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SMSL SA400 Review (Power Amplifier)

Vangelo

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May 23, 2021
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Thank you for your support.

I think this will be a good pairing with Kef Ls50 meta and SVS 1000: (I hope)

Amplifier Power (Recommended)
40-100 W
Nominal Impedance
8 Ω (min. 3,5 Ω)
Well....the Kefs seem to dip below 3.5 Ohms so could be an issue...........
Make sure you can return the amp if it goes into protection mode.
 

jrMes1

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Apr 19, 2022
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I will go to Kef forum to ask good pairing with ls50.

Thank you one more time
 

SteliosAl

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May 27, 2022
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Just bought one of these, mainly because I already had the M400 which I am impressed with. Bought direct from HiFi-Express and they paid the VAT (UK).
I had read this review and others, and the whine/noise reported did concern me. I was coming from a DEQX/Temple Audio Supercharged Monoblocks.
Unit arrived a week later, and as soon as I plugged it in, I packed it away to return. The whine was so loud I could hear it in the hallway!
I logged onto the returns page, and HiFi Express had a 35% restocking fee. Ugh...........

Ok.....set her up again and started listening through the whine. Using the balanced connectors from the M400, the sound was immediately impressive.....clean and dynamic.

Having read about the heating issue, I set about finding the fan menu to reduce from 65C to 48C. Hmm, it was already set to 45C. With continuous operation, the temperature never rose above 42C, which is perfectly acceptable to me. Even my Temples get pretty hot in operation.

......just the whine....I could not live with this. I Googled coil whine and many people said it reduces on its own. To get to the point, in my case, this turned out to be true! I have had the unit a week, and now the coil is below fan noise level which I can live with. It actually started to reduce in volume within a couple of hours.

Playing around with the presets, I like the 'clear' setting. Need to be a bit careful because the Bass, Middle & Treble controls work with the presets, and I thought there was an issue with my speakers when the mids were missing. I subsequently discovered the mids were set to -4db! This is a very versatile amp.
View attachment 183296

So now, the amp is a keeper. As she opens up, things are sounding better and better. The detail she retrieves has startled me on a few occasions
and the old Mono set up sounds rather boring!
I have just ordered the SMSL SA400 and the SMSL SU9 DAC. How did you connect yours to the M400? I want to use the balanced connections and it seems that I need 2 female to female XLRs correct? Sorry for the noob question.
 

yavormoskov

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Apr 9, 2019
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Location
Atlanta, USA
Well....the Kefs seem to dip below 3.5 Ohms so could be an issue...........
Make sure you can return the amp if it goes into protection mode.
My Polk Audio LSIM703s should be fine then, because they do not deep below 5 Ohms. I have two questions actually. Does it turn on automatically when signal is detected from the XLR inputs, and second, do you have any issues with the amp so far? Thanks.
 
Last edited:

Vangelo

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I have just ordered the SMSL SA400 and the SMSL SU9 DAC. How did you connect yours to the M400? I want to use the balanced connections and it seems that I need 2 female to female XLRs correct? Sorry for the noob question.
I used male to female XLR interconnects, very short as they are stacked.
 

Vangelo

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My Polk Audio LSIM703s should be fine then, because they do not deep below 5 Ohms. I have two questions actually. Does it turn on automatically when signal is detected from the XLR inputs, and second, do you have any issues with the amp so far? Thanks.
No....amp is fine! I dont think it will turn on automatically as it does not go into standby mode automatically either.
 

yavormoskov

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No....amp is fine! I dont think it will turn on automatically as it does not go into standby mode automatically either.
Thank you. It would be an extra expense to purchase a different balanced amp, so I decided to keep the Topping A50s I have and to connect it with my existing RCA to RCA cables. And just for the sake of exploration I did order some Canare RCA to XLR cables to compare it. The amp should arrive on Friday. I hope I would like it.
 

yavormoskov

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I did receive the SA400 and it is going back immediately. When I connected RCA to RCA, there was a crazy amount of distortion and noise in both speakers. When I used RCA to balanced XLR's, the distortion was slightly less but still very prominent. Keep in mind, usually I have Topping A50s connected to Emotiva Basx-300 using the same RCA's and there is 0 distortion, not even a hint of any noise. So, the problem is not in my headphone amp or cables. Second, the sound is dull and anemic. I used the EQ but the sound is just bad. And third, on medium gain if barely drives my Polk audio LSIM703s. On high gain I almost have to max it out to have a sufficient volume, but the noise, crackling and distortion is almost unbearable at this volume. At the same time, when connected to the Emotiva, I barely need to turn the volume on A50s and is too much. I do not consider the Emotiva an audiophile amplifier but at least it covers the basics, silent and 0 noise and distortion, and crazy amount of power for demanding speakers like mine. A product with so much distortion should have never made it to the market at any price bracket :(
 

