strange SMSL M500 high 3rd harmonic

[raif71]

What would you prefer, a device with a barely audible harmonic distortion or a bricked device? Because if you've followed the sorry tale of the driver updates for the M500, never mind rushed full firmware fixes, you'll wait for the right fix applied the right way.

Of course nothing of the sort is hoped ie rushed full firmware nor bricked device but a nod of acknowledgement that they are on top of the problem and doing something about it would suffice (at least for me). I guess the silence from them is kind of unnerving for some. Appreciate that Wolf is looking into it but he's not exactly smsl.

 

[Jimbob54]

Of course nothing of the sort is hoped ie rushed full firmware nor bricked device but a nod of acknowledgement that they are on top of the problem and doing something about it would suffice (at least for me). I guess the silence from them is kind of unnerving for some. Appreciate that Wolf is looking into it but he's not exactly smsl.

I would have thought something will come out when the engineers have something that the lawyers and and accountants can live with. Until then, the best you would get is a holding message neither confirming or promising anything. We know they are aware of it, we know they are working on it. I dont think a jury rigged hand taped plug in tool like the one sent to Wolf is a workable fix even for the SU9 and definitely not the M500.

 

[raif71]

I would have thought something will come out when the engineers have something that the lawyers and and accountants can live with. Until then, the best you would get is a holding message neither confirming or promising anything. We know they are aware of it, we know they are working on it. I dont think a jury rigged hand taped plug in tool like the one sent to Wolf is a workable fix even for the SU9 and definitely not the M500.

I acknowledge and understand your concerns and opinion. Communication will be related if there are any developments or any issues arising from this. Roger and out.

 

[JohnYang1997]

look. the performance obviously hasn't changed at all with the change in output OPA. BOMs change with hardware revisions all the time. would you complain if they changed (and they almost certainly have) passive sourcing? resistors, capacitors suppliers and values? absolutely not. as long as the performance hasn't changed, you wouldn't notice or care. they went from a good OPA to another good OPA. the performance didn't change. it happens to be more cost effective, and available, which may not have been the case for OPA1612 when they made the decision (if they even made the decision, and it wasn't a contract manufacturer changing the BOM on them without notice..).

supply chain is a complete disaster right now across the world. just look at geshelli's posts to see how much trouble, as a small manufacturer, they've had with their sourcing recently. there are cars sitting in factories waiting for PCBs.

with all due respect, please try to be patient and understanding here. there was an issue at the what may or may not be the limits of audibility on the latest SMSL 9038pro devices that SMSL has been proactive about root causing, fixing and then working out how to fix for all customers. i understand the existential frustration, but please try to realistic about the situation and not cause yourself and others more anxiety about the situation than it's worth...

Performance is affected and not really small difference. Also remember Wolf uses 20KHz bandwidth instead of 22KHz which Amir uses. Supply of opa1612 is not affected so far(the change of opamp can date way earlier last year too). And if one wants to change components, change all the marketing materials needed before someone else calling out. The change of opamp is one thing they cannot rectify.

On the firmware upgrade. Su-9 may be ok if they are sending out upgrade kits. M500 though, it's much more difficult. I too hope they would come up a good solution for all customers. Because I also have recommended Su-9 to people here.

 

[chefffe]

Maybe Amir could temporarily change his SU9/M500 Test results here until its fixed
This could cause somewhat higher importance to fix

 

[nhs]

Performance is affected and not really small difference. Also remember Wolf uses 20KHz bandwidth instead of 22KHz which Amir uses. Supply of opa1612 is not affected so far(the change of opamp can date way earlier last year too). And if one wants to change components, change all the marketing materials needed before someone else calling out. The change of opamp is one thing they cannot rectify.

On the firmware upgrade. Su-9 may be ok if they are sending out upgrade kits. M500 though, it's much more difficult. I too hope they would come up a good solution for all customers. Because I also have recommended Su-9 to people here.

One more thing I'd like to add is the OPA1612 can deliver higher current than LME49720. That's quite important for those who also uses the DAC as preamp with long cable connected to poweramp.

 

[JSmith]

Maybe Amir could temporarily change his SU9/M500 Test results here until its fixed

I have posted a link to this thread in the review thread for the SU-9 and M500. Amir's testing is not incorrect in any way and that was just one unit sent by Shenzhenaudio... however the further testing here certainly adds to that. Possibly a temporary amendment could be made to the main review post so those simply reading that one post will be aware of this issue.



JSmith

 

[mkawa]

Performance is affected and not really small difference. Also remember Wolf uses 20KHz bandwidth instead of 22KHz which Amir uses. Supply of opa1612 is not affected so far(the change of opamp can date way earlier last year too). And if one wants to change components, change all the marketing materials needed before someone else calling out. The change of opamp is one thing they cannot rectify.

On the firmware upgrade. Su-9 may be ok if they are sending out upgrade kits. M500 though, it's much more difficult. I too hope they would come up a good solution for all customers. Because I also have recommended Su-9 to people here.

yes, the marketing materials should have been changed. i'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt that they changed the engineers changed the bom without notifying marketing. it's a small operation like you guys.

m500 will be difficult to upgrade. from amir's teardown (deep in the forum somewhere), there are delicate ribbon cables connecting the two stacked PCBs. imo SMSL should just start an upgraded pcb run, have customers send in their m500s to US facility and do a mass recall/upgrade program. imo i have an m500v1 and wouldn't even bother, but for those who really want to squad the only maybe audible third harmonic noise, it's the right thing to do.

for the su-9, sending out the j-link boards should suffice. they did it with the d5 successfully and people are still upgrading their d5s with the last tool that was send out.

this is also a lesson that they need run the correct bus wiring to connect the xmos controller to the firmware upgrade pins on the 9038 so they can do firmware upgrades over USB like you guys did with the d30pro

 

[Massimo]

Has anybody been successful in communicating with SMSL? I sent a message to them via their website more than 1 week ago and have not received a response. Same with Khadas. They have not responded to a support request I sent several weeks ago.

