SMSL SU-X I2S interface issue

[felixthecat]

Has anyone encountered any issues with I2S unput on the SU-X?

A couple of months ago I received a SU-X from Shenzen Audio. It was an upgrade from a SU10.

The SU-X would not play sound over I2S but it would display the correct bitrate of the track being played. USB-B input worked fine.

After a nightmare 50 email thread with Shenzen Audio support I finally received a replacement today that has exactly the same problem. Only this time it will play music for a couple of seconds after a hard reboot (switching power off with the switch on the back of the unit) or for one second if I reset via the control menu.

The Pink Faun I2S bridge I am using works fine with the SU10 so there is not a pin-out mismatch. I have also reinstalled the hardware driver in Win11.

Am I doubly unlucky or what?

 

[Roland68]

Has anyone encountered any issues with I2S unput on the SU-X?

A couple of months ago I received a SU-X from Shenzen Audio. It was an upgrade from a SU10.

The SU-X would not play sound over I2S but it would display the correct bitrate of the track being played. USB-B input worked fine.

After a nightmare 50 email thread with Shenzen Audio support I finally received a replacement today that has exactly the same problem. Only this time it will play music for a couple of seconds after a hard reboot (switching power off with the switch on the back of the unit) or for one second if I reset via the control menu.

The Pink Faun I2S bridge I am using works fine with the SU10 so there is not a pin-out mismatch. I have also reinstalled the hardware driver in Win11.

Am I doubly unlucky or what?

How do you know it's not a pinout problem? SMSL is not very reliable with this sort of thing and has had problems with I2S between their own devices.

The only device on Pink Faun's compatibility list for the I2S bridge is the SMSL M400.
I would take the help offered by Pink Faun on their website and contact them.

 

[felixthecat]

How do you know it's not a pinout problem?

The SU-X and SU-10 pinouts are identical according to the docs.

Also, I am able to get sound for a couple of seconds from the SU-X after a hard reboot, so the pinouts must be OK.

The Pink Faun is a great piece of kit and is working fine, I can run the SU-10 with DPLL on minimum at 24/192k with no jitter. Their team is very helpful but I wouldn't want to unnecessarily waste their time.

 

[Roland68]

The SU-X and SU-10 pinouts are identical according to the docs.

Also, I am able to get sound for a couple of seconds from the SU-X after a hard reboot, so the pinouts must be OK.

The Pink Faun is a great piece of kit and is working fine, I can run the SU-10 with DPLL on minimum at 24/192k with no jitter. Their team is very helpful but I wouldn't want to unnecessarily waste their time.

Please don't be mad at me if I'm so direct, but then the solution to your problem is not important enough to you. Unfortunately, this is also disadvantageous for Pink Faun.

Only two companies are involved in this problem, SMSL and Pink Faun.

SMSL has often shown that such things do not work the same on all of their devices and that even flawless I2S functionality is not guaranteed between their devices. The same applies to the firmware, which has already led to errors in the I2S area.
To put it simply, SMSL is very unreliable when it comes to such things, including troubleshooting, and the fact that your SU-10 works perfectly on the I2S interface and the SU-X (the second one) does not, only underlines the in-house problem with SMSL.

I know Pink Faun as a very competent and reliable manufacturer, especially in the I2S area.
And that is precisely why you are doing them a disservice by not reporting the problem.
Pink Faun depends on his I2S card working with all possible devices and should therefore be interested in dealing with the problem and SMSL and finding a solution. This is the only way he can add this device to his compatibility list.
He would certainly be grateful if you could send him information so that he can add the SU-10 to his compatibility list.
In the end, you will either have a device that works the way you need it to, or the reliable statement that it doesn't work, perhaps with a reason.

From a project, I have experience of over 100 different devices connected via I2S and the problems that occurred with them. At the time, 8 of these were from SMSL, including the SU-10. There were different problems with the SMSL devices (so much for the same configuration) but nothing so serious that it didn't work at all.

 

[felixthecat]

I have experience of over 100 different devices connected via I2S and the problems that occurred with them.

Have you encountered the issue I have described? If so, how was it resolved?

I guess the I2S input is OK, same with the analogue circuits (USB-B out works fine) so a digital chip is failing when an I2S signal is received. Any thoughts?

Thanks for your insight.

 

[Roland68]

Have you encountered the issue I have described? If so, how was it resolved?

I guess the I2S input is OK, same with the analogue circuits (USB-B out works fine) so a digital chip is failing when an I2S signal is received. Any thoughts?

Thanks for your insight.

As I said, nothing so serious that it didn't work at all and nothing similar.

I2S doesn't run via the other ICs in the digital area, but directly via the DAC chip.

I honestly can't understand why you don't ask Pink Faun for support. His card is quite expensive and that includes the support that he also offers.
I wish you much success.

 

[felixthecat]

@SMSL-Mandy

I notice there is a new firmware on smsl-audio.com - SMSL SU-X_MCU_v2.1_240925

Can you let me know what fixes were in this release?

Is there anything related to I2S?

 

[Lmitchr]

@SMSL-Mandy

On the SMSL Raw-DAC1 the same issue occurs with the I2S input. Clock rate is sensed and displays correctly, but the DAC senses it's in DSD mode regardless of settings.

This is with an I2S source interface that works perfectly in the PSAudio I2S configuration with at least two other I2S DACs, Denafrips and Musicians.

Is there a firmware update available that will fix this?

Many thanks for looking into this. Larry