Vangelo

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I did receive the SA400 and it is going back immediately. When I connected RCA to RCA, there was a crazy amount of distortion and noise in both speakers. When I used RCA to balanced XLR's, the distortion was slightly less but still very prominent. Keep in mind, usually I have Topping A50s connected to Emotiva Basx-300 using the same RCA's and there is 0 distortion, not even a hint of any noise. So, the problem is not in my headphone amp or cables. Second, the sound is dull and anemic. I used the EQ but the sound is just bad. And third, on medium gain if barely drives my Polk audio LSIM703s. On high gain I almost have to max it out to have a sufficient volume, but the noise, crackling and distortion is almost unbearable at this volume. At the same time, when connected to the Emotiva, I barely need to turn the volume on A50s and is too much. I do not consider the Emotiva an audiophile amplifier but at least it covers the basics, silent and 0 noise and distortion, and crazy amount of power for demanding speakers like mine. A product with so much distortion should have never made it to the market at any price bracket :(
Obviously, this is not typical, so there is a fault or mismatch somewhere.
 

yavormoskov

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Obviously, this is not typical, so there is a fault or mismatch somewhere.
Friend of mine who owns the same speakers told me there are two very complex separate crossovers in each speaker, which is unusual, but it helps them to measure so well. He thinks it could be that the dual crossovers are a very bad match with this particular SMSL amplifier. I am not sure he convinced me. At the moment I connected the Emotiva using the same rca and speaker cables, everything started to sound very good, again.
 

Vangelo

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Friend of mine who owns the same speakers told me there are two very complex separate crossovers in each speaker, which is unusual, but it helps them to measure so well. He thinks it could be that the dual crossovers are a very bad match with this particular SMSL amplifier. I am not sure he convinced me. At the moment I connected the Emotiva using the same rca and speaker cables, everything started to sound very good, again.
Can you try amp on its own using Bluetooth input via phone? Be interesting to see if there is problem with input distorting or amp.
For sure all the reviews on this amp have been very positive, which is why I bought it. I have seen no reviews with problem you are having and not my experience either.
 

yavormoskov

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Can you try amp on its own using Bluetooth input via phone? Be interesting to see if there is problem with input distorting or amp.
For sure all the reviews on this amp have been very positive, which is why I bought it. I have seen no reviews with problem you are having and not my experience either.
The Bluetooth is not great, as well. My neighbor has some Revel speakers and we are going to try this amp in his system on Saturday. And he is also going to check my setup. Just in case I am missing something. Will see.
 

Spaxton

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Oct 17, 2019
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Amplification is provided courtesy of ST Micro STa516BE. The marketing material for SA400 shows a digital feedback but I don't see that in the ST specs. I am not clear if this is an addition by SMSL or it is part of ST amplifier chip that they don't talk about. Either way the input to the amplifier is digital so even though we have analog inputs, they need to be digitized to be used internally.

Hello amirm.

Thanks a lot for such a great and detailed review!
Can You tell why it needs to be digitized? I am a bit confused since You mentioned ADC and sampling rates of 44.1 and 48kHz. Isn't the analog signal converted to PWM?
 

ArthurPug

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May 20, 2023
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Just a passing comment - I've been using the SA400 to power some Magnepan LRS's after a 30 year old Quad 405-2 gave up the ghost. I'm mightily impressed with the crisp, transparent and wide soundstage and it has plenty of power to spare for these high current demanding magneplanars at low impedances. Admittedly I only chose it as it matched the M400 DAC that was already in the system. At first it was a little bright for my ears (my first class D since a 15 year old TA2020) & used the 'soft' EQ setting. But I quickly adjusted to this kind of sound and now enjoy it in direct mode without any fatigue. The only annoying thing is a slight hum can heard from the unit even when the fan is not in use - but it's not noticeable when playing music.
 

ArthurPug

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Just bought one of these, mainly because I already had the M400 which I am impressed with. Bought direct from HiFi-Express and they paid the VAT (UK).
I had read this review and others, and the whine/noise reported did concern me. I was coming from a DEQX/Temple Audio Supercharged Monoblocks.
Unit arrived a week later, and as soon as I plugged it in, I packed it away to return. The whine was so loud I could hear it in the hallway!
I logged onto the returns page, and HiFi Express had a 35% restocking fee. Ugh...........

Ok.....set her up again and started listening through the whine. Using the balanced connectors from the M400, the sound was immediately impressive.....clean and dynamic.

Having read about the heating issue, I set about finding the fan menu to reduce from 65C to 48C. Hmm, it was already set to 45C. With continuous operation, the temperature never rose above 42C, which is perfectly acceptable to me. Even my Temples get pretty hot in operation.

......just the whine....I could not live with this. I Googled coil whine and many people said it reduces on its own. To get to the point, in my case, this turned out to be true! I have had the unit a week, and now the coil is below fan noise level which I can live with. It actually started to reduce in volume within a couple of hours.

Playing around with the presets, I like the 'clear' setting. Need to be a bit careful because the Bass, Middle & Treble controls work with the presets, and I thought there was an issue with my speakers when the mids were missing. I subsequently discovered the mids were set to -4db! This is a very versatile amp.
View attachment 183296

So now, the amp is a keeper. As she opens up, things are sounding better and better. The detail she retrieves has startled me on a few occasions
and the old Mono set up sounds rather boring!
I've put a quartet of sticky rubber hemispheres under the feet pads to give both a little breathing room & the amp above the DAC for surface heat dissipation
 
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