It would be great if ASR could allow users to submit their own reviews which includes a rating for customer service by these manufacturers. As it stands, people are blindly ordering based on stellar reviews by ASR for these products without any knowledge of poor user experience.

 

[Dingenus]

I'm not very hopefull, this is what I received at 26-05;

Dear Customer,
Thanks for your email.
Questions regarding the SMSL SU-9.
Kindly contact with SHENZHEN audio support team,
[email protected]
[email protected]

They are sole agent for this model and will give a reasonable suggestions.

Best regards
S.M.S.L Audio

And Shenzhen support did not answer my mail.

 

[kfscoll]

I'm not very hopefull, this is what I received at 26-05;

Dear Customer,
Thanks for your email.
Questions regarding the SMSL SU-9.
Kindly contact with SHENZHEN audio support team,
[email protected]
[email protected]

They are sole agent for this model and will give a reasonable suggestions.

Best regards
S.M.S.L Audio

And Shenzhen support did not answer my mail.

That's a horrible, flick-the-booger-onto-someone-else, turn-your-back-on-the-customer response. They know there are problems but refuse to acknowledge them on the forum or through direct communication. And to think, I sold an Oppo HA-1 to buy an SMSL stack. SMH.

 

[Toku]

That's a horrible, flick-the-booger-onto-someone-else, turn-your-back-on-the-customer response. They know there are problems but refuse to acknowledge them on the forum or through direct communication. And to think, I sold an Oppo HA-1 to buy an SMSL stack. SMH.

SU-9 is a product planned and sold by Shenzhen Audio, and SMSL is manufactured by consignment from Shenzhen Audio. Therefore, even if you make an inquiry to SMSL, SMSL can only give such an answer.
It is very confusing and annoying from the user side.

 

[nhatlam96]

I'm trying to summarize this topic for my own understanding.

First issue:
When both channels are being active we get normal looking measurements.
However, if we review each channel individually, we can see that M500's left channel has a fault with 3rd harmonic (credits to deleted user liu).
This is a firmware issue potentially affecting various SMSL products, we can fix this via firmware update or turning the volume down (on the M500 set it to <=30).
Prof. @WolfX-700 is meeting SMSL's boss in late May to discuss solutions for the customer base.

Second issue:
M500's product pages falsely stated OPA1612 instead of LME49720 as op amps (credits to deleted user liu).
Example: description on Amazon still has OPA1612.

My personal take on this:
This discovery is a big deal isn't it?
If we look at both channels at the same time, the mistakes on one channel might get masked by the other channel, giving us false measurement.
May my prayers reach Prof. @WolfX-700 and SMSL's team. I hope they can find easy solution.

 

[nhs]

First issue:
When both channels are being active we get normal looking measurements.

That's not quite correct. An other correct wording would look like so "When playing IDENTICAL signal (same wave, same phase) to both channels we get normal looking measurements."
That is to say, the sound is as expected if we are listening to mono recording but if we are listening to stereo music, we get worst sound (about -75db SINAD).

 

[MusicNBeer]

Given SMSL's responses, or lack thereof, on this thread, I think it's a good idea to keep your expectations low, especially if you're an M500 owner. I completely agree with the idea of updating the M500 and SU-9 reviews to indicate this major design error. Not doing that is negligent in my opinion.

 

[jaraheel]

I remember asking this question when SU-9 came out that will there be a V2. While making mistakes is ok, not acknowledging and vowing to make up for them is unacceptable coming from a company. It shall require a lotta persuasion for me to buy another SMSL product.

 

[raif71]

I'm hoping for smsl m500 V3 or an inexpensive used V2 coz I'm intrigued by the max output voltage of 6.8V out of its xlr.

 

[chefffe]

The issue was just a few "days" before confirmed and a fix was created by SMSL. Of course they need time to decide if and how to do it with customers. If they dont fix it, it will also be my last SMSL device. I would be fine to do it with the programmer. For the M500 I am pretty sure there will be no fix as there is no chance without "dismantling".

 

[JSmith]

a fix was created by SMSL

No a fix was created by Liu and adopted by SMSL as a correct fix. The fact Liu is not here anymore is rather disappointing as he is a very knowledgeable person in this field. So much so companies like SMSL, Sabaj, Loxjie and even Topping would benefit from having him as an employee or external contractor. I think some of his comments were taken the wrong way, there is often a consideration of 2nd language that should be taken into account. It's not unusual for translation from Asian based languages to come across as a bit direct when converted to English. Being from Australia, close to SE Asia and Asia, I am more used to this, whereas others may not be I suppose. That said I have no tolerance for racism, however I don't believe that was his intention here and without his investigation none of us would be the wiser at this stage.

If they dont fix it, it will also be my last SMSL device.

Agree 100%, in fact it's been over a month since this issue was identified... my SU9 is still boxed and I'd like to be able to use it.

@SMSL-Mandy & @SMSL_Liu, is it possible for customers to load this firmware onto or via their own JTag device? I have no desire to wait for SMSL to send a "tool" by post, rather just send me the firmware data and am happy to purchase a $20 tool to achieve the update.



JSmith

 

[solderdude]

AFAIK Liu found the error. SMSL came up with a fix (it seems to have been in lieu with Liu)