SMSL DL200 the best ever value DAC/AMP?

[Grael]

What is the best filter to use please ?

the default is FL2
but the default in ES9039Q2M specs is FL1

also there is probably an error in the manual :
because FL4 is "Linear phase slow roll-off low-ripple" in ESS spec but it is "Linear phase fast roll-off low ripple" in manual

thanks

To add to the confusion,
When Amir reviewed the smsl d-6s which is basically the same dac without headphone amp, the filters are again in a different order...

SMSL D-6s Balanced DAC Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL D-6s balanced stereo DAC with Bluetooth support. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $199. I was pleasantly surprised with the new industrial design which while minimalistic, manages to impress with its modern style. Love the matt...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[bbvt]

i have some news,

i found that my problem comes from squeezelite and not from the dac...
this is strange but even with native flac playback, squeezelite does some conversion task (i think putting everything to 32 bits to feed the dac)
and because of this task squeezelite hits almost 200% cpu for a few seconds at the beginning of the playback, and the pops comes from that
i was using a raspberry pi 2B and i switched to a pi 3B+ which is more powerful and it is ok now

i also upgraded the firmware with 1v1 provided by hifi-express, but i don't know what are the changes in this firmware

Great news, glad to hear that! How is bluetooth playback now?

Also, may I ask why did you upgrade the firmware considering the fact the DAC wasn't the cause of poor performance?

 

[th2j]

Great news, glad to hear that! How is bluetooth playback now?

Also, may I ask why did you upgrade the firmware considering the fact the DAC wasn't the cause of poor performance?

I succeed to make the bluetooth working fine by installing Pipewire (instead of Pulseaudio) on my Ubuntu computer
So it wasn't either a problem of the DL200

I upgrade the firmware when i was looking for a solution. I found the real problem after.

 

[th2j]

The only problems remaining with the dac :
- i listen some low volume clacks when power on the dac or switching inputs
- the beginnings of tracks are missing on usb (maybe 1/5s)

 

[staticV3]

The only problems remaining with the dac :
- i listen some low volume clacks when power on the dac or switching inputs
- the beginnings of tracks are missing on usb (maybe 1/5s)

At least the second problem should be solvable with this fix:

XMOS driver settings for no cutoff/delay

I was contemplating on creating a "tutorial" of sorts for all XMOS drivers on devices that have a cutoff -- latency between the start of a sound and the dac "reacting" and actually playing said sound... So here it is: XMOS drivers use a control panel not unlike this: Usually the "Options"...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Specifically, setting Streaming to Always On.

 

[th2j]

At least the second problem should be solvable with this fix:

XMOS driver settings for no cutoff/delay

I was contemplating on creating a "tutorial" of sorts for all XMOS drivers on devices that have a cutoff -- latency between the start of a sound and the dac "reacting" and actually playing said sound... So here it is: XMOS drivers use a control panel not unlike this: Usually the "Options"...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Specifically, setting Streaming to Always On.

Thanks but it is for windows
does it exist for linux ?

 

[th2j]

The only problems remaining with the dac :
- i listen some low volume clacks when power on the dac or switching inputs
- the beginnings of tracks are missing on usb (maybe 1/5s)

there is really a problem when playing tracks with different sample rates (on linux with nuc or raspberry, usb or optical)
this is really annoying
i wish i hadn't buy this dac !

If someone from SMSL read this : we need a firware update

I don't understand why SMSL produces a new dac every 3 months with almost the same specs instead of taking care of that problem...

Also i don't understand why this dac only accept 32 bit files. I can't connect it to my CD player.

 

[th2j]

there is really a problem when playing tracks with different sample rates (on linux with nuc or raspberry, usb or optical)
this is really annoying
i wish i hadn't buy this dac !

If someone from SMSL read this : we need a firware update

I don't understand why SMSL produces a new dac every 3 months with almost the same specs instead of taking care of that problem...

Also i don't understand why this dac only accept 32 bit files. I can't connect it to my CD player.

i received a response from SMSL :

"It no need to update with firmware.
And this clicks sound from relays when you changing sampling rate.
As we add MUTE IC chip in DL200 design.
It is normal."

Very disapointing !

 

[degen]

i just received my DL200 today and it is defective on usb

i can hear many clics, for exemple on this videos (at 12s 13s 17s) :

0 new items by Thomas

photos.app.goo.gl

and with bluetooth, it is even worse :

0 new items by Thomas

photos.app.goo.gl

at least optical is OK

i am really upset

Edit: At this time I am unable to reproduce my issue! Please see post #356

I have just registered because I bought the DL200 in early September and I am experiencing many clicks as well over USB. I have not tried the other inputs. It is very distracting when listening to music. I thought it was something I had set wrong, but I see I am not the only one experiencing this. Sometimes I can see the screen where it shows the sampling rate rapidly change in the corner of my eye, but I haven't video recorded this behaviour yet. I am very disappointed.

 

[th2j]

I have just registered because I bought the DL200 in early September and I am experiencing many clicks as well over USB. I have not tried the other inputs. It is very distracting when listening to music. I thought it was something I had set wrong, but I see I am not the only one experiencing this. Sometimes I can see the screen where it shows the sampling rate rapidly change in the corner of my eye, but I haven't video recorded this behaviour yet. I am very disappointed.

