This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL VMV D3 R2R DAC. It was kindly sent to me by a member and costs US $3,499.
Being part of the "high-end" VMV division, it comes in the milled enclosure and separate power supply section of that design path. As such, it is quite heavy and more elegant than SMSL's standard line.
The back side is what we expect with exception of allowance for external clock:
The XLR connectors felt nicer than normal. The remote is metal and it too feels higher quality. Alas, it comes with no battery and manual incorrectly states that it takes 2 AA batteries. It does not. It requires a button battery but it doesn't say which. I tried a random one I had but it would not power up. Fortunately it is compatible with other SMSL remotes which is what I used to change settings.
As indicated, the design is based on Burr-Brown PCM1704U-J now-obsolete DAC chip (two per channel). The datasheet says the "K" grade is the highest performance at 0.0008% THD+N. Not sure what the -J version is supposed to do.
SMSL VMV V3 Measurements
I focused my measurements exclusively on XLR output. Here is our dashboard:
Good news is that unit meets specification of 0.001% THD+N. Bad news is that this translates into 98 dB of SINAD which is very much non-competitive today:
You can buy over 150 DACs I have tested with better performance than D3! A spray of distortion is responsible for this. Fortunately their levels are below 100 dB so if you are playing 16 bit audio, it is likely transparent to that.
Dynamic range is disappointing as well:
But again, good enough for 16 bit audio.
Multitone with its lower overall level shows better performance:
Intermodulation test relative to level though shows non-linearities courtesy of that imprecise R2R implementation:
The curve needs to be noise dominated, i.e. sloping down. It does that but distortion is getting so high as to overwhelm noise, resulting the jagged line. Indeed its best performance is what I show in the dashboard. Actual performance is worse than a $9 dongle at lower digital inputs. As you see, I tested both 8X and 4X oversampling modes but results were the same.
Here is the response variations for the two oversampling modes:
Jitter performance is very good showing good clock handling:
Linearity is not so good:
THD+N vs frequency using 90 kHz bandwidth was surprisingly good, given the previous results:
Conclusions
There is no getting around the simple message that you are paying a ton more, but getting far less fidelity. What this fascination is with older DAC technology, I never know. Bur-Brown (TI) would still be making these DAC chips if they had merit. But they don't. We have learned to use signal processing to upsample audio to higher rates as to not need 24 bit R2R anymore as used here. Getting a few bits accurate is far easier and that is why newer DACs perform so much better.
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....
I can't recommend the SMSL VMV D3 DAC. I know, a shocker!
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Being part of the "high-end" VMV division, it comes in the milled enclosure and separate power supply section of that design path. As such, it is quite heavy and more elegant than SMSL's standard line.
The back side is what we expect with exception of allowance for external clock:
The XLR connectors felt nicer than normal. The remote is metal and it too feels higher quality. Alas, it comes with no battery and manual incorrectly states that it takes 2 AA batteries. It does not. It requires a button battery but it doesn't say which. I tried a random one I had but it would not power up. Fortunately it is compatible with other SMSL remotes which is what I used to change settings.
As indicated, the design is based on Burr-Brown PCM1704U-J now-obsolete DAC chip (two per channel). The datasheet says the "K" grade is the highest performance at 0.0008% THD+N. Not sure what the -J version is supposed to do.
SMSL VMV V3 Measurements
I focused my measurements exclusively on XLR output. Here is our dashboard:
Good news is that unit meets specification of 0.001% THD+N. Bad news is that this translates into 98 dB of SINAD which is very much non-competitive today:
You can buy over 150 DACs I have tested with better performance than D3! A spray of distortion is responsible for this. Fortunately their levels are below 100 dB so if you are playing 16 bit audio, it is likely transparent to that.
Dynamic range is disappointing as well:
But again, good enough for 16 bit audio.
Multitone with its lower overall level shows better performance:
Intermodulation test relative to level though shows non-linearities courtesy of that imprecise R2R implementation:
The curve needs to be noise dominated, i.e. sloping down. It does that but distortion is getting so high as to overwhelm noise, resulting the jagged line. Indeed its best performance is what I show in the dashboard. Actual performance is worse than a $9 dongle at lower digital inputs. As you see, I tested both 8X and 4X oversampling modes but results were the same.
Here is the response variations for the two oversampling modes:
Jitter performance is very good showing good clock handling:
Linearity is not so good:
THD+N vs frequency using 90 kHz bandwidth was surprisingly good, given the previous results:
Conclusions
There is no getting around the simple message that you are paying a ton more, but getting far less fidelity. What this fascination is with older DAC technology, I never know. Bur-Brown (TI) would still be making these DAC chips if they had merit. But they don't. We have learned to use signal processing to upsample audio to higher rates as to not need 24 bit R2R anymore as used here. Getting a few bits accurate is far easier and that is why newer DACs perform so much better.
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....
I can't recommend the SMSL VMV D3 DAC. I know, a shocker!
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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