SMSL VMV D3 Review (R2R DAC)

[aj625]

It is way harder and more expensive to make a good (non over sampling) R2R DAC.

It is not better, just a different approach. for all practical reasons its even way worse performing.
Like a mechanical analog watch is clearly inferior to a modern digital one.

Or like Cassettes and Vinyl is inferior to CD/digital.
but some still seam to use and enjoin it.

Why a poor measuring NOS dac sound should be termed as "different" instead of "poor" ?

 

[jam]

Until the folklore around R2R DACs and anything unconventional goes away, I guess I can't blame SMSL for chasing that market. They are taking a similar path to another confused American audio manufacturer doing the same. Hopefully reason prevails in the future and resources are not wasted to produce dirty water to sell at 30 times the price of clean water....

Folklore... you mean like this guy does here and here with his R2R DAC design? And at 3K€, he's not giving it away either.
Another myth dispelled by Amir.

 

[Lambda]

Reason is simple during the process of transferring from master tape to vinyl you did not chop the analog wave unlike digital where you save only some samples. Dac fill in those samples to recreate the wave back. Some dacs use more processing power to recreate that analog wave and use more and more samples for interpolating as close as possible as per Shannon theorem. One of my friend rips his old vinyls at 768khz and since with 768khz you get lot more points, the sound quality is very close to original vinyl.

You seam very knowledgeable about this... i shuld better not waste more time arguing with you.

Why a poor measuring NOS dac sound should be termed as "different" instead of "poor" ?

~17Bits dynamic is poor?
SO every CD(player) is also Poor?
If so every record player Must be Garbage.
Almost every Speaker is trash as well as almost every amp?
Why shuld we use different ratings for them?

With analog watch you may be caring less for accuracy because you get more accuracy from your phone clock as it is connected to net. So a person may be preferring analog watch for "style". But for music lovers the goal is clarity and realism,

But it has all the clarity you could ever want or need for the vast majority of music (CD 16bit 44,1k)
it is audible transparent for almost every listener/music. Its better then every CD player.
How is this Poor?

So a person may be preferring analog watch for "style".

So why can't a person preferring R2R for style? They can't hear the difference, you can't hear the difference.

 

[aj625]

It is way harder and more expensive to make a good (non over sampling) R2R DAC.

It is not better, just a different approach. for all practical reasons its even way worse performing.
Like a mechanical analog watch is clearly inferior to a modern digital one.

Or like Cassettes and Vinyl is inferior to CD/digital.
but some still seam to use and enjoin it.

Why a poor measuring NOS dac sound should be termed as " different" instead of "poor" ?

 

[aj625]

You seam very knowledgeable about this... i shuld better not waste more time arguing with you.


~17Bits dynamic is poor?
SO every CD(player) is also Poor?
If so every record player Must be Garbage.
Almost every Speaker is trash as well as almost every amp?
Why shuld we use different ratings for them?



But it has all the clarity you could ever want or need for the vast majority of music (CD 16bit 44,1k)
it is audible transparent for almost every listener/music. Its better then every CD player.
How is this Poor?


So why can't a person preferring R2R for style? They can't hear the difference, you can't hear the difference.

This is not nos dac. This dac has linearity of 11bits so you can't get 16bit information accurately even if Dr is equivalent to 17bit. Btw which "nos" dac has linearity of 17bit ?

 

[gvl]

Btw which "nos" dac has linearity of 17bit ?

 

[aj625]

Is it nos ?

 

[PeteL]

You also must be knowing that vinyl of modern digital recording is nothing but another form of listening native digital recording. But vinyl pressing of original analog recordings do sound more natural despite all the limitation of format. Reason is simple during the process of transferring from master tape to vinyl you did not chop the analog wave unlike digital where you save only some samples. Dac fill in those samples to recreate the wave back. Some dacs use more processing power to recreate that analog wave and use more and more samples for interpolating as close as possible as per Shannon theorem. One of my friend rips his old vinyls at 768khz and since with 768khz you get lot more points, the sound quality is very close to original vinyl. But if you rip to say 48khz the dac has to do lot more work to fill in those spaces and sound quality is not near to original vinyl. So imo people use vinyl mainly for original analog recordings. Vinyl of modern digital recording is nothing more than a fad. You would be lot better using a dac with that digital recording.

Where to start…Too much wrongs in these few lines, the answer would be too lenghty, without disrespect, don’t want to sound rude but maybe a short 101 tutorial online? DAC don’t work by interpolating, for a start, but really it’s OK to not know, and it’s not a bad place to start, just maybe not start the post by « You should know » and further down name drop « Shannon Theorem » Ask questions instead.

 

[gvl]

Is it nos ?

I thought it was, but now not sure. Anyhow, a NOS DAC can have good linearity, but whole bunch of other issues.

 

[laudio]

Recording vinyl at 768kHz makes it harder to filter the clicks and pops

Most DACS sound pretty much the same to my ears... if SNR under the threshold of audibility, then cost is the main driver. Oh wait... plus a nice case and quality construction. Plus some heft and weight. Plus an internal power supply... if possible give me a cool display too, I could go on and on. A DAC by it's very nature is kind of a boring component, so subjective factors (not measurements) are why people pay more. Not that the SMSL really has the it factor at $3k+ either.

