SMSL M500 DAC and HP Amp Review

[NorthGraves]

What difference HW & YMMV?

HW = Hardware
YMMV - might work, might not work, no guarantees.
Your Mileage Might Vary.

 

[NorthGraves]

Got the newer revision

Newer revision is SW 1.5?
Or HW higher than 1.2 as well?

 

[YoYo]

Today I started using Tidal for MQA music (sounds great btw). I notice two tiny clicks when I start a song and when I skip to the next song (same bit rates). When I do not skip manually the playback is gapless without any clicks. My settings are set to MQA passthrough and exclusive mode. The app also crashes from time to time, where there is no longer any sound played and the app shown a spinner around the play button (it does not recover; need to restart mac to get sound back again). Anyone else experiencing this using Tidal?
When I use Spotify I do not hear clicks when skipping or starting songs (same bitrates).

Hello, The two tiny clicks when you start a song and when you skip to the next song are "normal" for MQA Music.
I have the same clicks with TIDAL and Audirvana with my Meridian Explorer 2 DAC (XMOS).
It may be a bug of XMOS drivers or just the normal behavior of audio playback software when MQA is selected ... But it's not specific to the M500.

 

[YoYo]

Hello everyone,

Sorry for my poor english but i wanted to share with you my experiences with M500.

I bought the m500 on November 12.
SW1.5 HW 1.2
2019-10-9

Original USB Firmware 1.05:
Updated in 1.07 OK.
Updated in 1.08 shows 1.05
Updated again in 1.07 also shows 1.05

I use AUDIRVANA for audio playback:

When connected via AS Media USB 3.1:
DSD>256 : M500 plays one click every 3 seconds.
PCM 768Khz : M500 have a noise issue.

When connected via Intel Z87 USB2.0 Chipset:
DSD 256 and DSD 512 : M500 is working properly.
PCM 768Khz works correctly but sometimes M500 have also noise issue.

The SMSL M500 have good sound, but it's really too buggy and capricious.
I will wait again, but if these issues can not be fix quickly by a software update, i will return my device to Amazon...

 

[NorthGraves]

Updated in 1.08 shows 1.05

A very crazy idea - can you try to run the firmware updater as Administrator?
Right click on the file and choose Run as Administrator.

 

[YoYo]

A very crazy idea - can you try to run the firmware updater as Administrator?
Right click on the file and choose Run as Administrator.

Already tried but unsuccessful ... Thanks for the idea.

 

[YoYo]

Simple question to all those who can not update to version 1.08 ... Have you done the update in 1.07 before?
Maybe this is the update from 1.07 to 1.08 that does not work?

 

[TC!!]

Simple question to all those who can not update to version 1.08 ... Have you done the update in 1.07 before?
Maybe this is the update from 1.07 to 1.08 that does not work?

You might be onto something there as SMSL did remove the 1.07 update, it's possible there was an issue but you'd really hope 1.08 would fix this.

 

[TC!!]

I'm no closer to getting my M500, 28 days after buying it and being assured it was normal to wait so long I've now been told my shipment was lost and refunded the money I paid.

 

[pcdinh]

I'm no closer to getting my M500, 28 days after buying it and being assured it was normal to wait so long I've now been told my shipment was lost and refunded the money I paid.

At least you can wait until SMSL team fixes SMSL M500 hardware or firmware issues. I really like M500 specs. But I can not buy it for now

 

[niekos]

You might be onto something there as SMSL did remove the 1.07 update, it's possible there was an issue but you'd really hope 1.08 would fix this.

Maybe indeed related. I did not update to 1.07, since the file was removed from smsl site. I updated 1.05 to 1.08 without any problems.

 

[NorthGraves]

I updated 1.05 to 1.08 without any problems.

Same here. Directly from 1.05 to 1.08.

 

[Gerryh]

As did I.

 

[strangeskies]

Huh.

I did 1.05 >> 1.07

1.07 >>1.08 1.05

It sounds incredible (line out to monoprice 887), is pop-free and not-at-all buggy playing Tidal MQA tracks...so I should probably stop messing with firmware and just enjoy it.

 

[pcdinh]

Huh.

I did 1.05 >> 1.07

1.07 >>1.08 1.05

It sounds incredible (line out to monoprice 887), is pop-free and not-at-all buggy playing Tidal MQA tracks...so I should probably stop messing with firmware and just enjoy it.

Have you tried 32 bit PCM and DSD256, DSD512 playback?

 

[strangeskies]

Have you tried 32 bit PCM and DSD256, DSD512 playback?

Nope. I'll try.

 

[TC!!]

Have you tried 32 bit PCM and DSD256, DSD512 playback?

@pcdinh you seem to be going out of your way to find faults with the SMSL M500. Could I ask you one thing, please keep in mind there are 2 parts to the system when trying to play high bitrate PCM and DSD. As well as a DAC capable of accepting those signals you also need a good device that can feed the signals to the DAC.

I'm asking this as I have an Audiolab M-DAC which is capable of 24/96 but I have 3 devices which can't even get the Audiolab to play 16/44.1 without popping sounds on the audio. Only 1 computer I have with a 3rd party USB card is capable of playing back 16/44.1 and 24/96 without any issues from my DAC. The USB 2 output on the same computer is terrible when connected to the same DAC.

