SMSL SU-9 Balanced DAC Review

[muslhead]

Just spoke to apos here in US and they stated all new orders will have the fix in place (that are being shipped directly from China warehouse and not local inventory)

 

[SHENZHENAUDIO]

i just contacted amazon. they don't know which batches they ship, so contacting Amazon is completely useless.

Hello, pls email [email protected], our colleague will solve the problem for you. Please provide the order number and purchase infomation.

 

[SHENZHENAUDIO]

The last reaction of Shenzhen to me:

Hi, the factory will not send tool to customers, it need to back to China.
And if there have duty fee, please contact me, i will refund it.
Thanks

So I am going to see what customs documents I must submit. Sending with track and trace +insurance(€500)= circa €35

Have your issues settled?

 

[SHENZHENAUDIO]

I did contact SMSL and Shenzhen. SMSL did react that I must contact Shenzhen but there I get no reaction.

Has your issue been settled? Or please email [email protected] for an after-service, thank you.

 

[SHENZHENAUDIO]

All of us are pretty much screwed up. Unless you're willing to send the unit back to China their stance on this is literally deal with it. I asked SHENZHENAUDIO if they could send me the J-Link fix interface or if something else could be done and this was their response:

Hi, if you can not send back it to China, we can not provide upgrade service for you.
Thanks for your understanding.

In a nutshell: Deal with it. The best thing you can do is avoid SMSL from now on, that's it.

Hello, not sure if our CS team had solved this problem for you, if not, pls email to [email protected].

 

[beq1990]

As a SU-9 owner I wanted to share my experience on this subject too.
I discovered about de third armonic problem last week. Since I bought the unit on the Shenzhen Audio store on Amazon (Italy) on January, I wrote to Amazon on Sunday to ask for a solution. I got a reply from Shenzhen Audio on Monday and they immediately sent me a new unit (which is now in transit from China) with the latest firmware update.
I am actually quite satisfied with their customer support. I know that a lot of people here are waiting for a solution since a couple of months, but the company is finally reacting and probably their support in the future will be faster and less confusing.

There's only one thing that really bothers me, and that's the fact that I cannot verify that the new unit has the updated software since the software version on the screen will remain unchanged. So I wanted to ask you guys if you could recommend me an entry level audio interface so that I can test this by myself, and so I can start learning about audio interfaces and playing with them too thank you!

 

[mario_rouge]

Hi @shenzenaudio you are very kind but, is it possible to know why we cannot update the firmware by ourselves? why do we have to ship our dacs to china? and we have to pay for the shipping fees and customs charges

 

[SHENZHENAUDIO]

Hi @shenzenaudio you are very kind but, is it possible to know why we cannot update the firmware by ourselves? why do we have to ship our dacs to china? and we have to pay for the shipping fees and customs charges

Hello, If send it back to us for upgrade or replacement, users will get a more professional solution, it's beneficial for both party. Thanks for your inquiry.

 

[Bds3151]

I bought my Su-9 and M500 new from Ebay sellers. I have been given the runaround from 2 people at SMSL (Kelly and Mandy). They say either that SMSL people will email a solution that never comes or contact the seller, and the seller doesn't respond to inquiries. No solution has been proposed, even shipping the product back to China. SMSL is not addressing the issue and probably never will. Buyer beware.

 

[muslhead]

Hello, If send it back to us for upgrade or replacement, users will get a more professional solution, it's beneficial for both party. Thanks for your inquiry.

Why isnt Shenzhen providing return shipping labels and instead making owners pay for this? its a defect not caused by the buyer but the mfg who is deferring the problem to Shenzhen. Everyone is thinking but not asking directly.
Why not do the right thing and correct the problem without additional cost to the buyer?

 

[Shoaibexpert]

 

[mario_rouge]

@shenzenaudio I bought the su9 on Amazon, why don't you send me a new one without a bug and I will send you my faulty one back? as a normal customer service.

 

[Miniusse]

hello, i'm new to the forum, i just bought SU-9 and unfortunately i just saw this forum.
the version of my SU-9 and:
hw : 1.0
SW : 1.2
usb : 2.06

Am I affected by this problem?
What is the problem i didn’t quite understand?

thank you in advance for your explanation

 

[gtb75]

@SHENZHENAUDIO
Do you know if your inventory currently sitting in Amazon's warehouses in the USA is the revised version which addresses the 3rd harmonic issue discussed here and elsewhere? Link here: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08K7HL8SG/

 

[KiyPhi]

According to the first official communication by SMSL on this matter, the solution may be contacting Amazon. You can find the message here https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...0-high-3rd-harmonic.22710/page-42#post-824267

Amazon was not equipped to handle the situation for me. They only offered a replacement or a refund minute restocking fee. The replacement had the issue still. Shenzhen Audio was kind enough to send me a replacement but SMSL ghosted me. I sent a return to Apos and an awaiting the replacement from them to see if their new stock has the issue resolved. If Amazon gets new units, the replacement will suffice, but until then, they don't know much and can only offer what they have as a replacement. The issue is that there is go way, aside from measuring yourself, to know if you're is the new version as the HW, SW, and USB versions remain the same, the fixed harmonic is the only issue. Luckily, the harmonic is so high, even my onboard line-in could detect it so most people should be able to measure themselves.

 

[KiyPhi]

@SHENZHENAUDIO
Do you know if your inventory currently sitting in Amazon's warehouses in the USA is the revised version which addresses the 3rd harmonic issue discussed here and elsewhere? Link here: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08K7HL8SG/

The one I got from Amazon last week was not the newest at least. They might be sending more but there is no guarantee unless they had Amazon pull the old stock entirely.

 

[mycose]

Shenzhen Audio was kind enough to send me a replacement

What's the firmware version on your replacement? Was the harmonic distortion issue still present in the unit SHENZHENAUDIO sent you?

 

[KiyPhi]

What's the firmware version on your replacement? Was the harmonic distortion issue still present in the unit SHENZHENAUDIO sent you?

You can't view the firmware version from the unit itself. That's part of the issue, the only way to identify is to measure. And no, it was fixed. The two units from Amazon did have the issues (from Shenzhen's Amazon stock). Apos still pending, their exchange process has taken a few weeks (initially messaged them 6/5 I think), I just was able to finally get the return label yesterday, they say 1-3 days shipping, 1-3 to process the return, 3-5 to ship the new one to me. I can report back on that but given that they said they reached out to SMSL and were sending me one from a new batch, I suspect it is going to be fine.

 

[gtb75]

@SHENZHENAUDIO
Do you know if your inventory currently sitting in Amazon's warehouses in the USA is the revised version which addresses the 3rd harmonic issue discussed here and elsewhere? Link here: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B08K7HL8SG/

[email protected] just responded to my question above with the following: "Pls purchase at shenzhenaudio.com, we ship directly from China with the latest one. And we will also ship via DHL express about 3-7days to reach you, no worries."

Guess that confirms the revision of the current Amazon Prime SU-9 inventory in the USA.

 

[mario_rouge]

There is no service center in Europe yet. European people will still have to wait. I hope they reimburse all of us for the shipping costs. It seems to me the least for the damage they have done to us.