 

[ousi]

Recording vinyl at 768kHz makes it harder to filter the clicks and pops

Most DACS sound pretty much the same to my ears... if SNR under the threshold of audibility, then cost is the main driver. Oh wait... plus a nice case and quality construction. Plus some heft and weight. Plus an internal power supply... if possible give me a cool display too, I could go on and on. A DAC by it's very nature is kind of a boring component, so subjective factors (not measurements) are why people pay more. Not that the SMSL really has the it factor at $3k+ either.

Heh sounds like DCS to me, which their top model costs close to 50K each. The SMSL is “cheap” in comparison. I myself have other DACs that include an SACD player weighing in 50+ lbs for $12K. I still question myself from time to time why I bought that as I should have save those coins and buy a CD transport that is quiet and a Topping D90 (which I had). Well at least to my ears it sounds the same as the D90 MQA that I had but with a fancy front plate with OLED display which looks cool; not to mention a funky looking remote and tons of filters and up sampling options to “play” with. Whether it worth the extra 1.15K, not so sure anymore.

 

[Mnyb]

Had to vote poor .

The product is not poor as other products are poor .

It’s an ok ish implementation of an outdated chip ( can be done slightly better ) , similar as my Meridian DAC I used in 1996 .

But why , the product is unecessary . Who ordered this ? hence poor , resources spent for naught .

If one wants a vintage product restore one from the past .

 

[laudio]

Heh sounds like DCS to me, which their top model costs close to 50K each. The SMSL is “cheap” in comparison. I myself have other DACs that include an SACD player weighing in 50+ lbs for $12K. I still question myself from time to time why I bought that as I should have save those coins and buy a CD transport that is quiet and a Topping D90 (which I had). Well at least to my ears it sounds the same as the D90 MQA that I had but with a fancy front plate with OLED display which looks cool; not to mention a funky looking remote and tons of filters and up sampling options to “play” with. Whether it worth the extra 1.15K, not so sure anymore.

They might sound the same... but you won't be tossing that 12K CD player of yours in a few years. Think of it that way!

 

[Limopard]

yes... or the more analog your car is, ur gone want r2r dac in it.. it's a NOS thing

A quite basic 2018 Hyundai. I suppose the the audio DAC job is done en passant by the motor control device or any other random chip...

 

[aj625]

I bought hidizs s8 dongle based on asr review. It measures better than dac reviewed in this thread and costs only $75
I am very happy feeding s8 with uapp out of mobile and foobar/j river asio. I use he 400se, r70x and tin t2 plus with s8 and I would say I am so happy with such ultra clean and musical presentation. Watching movies through j river asio and s8 with r70x is such an addictive experience. The great atmosphere generated by s8 and r70x sound in movies literally transports you there. Imo once you listen to a very clean, peakless chain there is no going back to anything else.

 

[charleski]

I am not sure how the HoloAudio stuff measures, but looking inside of their DACs, a high level of craftsmanship and parts quality is evident. So in their $2,000 DAC, it looks like it almost might be worth it.

Wolf’s measurements of the May DAC show something that’s state-of-the-art … but at a steep price.

 

[charleski]

Folklore... you mean like this guy does here and here with his R2R DAC design? And at 3K€, he's not giving it away either.
Another myth dispelled by Amir.

OMG that’s hilarious. €3k and it doesn’t even come in a case!
“the pcb is flat-press-mounted on a specially treated spruce-board. This construction is time-consuming during manufacture, but improves sound quality, as all components are mechanically coupled to a musical sound board.” I.e. he glued it to a piece of wood instead of paying for some metalwork.

 

[aj625]

Wolf’s measurements of the May DAC show something that’s state-of-the-art … but at a steep price.

State of the art ? There are many more dacs which measure better. See the sinad index of asr.

 

[aj625]

OMG that’s hilarious. €3k and it doesn’t even come in a case!
“the pcb is flat-press-mounted on a specially treated spruce-board. This construction is time-consuming during manufacture, but improves sound quality, as all components are mechanically coupled to a musical sound board.” I.e. he glued it to a piece of wood instead of paying for some metalwork.

Who is that person ? There is no 1 bit ds dac these days. What he is talking is not correct. If higher noise shaping noise is affecting the "audible region" it should reflect in all the tests. Also if he says R2r is devoid of noise shaping and dither, he is wrong. Because r2r dacs also use os as operating r2r dacs in nos is all the more problematic than os. Oversampling is also a maths just like any digital processing. Dither ( with or without noise shaping) is an integral part of digital processing. If you want final result in 24 bit word length you need to do processing in higher bit accuracy say 32 bit or even 64bit. If you process a 24bit file in 24 bit accuracy for oversampling you would end up with less than 24bit accuracy due to rounding off errors. Even with 32 bit or 64bit processing for oversampling, to get 24bit final word, you need to dither to avoid rounding errors. If you don't noise shape then dither noise will be audible. So in a way, even for R2R dac with os, you can't avoid dither and noise shaping. And if you choose to not to use os then a 16bit cd quality file in nos is already a very bad idea. Ultimately if you are getting your audible region measured very well by any means ( r2r or ds ) it should sound well too. everything else may be a subjective bias or coloring of sound by distortion.

 

[Jimbob54]

Well said, sir!

May take a while until there'll be a response from SMSL in here. We must consider that Chinese New Year holiday is about to begin shortly.
There might be other reasons, too, but I am not gonna receive one more warning, so I keep my mouth shut.

I doubt you will get a response from smsl in here. The dac measured to spec, those specs don't pass muster in this corner of the world, but ASR members surely aren't the target market for this?

(perhaps the owner could shed light on the motivations for purchasing if they haven't already, but surely not because they believed it would measure better than a standard DS implementation )