Can you please do a video,
You should try to update the firmware as i explained in one of my previous post

 

[degen]

Can you please do a video,
You should try to update the firmware as i explained in one of my previous post

I will do both, first recording a video, and then trying the firmware update and re-test and report back.

 

[Nutul]

This is something different from "glitches when sample rate changes"... I'm keen to think, now, this as being an design flaw, demanding a refund (or some other way to better employ your money) from the manufacturer.
There is absolutely no excuse for having clicks and pops during ordinary playback, if this is what I understand is happening in the videos (albeit the sound quality might devise, as being not so good, you may agree).

 

[th2j]

This is something different from "glitches when sample rate changes"... I'm keen to think, now, this as being an design flaw, demanding a refund (or some other way to better employ your money) from the manufacturer.
There is absolutely no excuse for having clicks and pops during ordinary playback, if this is what I understand is happening in the videos (albeit the sound quality might devise, as being not so good, you may agree).

Yes the problem reported by degen is worse than mine
The problem in the videos i posted is corrected now, it wasn't an issue from the dac but from the software
I have clicks only between tracks when the rate changes. And sometimes the beginning of the tracks are cut with the clicks

 

[Nutul]

Yes the problem reported by degen is worse than mine
The problem in the videos i posted is corrected now, it wasn't an issue from the dac but from the software
I have clicks only between tracks when the rate changes. And sometimes the beginning of the tracks are cut with the clicks

How long ago did you purchase the DAC?
- Where did you buy it from?
- Is there, albeit remote, possibility for you to return it (or exchange it with other gear), due to malfunction?
I can suggest you something on the line ("tested on my skin", maybe a bit more expensive though, I don't happen to remember how much is the DL200), but maybe first you need to get acquainted with the first two questions, so to calm down before taking further decisions.

It's utterly weird that not so many people rise complaints in such a context...

Oh... now I see it being about 210EUR... my quick suggestion falls off, then, as being close to 700 :-(

 

[degen]

I have good news to report. I just had a listening session, and except for a few clicks and pops at the beginning, before I began playing music, there were further no clicks or pops in the session!

Of note, since my previous session where I experienced this problem, three things changed:
- Microsoft Store updated Apple Music Preview. I doubt this was the reason as the clicks occurred even when nothing was playing and the app was closed.
- I completely disabled Nahimic (from MSI motherboard) completely. However, this functionality should only relate to the outputs of the onboard Realtek Audio (?), and all options were disabled anyway.
- I upgraded my motherboard BIOS. Among the changes are "- Improved USB device compatibility." I suspect this is what has resolved my issues.

At this point and time I have to say that it appears that the problem was with my hardware or software, and not the DL200. I will edit my original post.

 

[Nutul]

At this point and time I have to say that it appears that the problem was with my hardware or software, and not the DL200. I will edit my original post.

There are some things to be made clear, at this point:
1. are you (it looks like...) using Windows? (as no Linux / Mac machine needs any driver to properly operate any DAC out in the wild, this may not help)
2. were you experiencing the very same problems we are discussing here (clicks / pops upon sample-rate change, silence upon sample-rate change)? If not, then again, no help.

 

[degen]

There are some things to be made clear, at this point:
1. are you (it looks like...) using Windows? (as no Linux / Mac machine needs any driver to properly operate any DAC out in the wild, this may not help)
2. were you experiencing the very same problems we are discussing here (clicks / pops upon sample-rate change, silence upon sample-rate change)? If not, then again, no help.

I am using Windows. My problem was occurring for me on both USB 1.1 (no driver) and USB 2.0 (with driver)

I suspected my problem could have been related to sample-rate change, as the clicks I was hearing sounded very similar to the clicks in the video posted by th2j, and I wondered if perhaps the rapid change I was noticing on the DL200 display was a sample rate change. But I definitely should have said my problem to differentiate it from the problem that users here are commonly experiencing. I definitely am not insinuating that the sample-rate change and silence problem is related to any user's hardware. Sorry!

 

[th2j]

i think that when you updated your BIOS, you returned to default settings and maybe that solved your usb problem

can you tell me what formats the DL200 supports please ?
in linux i see that the DL200 supports only S32_LE and DSD_U32_BE, so only 32bit,
my previous dac (SMSL Sanskrit 10th mkii) supported 16, 24 and 32 bit
so it is also a problem for me because all files has to be converted by software to 32bit (32bit audio doesn't exist in fact)

and also the harware mixer is not available (for volume control), you can see that with the command "alsamixer" in linux
so i think there are too much regressions on this dac compared to my previous dac

 

[th2j]

Firmware DL200 exe :

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

i had to find the procedure by myself so it is unofficial but it works :

- download the firmware for M300SE from SMSL site and grab the jpeg tutorial for M300SE
- unplug the power cord of DL200
- follow the tutorial for M300SE from point 3 to point 7 (with of course the exe for DL200)
- plug the power cord of DL200 and wait until the firmware update finishes
- that is it

Also the exe didn't display chinese characters well at the first time
so i had to change the "Language for non-Unicode programs" in windows to chinese

i found a tutorial for the fimware update of the C200, it is the same process for the DL200 :

Dropbox

www.dropbox.com

 

[jayapple]

No one test SMSL DL200, WHY?