SMSL M500 - Owners' Thread

[Shoaibexpert]

Btw, XMOS driver 4.82 seems to have become available. Not that it makes any difference, but wondering if SMSL makes it available at some point.
SMSL latest is 4.67.

https://www.thesycon.de/eng/usb_audiodriver.shtml
Current Version: 4.82

Do you recommend updating it now before SMSL makes it available on their website?

 

[NorthGraves]

Do you recommend updating it now before SMSL makes it available on their website?

1) AFAIK, the full version is not readily available

2) Zero issues with the current version 4.67

3) No, I wouldn't

 

[Shoaibexpert]

Wondering if any of the owners have taken the plunge for a higher priced DAC over the M500 and if they've noticed any SQ improvement?

Also, about the thermal issue, has anyone noticed a drop in perceivable performance of the M500?

 

[Jeriko]

Also, about the thermal issue, has anyone noticed a drop in perceivable performance of the M500?

Hi,
I Use my M500 now for 2 months connected by USB on a Windows 10 Notebook with a Tidal Hifi Subscription. Tidal plays in exclusive mode to the M500. I heard MQA and other high res content multiple hours without interruption and I couldn’t notice any performance drop. Maybe I’m not the most audiophile listener but I don’t think this “thermal issue” is something notable.

The only 2 things I noticed:
Sometimes when I skip back or forward in a song in tidal the music is played from the chosen position but in tidal the selection controls stay at the original position (I think this is a software bug at windows/ tidal or in the driver and not a problem with the m500 because I didn’t noticed this behavior when using foobar player)

The other thing I noticed (but its not a big issue for me) is as stated here in the form sometimes a little “click or a little pause” sound can be heard when in tidal the resolution of the content changed. E.g. you play a normal cd quality song and then you switch to a high res mqa content song or backwards. On the display of the m500 you can see it switches to the right resolution which need a little moment and in this moment sometimes a pause or click could be heard.

Just my experience, greeting from Germany

 

[Shoaibexpert]

Hi,
I Use my M500 now for 2 months connected by USB on a Windows 10 Notebook with a Tidal Hifi Subscription. Tidal plays in exclusive mode to the M500. I heard MQA and other high res content multiple hours without interruption and I couldn’t notice any performance drop. Maybe I’m not the most audiophile listener but I don’t think this “thermal issue” is something notable.

The only 2 things I noticed:
Sometimes when I skip back or forward in a song in tidal the music is played from the chosen position but in tidal the selection controls stay at the original position (I think this is a software bug at windows/ tidal or in the driver and not a problem with the m500 because I didn’t noticed this behavior when using foobar player)

The other thing I noticed (but its not a big issue for me) is as stated here in the form sometimes a little “click or a little pause” sound can be heard when in tidal the resolution of the content changed. E.g. you play a normal cd quality song and then you switch to a high res mqa content song or backwards. On the display of the m500 you can see it switches to the right resolution which need a little moment and in this moment sometimes a pause or click could be heard.

Just my experience, greeting from Germany

Thanks mate. Regards from the UAE. I am glad you have similar experience as mine...I don't hear any clicks on changing frequencies... did you update your USB firmware to the latest one?

I also don't notice any SQ difference but confirmation is always great and I've got fairly revealing Headphones (Sennheiser HD800S + 650 and Hifiman Arya) and I also run Tidal in Bit Perfect mode. Some people changed their DACs to the D90 and shelled out $400 in addition to the loss on sale (compared to their purchase price) here so thought about asking.

Just curious can you tell a difference between Bit Perfect and non bit perfect mode...At the risk of being trolled on this forum...I'm gonna say 'Hell Yeah' I can hear a difference!

 

[toshu]

I am considering buying the M500 to replace my Topping DX7S which I have had for about 18 months .
Has anyone used their M500 hooked up to an Android device and running UAPP, USB Audio Player Pro app to feed the M500?? If so, any problems with SQ or "clicks"???
I am currently using an Android TV box to feed the Topping which in turn feeds my Anthem MRX and Krell 300 to drive my JMLAB 7.1 speakers.

 

[Jimbob54]

Thanks mate. Regards from the UAE. I am glad you have similar experience as mine...I don't hear any clicks on changing frequencies... did you update your USB firmware to the latest one?

