62 speakers correctly connected to the Da9. I also have a subwoofer. Thanks for your kindness!
-reversing the polarity to one speaker the imaging seems correct to me the voices are no longer backward and the bass is no longer excessive and annoying.

 

[jokan]

okay, sounds like you have found the issue. If you send me your email via a message, i can send you test tracks that will help you figure out polarity, speaker placement and the like. It's on my google drive and I'm happy to share it with you. I have for several members on this site.

I own the original CD's that I transfered to FLAC.

Shoot me a message and I'll send you the links.

 

[jokan]

Funny story and true story. I bought my A0200 just a couple of days ago for 27,900 yen. Today it's back to its original price of 31,000 yen on Amazon JP, shipped by Aoshida Japan and it's in stock which is why I got it the next morning!

Cheeky bastards! You have to be on top of things so you can buy at the best possible price!

 

[SOUNDSONIC]

Funny story and true story. I bought my A0200 just a couple of days ago for 27,900 yen. Today it's back to its original price of 31,000 yen on Amazon JP, shipped by Aoshida Japan and it's in stock which is why I got it the next morning!

Cheeky bastards! You have to be on top of things so you can buy at the best possible price!

Ha ha ha. Oh, yes. Sellers bring down prices without notice. Not even aligned to their "mother store" periodic sales. That's why I am monitoring prices on my wish list almost everyday....

 

[mario_rouge]

unfortunately I was deluded, actually now you can no longer hear the bass so I have not solved. maybe it is equalization or room correction problem? but the voices are really backward, they are really heard far behind in the sound stage. could it be related to the impedance of the speakers?

 

[ShinMolina]

unfortunately I was deluded, actually now you can no longer hear the bass so I have not solved. maybe it is equalization or room correction problem? but the voices are really backward, they are really heard far behind in the sound stage. could it be related to the impedance of the speakers?

Do you mean that the problem is intermittent? Have you changed anything from the setup from when it worked properly?

An intermittent problem could imply a loose connection or a defective device among other possibilities, but not something invariant such as the speaker's impedance.

 

[SOUNDSONIC]

unfortunately I was deluded, actually now you can no longer hear the bass so I have not solved. maybe it is equalization or room correction problem? but the voices are really backward, they are really heard far behind in the sound stage. could it be related to the impedance of the speakers?

I was expecting that. Because your speakers are now out-of-phase with each other. The result is wave cancellation.

https://audiouniversityonline.com/s...s determined when,will be in correct polarity.

Do not use your subwoofer yet. Your room may be acoustically tuned to low frequencies.

Have you tried the RCA inputs? Is the result the same? The TONE controls should reduce the bass significantly.

 

[mario_rouge]

the problem is not intermittent, the speakers are not out of phase. but the sound is not balanced, and the voices are conspicuously recessed into the soundstage even without a subwoofer