SMSL SU-8 Version 2 Balanced DAC

[renaudrenaud]

Hello community!
Does it still going strong in 20024? Wanna upgrade my old SMSL M3, that i use with Android phone to listen flacs via vintage amp and speakers, also through small Xduoo 602 HP amp.
Looking at this SMSL SU-8 and SU-1. Will be there a noticeable difference / worthy upgrade? And which one is definitely a better choice?

Why not the SMSL M300-SE?

SMSL Upgraded M300SE MQA Audio DAC CS43131*2 with 6.35/4.4mm Headphone

SMSL M300SE MQA Audio DAC CS43131*2 with 6.35/4.4mm Headphone AMP used Cirrus Logic's latest audio decoder chip CS43131, with carefully designed circuitry, achieves an unprecedented 0.00013% (-117dB) distortion performance! The new third generation XMOS XU-316, PCM support up to 32bit /768kHz...

hifi-express.com

Price is very low, XLR outputs (and RCA) and also 2 headphones output, better screen than the SU8, a button for volume and settings, Bt...

 

[Loftrocket]

Get the SU-8 only if you need XLR outputs and remote control

You mean there'll be no audible difference?

 

[Loftrocket]

Why not the SMSL M300-SE?

SMSL Upgraded M300SE MQA Audio DAC CS43131*2 with 6.35/4.4mm Headphone

SMSL M300SE MQA Audio DAC CS43131*2 with 6.35/4.4mm Headphone AMP used Cirrus Logic's latest audio decoder chip CS43131, with carefully designed circuitry, achieves an unprecedented 0.00013% (-117dB) distortion performance! The new third generation XMOS XU-316, PCM support up to 32bit /768kHz...

hifi-express.com

Price is very low, XLR outputs (and RCA) and also 2 headphones output, better screen than the SU8, a button for volume and settings, Bt...

Well, i'll take a look at it too! Thanks.

 

[JRG123]

You mean there'll be no audible difference?

Exactly, maybe you'll notice an improvement by upgrading other components like Amplifiers or Headphones

 

[Loftrocket]

Exactly, maybe you'll notice an improvement by upgrading other components like Amplifiers or Headphones

At this moment i need just slight upgrade to my current setup. After big repairing of my future living place there will be different toys. Well, i guess i'll try one, 80 Euri is not that money to regret. And it's Amazon, i can return it.
Is SU-1 the best sounding device in this price range?

 

[JRG123]

At this moment i need just slight upgrade to my current setup. After big repairing of my future living place there will be different toys. Well, i guess i'll try one, 80 Euri is not that money to regret. And it's Amazon, i can return it.
Is SU-1 the best sounding device in this price range?

SU-1 is a DAC with excelent measurements and you'd probably won't need to buy a DAC anymore, for that price is a steal. But like I implied before, I don't think DAC's sound different, SU-1 and SU-8 are both transparent enough and with great features, you just need to look for the ones you really need

 

[Caesar_Naykid]

After a few hours of testing, I have noticed that the loudest (most frequent) popping/sound cuts accores while playing YouTube videos and lower quality music files from harddisk (44100hz/16bit). When playing higher quality music fiiles (96000hz/24bit) from harddisk there is almost no popping and zero sound cuts, which is very werid. Same results are present while using real-time kernel on Debian. While USB PC output/DAC input are active, all sources are perfectly clean, no issues at all. I know that it sounds like i'm crazy, but I checked with various songs. There are some reported kernel bugs while using HDA Intel PCH (what I use), but all of them are very old and solved.


I'm using MPD for movies, but sure I will check out MPDroid, it sounds like a nice and useful feature. Also tried to play some music with MPD, but same result as with DeadBeeF.

Hello,

I have an SMSL SU-8 that i’ve used for 5 years for an annual recital from my laptop to my PA system.

Historically i use a windows laptop. However I have a quad core Intel core i5 miniPC I have running Debian 12 Bookworm (which rocks) and gnome gui.
The tech rehearsal is tomorrow (today now) and of course I thought a fun last minute challenge would be to try running things through DeadbeeF on Bookworm

Have you tried the SU-8 on Bookworm?
Do you think the latest linux default kernel that installs with Bookworm is good enough? I saw you all talking about some custom/real time kernel. I’m not probably advanced enough for that.
I saw some previous commentary about pulse-audio (puke) which is apparently now replaced by Pipewire.

I downloaded a .rar from the smsl site. Did you need to install drivers from that?

Thanks for anyone who uses Debian and might respond.

 

[renaudrenaud]

Hello,

I have an SMSL SU-8 that i’ve used for 5 years for an annual recital from my laptop to my PA system.

Historically i use a windows laptop. However I have a quad core Intel core i5 miniPC I have running Debian 12 Bookworm (which rocks) and gnome gui.
The tech rehearsal is tomorrow (today now) and of course I thought a fun last minute challenge would be to try running things through DeadbeeF on Bookworm

Have you tried the SU-8 on Bookworm?
Do you think the latest linux default kernel that installs with Bookworm is good enough? I saw you all talking about some custom/real time kernel. I’m not probably advanced enough for that.
I saw some previous commentary about pulse-audio (puke) which is apparently now replaced by Pipewire.

I downloaded a .rar from the smsl site. Did you need to install drivers from that?

Thanks for anyone who uses Debian and might respond.

I use so many different version of Debian on so many different computers... Nothing to add, except it works on AMD64 and ARM64 architectures. No "drivers" to install.