I also don't notice any SQ difference but confirmation is always great and I've got fairly revealing Headphones (Sennheiser HD800S + 650 and Hifiman Arya) and I also run Tidal in Bit Perfect mode. Some people changed their DACs to the D90 and shelled out $400 in addition to the loss on sale (compared to their purchase price) here so thought about asking.

Just curious can you tell a difference between Bit Perfect and non bit perfect mode...At the risk of being trolled on this forum...I'm gonna say 'Hell Yeah' I can hear a difference!

When you say "bit perfect mode" - you mean on the Tidal Windows app? You mean "Exclusive Mode" ? AFAIK all this means , from a practical perspective, that the Tidal app decides how to pass data to the DAC, rather than via Windows processes and what not. If youve set your Windows sound controls appropriately so you dont get system noises going to the DAC, not sure why there should be a noticeable difference between Exclusive Mode and whatever the other is .

Have I missed something?

 

[Jeriko]

Did you update your USB firmware to the latest one?

Yes I use the 1.08 Firmware

Just curious can you tell a difference between Bit Perfect and non bit perfect mode...At the risk of being trolled on this forum...I'm gonna say 'Hell Yeah' I can hear a difference!

It is hard to say.

I use an AKG K812 Pro (that is also pretty analytical) and a “low budget” AKG K712 PRO (for my "easy listening" session).

Before I bought the M500 I use these two headphones on an “InLine AmpUSB-EQTube Dac”. (I asked here in the forum if someone has some measures/info about this thing but no one replied https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...c-inline-usb-tube-dsd-dac-preamplifier.10852/) Probably this has nothing to do with high end DACs and I used it with a payed Spotify subscription (so at least higher resolution than the free ones). Spotify has no exclusive mode and so this dac was connected through the windows audio mixer and also with up sampling because I set a higher rate in the windows driver.. so this was anything else then bit perfect. But I liked the “tube stuff” and I was fine with the sound of this one. It was/is also my first real DAC.

Then I switched to the M500 and the Tidal Subscription and my first experience was: it sounds clearer and for me there was suddenly a “hearing focus” e.g. on background singing voices. To give an exact example: I listened to the song “Bad Liar” from Imagine Dragons probably 50 times in Spotify with the above mentioned setup bevore. I never noticed that in the refrain a male voice also sings in the background. This was the first thing I noticed when i played the song with the Tidal/m500 setup.

So I was stunnig an I switched back to my old setup on Spotify and my tube Amp and (actively) focused on these background singing voices. I could also here them there. So I wouldn’t say I can hear differences between bit perfect and non bit perfect mode. But as I said in the M500/Tidal setup something focused my hearing to the details (without actively thinking about it).

Or I'm just slowly going insane ;-D

 

[Jeriko]

When you say "bit perfect mode" - you mean on the Tidal Windows app? You mean "Exclusive Mode" ? AFAIK all this means , from a practical perspective, that the Tidal app decides how to pass data to the DAC, rather than via Windows processes and what not. If youve set your Windows sound controls appropriately so you dont get system noises going to the DAC, not sure why there should be a noticeable difference between Exclusive Mode and whatever the other is .

Have I missed something?

For me “bit perfect mode” means "Exclusive Mode": So Tidal (or any software) tells the dac the real bit rat of the current played content and it is also not processed by the windows audio system drivers.

In non exclusive mode your content is processed by windows and could be up and down sampled (depending on your settings in the windows sound panel)

As far as I know (but I could by wrong) e.g. in Windows 10 you can rout audio outputs from apps to your dac but this is also not the exclusive/ bit perfect mode. Here no windows sounds are mixed in but the content could still be up and down sampled by the windows audio system.

 

[Shoaibexpert]

I am considering buying the M500 to replace my Topping DX7S which I have had for about 18 months .
Has anyone used their M500 hooked up to an Android device and running UAPP, USB Audio Player Pro app to feed the M500?? If so, any problems with SQ or "clicks"???
I am currently using an Android TV box to feed the Topping which in turn feeds my Anthem MRX and Krell 300 to drive my JMLAB 7.1 speakers.

Good choice, but I am not sure you will here a noticeable difference going from the Topping DX7S to the M500 simply because though M500 is cleaner, the DX7S is also a very clean and linear DAC with no noted issues. M500 has the higher end ESS Chip so there's that! I really find it hard to find comments on ASR that talk about SQ differences between DACs anyways! But do let us know how it goes...