I'm hoping to get my M500 this week and I'll be testing it with all the devices I have and I'll report back on what I find.

 

[pcdinh]

@pcdinh you seem to be going out of your way to find faults with the SMSL M500.

I just repeated what people found. If SMSL fixes issues and people stops complaining about M500, I have nothing to say It should be time to buy a M500 and enjoy music

Could I ask you one thing, please keep in mind there are 2 parts to the system when trying to play high bitrate PCM and DSD. As well as a DAC capable of accepting those signals you also need a good device that can feed the signals to the DAC.

I get your point. I believe that people who reported DSD issues in M500 have "a good device that can feed the signals to the DAC". Just my assumption.

I'm hoping to get my M500 this week and I'll be testing it with all the devices I have and I'll report back on what I find.

Yes please. Can't wait for your findings. Specs-wise, M500 is very impressive

 

[Toku]

A new M500 arrived today from Shenzhen Audio.
I confirmed in advance that it would ship with the latest firmware, and ordered it, but the USB firmware of the M500 that arrived remained at v1.05 and was not upgraded to v1.08. (Shenzhen Audio lied to me)

The system version of M500 that I purchased first
HW 1.2
SW 1.4
DATE 2019-7-28
is.

The system version of the second M500 purchased this time is
HW 1.2
SW 1.5
DATE 2019-10-9
is.

M500 issues I have reported so far

1. When you play DSD2.8MHz, suddenly big continuous strong noise is generated and the music is erased.
2. When playing a PCM768kHz file, the sound is severely distorted.
3. Even if PCM768kHz seems to work properly, noise similar to the scratch noise of a record disc that does not exist in the original music file is generated.
4. Even with DSD 11.2MHz playback, weak continuous noise appears.

The audio player I am using
TuneBrowser v4.12.2, foobar200 v1.5, Audirvana v3.5.2.

The following PCs are used.
No1. core i7-8559U + 16GB + SSD 1TB (Intel NUC 8i7BEH)
No2. core i9-8950HK + 16GB + SSD 500GB
The OS is Windows10 Pro (1909).

I'm testing right away, but the problems I have reported so far have not occurred on the No2 PC.
PCM44.1kHz ----> 768kHz 16/24 / 32bit and DSD64 ----> Up to DSD512 and MQA are operating stably.
Symptoms 1 and 3 continue on No1 PC
There is no symptom of sound dropping at intervals of several seconds with DSD256.

Other changes I noticed
1. The display brightness adjustment has been changed.
LEVEL 1 was off, but this time it was the darkest setting without turning off.
2. The power cord has become longer.
3. Pop noise no longer appears when the AC power switch is turned ON / OFF.

I would like to report the results of upgrading USB firmware v1.08 in the future.
Attach a copy of the XMOS USB DAC Driver Control Panel.
This is when playing DSD256.
I'm sorry, it's difficult for me to express in English.

Postscript
I've been testing the M500 that arrived continuously, but the problems I've had so far do not occur on the No2 PC. It is very strange.
Is the processing speed of the PC related?

The operation suddenly became unstable after 24 hours. I have to investigate more.

Judging that stable operation is impossible with v1.05, it was upgraded to v1.08.
Test in this state for several consecutive days.

 

[TC!!]

A new M500 arrived today from Shenzhen Audio.
We confirmed in advance that it would ship with the latest firmware, and ordered it, but the USB firmware of the M500 that arrived remained at v1.05 and was not upgraded to v1.08. (Shenzhen Audio lied to me)

The system version of M500 that I purchased first
HW 1.2
SW 1.4
DATE 2019-7-28
is.

The system version of the second M500 purchased this time is
HW 1.2
SW 1.5
DATE 2019-10-9
is.

M500 issues I have reported so far

1. When you play DSD2.8MHz, suddenly big continuous strong noise is generated and the music is erased.
2. When playing a PCM768kHz file, the sound is severely distorted.
3. Even if PCM768kHz seems to work properly, noise similar to the scratch noise of a record disc that does not exist in the original music file is generated.
4. Even with DSD 11.2MHz playback, weak continuous noise appears.

The audio player I am using
TuneBrowser v4.12.2, foobar200 v1.5, Audirvana v3.5.2.

The following PCs are used.
No1. core i7-8559U + 16GB + SSD 1TB (Intel NUC 8i7BEH)
No2. core i9-8950HK + 16GB + SSD 500GB
The OS is Windows10 Pro (1909).

I'm testing right away, but the problems I have reported so far have not occurred on the No2 PC.
PCM44.1kHz ----> 768kHz 16/24 / 32bit and DSD64 ----> Up to DSD512 and MQA are operating stably.
Symptoms 1 and 3 continue on No1 PC
There is no symptom of sound dropping at intervals of several seconds with DSD256.

Other changes I noticed
1. The display brightness adjustment has been changed.
LEVEL 1 was off, but this time it was the darkest setting without turning off.
2. The power cord has become longer.
3. Pop noise no longer appears when the AC power switch is turned ON / OFF.

I would like to report the results of upgrading USB firmware v1.08 in the future.
Attach a copy of the XMOS USB DAC Driver Control Panel.
I'm sorry, it's difficult for me to express in English.

Thanks for all the information. It would be great to see your results after upgrading to 1.08, this kind of before and after testing is exactly what we need.
Also, don't apologise for your English, everything you've said is very clear.