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SMSL SU-9n Review (Balanced Stereo DAC)

GWolfman

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Yay, a non-MQA version & savings to go with it.

Any devices out there support BT UAT?
 

pseudoid

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My pleasure. MQA is a proprietary audio format which Tidal streams high resolution content in. Bartok is a model number of dCS (high-end) DAC. ...
My comment "But who is MQA and what is a bartok?" was meant to be a tongue-n-cheek [cheek-n-tongue?] jab at MQA haters and Bartok lovers alike. :facepalm:
 

Rottmannash

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I got the same spammy email, guessing from the time I bought the Topping EX5 from them. Do they think we buy DACs using Subscribe & Save(TM), minus the save? I really have no idea how they are able to justify releasing new products every couple of months when their old one is perfectly fine. Excellent performance, but who's chucking their 118 SINAD DAC to get a 122 SINAD one?
Me?
 

Rottmannash

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It wonder how many DACs some people own. On most of the informercials, the comments are full of ones from people that already have multiple similar DACs; but now feel the need to own the latest one.

The quest to achieving the sound that gets hyped is never ending.
I'll go 1st-I have 3, all Topping...and thinking hard about buying this one too.
 

DACs_Lover

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as one of the cheap topping smsl and gustards dac break the sinad barrier, many boutiuqe dac lovers feel more and more agitated and try to prove more and more vigorously that measurements dont matter or there is a limit of audibility of good measurements. the same thing happened in one of the dcs bartok thread in this forum elsewhere. almost all the posters were trying to justify the 110db sinad of $17500 DCS bartok. now a days even a well implemented ultra cheap dongle dac can beat these boutique dacs in terms of measurements. it is so surprising how such boutique dac manufacturers are able to brainwash so many people that they dont want to listen anything against these boutique dacs at all. may be its the money power through which the manufacturer propagate many subjective lies on all type media platforms
Can I have a link please? It is worth reading I guess.
 

mslim

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"n" = "No" MQA?

I often wonder about the growth and economy of scale also as SMSL product line-ups overstep each other more so than Toppings.

Is the remote controller capacitive touch type? Not sure if it actually looks like that or they just superimposed a diagram over a photo on their marketing material.
 

mslim

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SMSL model with those OLED screens.....is there an option to turn them off until "touched" or volume changed etc? Those reviewer never made this clear......
 

Toku

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The static measurements by amirm are great. However, it has not been confirmed that all the functions actually work properly this time as well.
I would like to order immediately, but the newly released DACs often have operational problems that cannot be seen from the measurement data. Because of that, I have had many technical interactions with the technicians of the manufacturer every time. This DA-9u feels the same as the previous products and I don't have the courage to order it.

Regarding MQA, if it can be played smoothly without any problem like PCM and DSD, I can tolerate the installation of MQA, but I bought E50 the other day and tried MQA playback for the first time in a long time, but the playback operation is still not smooth. So I think it's good that MQA wasn't adopted in SU-9n this time.
 

Spkrdctr

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for this price I wonder if it would be possible to make this/any DAC a Mono DAC and bridge the output for even better performance?!
Should be a easy firmware thing to set the DAC up to just output left or right data but on both outputs.

But maybe @amirm can do test if combining to outputs actually incenses performance?
Just play a Mono signal and bridge the outputs together with a Y cable.
Why? Just Why? You can go sit in the back of the class for messing with the sanity of the engineers!
 

Spkrdctr

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My comment "But who is MQA and what is a bartok?" was meant to be a tongue-n-cheek [cheek-n-tongue?] jab at MQA haters and Bartok lovers alike. :facepalm:
Is seeing MQA tests showing it is pure snake oil and destroys any sound quality make someone a hater? I would just call it a scam. Yet one more scam in the very, very long line of audio scams.
 

kchap

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With a whole slew "relatively" cheap DACs and amps with incredible noise floors and dynamic range becoming available, are the days of expensive potentiometers and relay controlled resistor ladders are numbered.? Just do it all volume control and balance adjustments in the digital domain.

Edit: One day I hope to write a message that does not need editing.
 
Last edited:

Mulder

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The static measurements by amirm are great. However, it has not been confirmed that all the functions actually work properly this time as well.
I would like to order immediately, but the newly released DACs often have operational problems that cannot be seen from the measurement data. Because of that, I have had many technical interactions with the technicians of the manufacturer every time. This DA-9u feels the same as the previous products and I don't have the courage to order it.

Regarding MQA, if it can be played smoothly without any problem like PCM and DSD, I can tolerate the installation of MQA, but I bought E50 the other day and tried MQA playback for the first time in a long time, but the playback operation is still not smooth. So I think it's good that MQA wasn't adopted in SU-9n this time.
Agree. Based on own experience and what others have written about, some of these top-performing DACs seem to be plagued with reliability problems. I also get the impression that manufacturers are quickly abandoning previous models and stop producing new firmware updates, even though there are bugs that bother users.
 

Toku

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Comparing the measurement results of SU-9n and SU-9, it seems that there is no big change in the circuit because they are almost the same.
Does that mean that the high output impedance (122Ω / RCA, 370Ω / XLR) of the SU-9 is inherited by the SU-9n as it is? I'm a little worried.
 

pseudoid

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amirm's such a damn good person, he'll seriously respond to any joke post under the assumption that the poster doesn't speak fluent English.
I'll try not to do it again... I don't want to cut into his production quota.
He is beyond just a 'good' person...
 

Lambda

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Why? Just Why? You can go sit in the back of the class for messing with the sanity of the engineers!
Paralleling DACs/ADCs is common practice in engineers.
Educate yourself before using polemic like this.

some of the best performing DACs here use Parraled DACs to to achieve this performance ESS is even mentioning it in the datasheet.

1634310012840.png


1634310086504.png

The DAC Device around the DAC chip is basilisk just an I/V converter so paralleling the output is basically the same as paralelling output of U2 (as they recommend in the datasheet).
It’s a brute force method of gaining about 3dB SNR but it only works for truly uncorrelated noise.

Also why not have a DAC per (activ) speaker to reduce Analog cable length.
Or if one has Monoblock Amplifier why not have Monoblock DACs
 
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