As for Android, Ive read about one members who connected the M500 to the Android based Shield TV via USB and found no issues...

 

[toshu]

Good choice, but I am not sure you will here a noticeable difference going from the Topping DX7S to the M500 simply because though M500 is cleaner, the DX7S is also a very clean and linear DAC with no noted issues. M500 has the higher end ESS Chip so there's that! I really find it hard to find comments on ASR that talk about SQ differences between DACs anyways! But do let us know how it goes...

As for Android, Ive read about one members who connected the M500 to the Android based Shield TV via USB and found no issues...

My reason for considering the m500 is MQA capability, which Topping doesn't have. Topping is very good....

 

[Shoaibexpert]

When you say "bit perfect mode" - you mean on the Tidal Windows app? You mean "Exclusive Mode" ? AFAIK all this means , from a practical perspective, that the Tidal app decides how to pass data to the DAC, rather than via Windows processes and what not. If youve set your Windows sound controls appropriately so you dont get system noises going to the DAC, not sure why there should be a noticeable difference between Exclusive Mode and whatever the other is .

Have I missed something?

You are right. Just somehow I can hear the Tidal exclusive mode to be a tad cleaner. What are the best windows settings you use?

 

[SECA_alan]

M-500. SW 1.4. HW 1.2

SOtM SMS-200, local network, internet radio, Quobuz etc via Bubbleupnp (android).
LG OLED via optical.
SE output to amplifiers.

I've been happy with the SMSL so far being an early adopter in the UK, I feel the audio quality is above reproach. No problems with the UI or pops/clicks whatsoever, it changes sample rate perfectly and silently.

Gentle pop when changing input, that's all. Certainly no detectable change in performance with temperature, and never dropped the optical connection to the TV. I couldn't be happier, except maybe for wishing I had ordered black instead of silver.

 

[Shoaibexpert]

M-500. SW 1.4. HW 1.2

SOtM SMS-200, local network, internet radio, Quobuz etc via Bubbleupnp (android).
LG OLED via optical.
SE output to amplifiers.

I've been happy with the SMSL so far being an early adopter in the UK, I feel the audio quality is above reproach. No problems with the UI or pops/clicks whatsoever, it changes sample rate perfectly and silently.

Gentle pop when changing input, that's all. Certainly no detectable change in performance with temperature, and never dropped the optical connection to the TV. I couldn't be happier, except maybe for wishing I had ordered black instead of silver.

Thanks. Have you tried any higher end DACs (at least higher priced) and did you notice a difference?

 

[SECA_alan]

Well that's very subjective of course..

Previously a Theta DSPro prime 2, preferred a M2Tech Young mk1. Now prefer the M-500 by a fair margin. HTH.

 

[Jimbob54]

You are right. Just somehow I can hear the Tidal exclusive mode to be a tad cleaner. What are the best windows settings you use?

I don't. I use exclusive mode where available so I don't have to worry about system sounds etc.

If I have to stream from chrome browser(on works laptop etc) I set device properties to 24/192 in Windows settings and ensure notification /system sounds are muted for that audio device.

 

[Shoaibexpert]

I don't. I use exclusive mode where available so I don't have to worry about system sounds etc.

If I have to stream from chrome browser(on works laptop etc) I set device properties to 24/192 in Windows settings and ensure notification /system sounds are muted for that audio device.

Got it. Just curious...why would you not see the default to 24/44.1 as that would perhaps involve much less resampling by windows?

 

[Jimbob54]

Got it. Just curious...why would you not see the default to 24/44.1 as that would perhaps involve much less resampling by windows?

Good point- I remember now - I subscribe to Neil Young Archives which has 24/192 content but browser only.

 

[Anders O]

Using Tidal MQA now, nothing like that at all. Perfectly seamless.

Please update to FW 1.08, also make those choices within Tidal as in my screenshot above.

Thanks I have updated and now it works much better. however the display still shows sw 1.4 strange.
Over all I am happy with the DAC. Had a twice to restart the DAC when getting noise in one channel lets hope this issue doesn't reoccur after the upgrade.

Thanks again

 

[afico]

am i the only one that still is not able to update to 1.08? some advice?
The procedure goes ok but in the info i still have the volume tab and the 1.05 version