This is a review and detailed measurements of the (SMSL) VMV D2R stereo balanced USB DAC with Bluetooth. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $999.
The DAC is quite heavy for its size and has pretty stout construction. User interface is similar to other SMSL products. A higher-end metal remote is provided:
Alas, no coin cell battery was included so I used the front panel for configuration of the DAC.
The DAC design is different than many other in that it uses a DAC IC from Rohm (BD34301EKV) instead of the usual ESS and AKM. Let's see how it performs.
If you are new to DAC measurements, be sure to watch my tutorial video.
VMV D2R DAC Measurements
Let's start with balanced output and use the default -2 dB on the volume control which generates our nominal 4 volts:
Noise performance is excellent but distortion is a bit high for the class. Still, transparency is achieved, landing D2R in our excellent category:
RCA performance as usual is a bit worse:
As noted, noise performance is excellent:
IMD test shows the same:
Our 50 Hz and multitone tests show very good performance:
I am a bit unhappy to see spurious/jitter tones in our jitter test especially with USB:
Linearity is perfect:
Only two filters are provided which is fine by me but note that the slow one is the default:
You can see that there is pretty early roll off with the slow one so select the Sharp filter.
At first blush, the wideband THD+N vs frequency test looks bad:
If we run an FFT so we can see the spectrum, we can see why:
The DAC (IC) is pushing noise from audible band to ultrasonic which we happen to capture with our previous test. Since you can't hear that spectrum, it is audibly harmless. That said, competitor DAC ICs don't do this (or nearly to this extent).
Conclusions
From audibility point of view, the D2r DAC achieves transparency so that is good. From the point of view of it being a flagship DAC, objective performance doesn't back that. Company says that its audible performance proves that but I am not in a position to judge that.
I am going to put the VMV D2r on my recommended list even though it is priced high relative to its objective performance.
------------
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/
The DAC is quite heavy for its size and has pretty stout construction. User interface is similar to other SMSL products. A higher-end metal remote is provided:
Alas, no coin cell battery was included so I used the front panel for configuration of the DAC.
The DAC design is different than many other in that it uses a DAC IC from Rohm (BD34301EKV) instead of the usual ESS and AKM. Let's see how it performs.
If you are new to DAC measurements, be sure to watch my tutorial video.
VMV D2R DAC Measurements
Let's start with balanced output and use the default -2 dB on the volume control which generates our nominal 4 volts:
Noise performance is excellent but distortion is a bit high for the class. Still, transparency is achieved, landing D2R in our excellent category:
RCA performance as usual is a bit worse:
As noted, noise performance is excellent:
IMD test shows the same:
Our 50 Hz and multitone tests show very good performance:
I am a bit unhappy to see spurious/jitter tones in our jitter test especially with USB:
Linearity is perfect:
Only two filters are provided which is fine by me but note that the slow one is the default:
You can see that there is pretty early roll off with the slow one so select the Sharp filter.
At first blush, the wideband THD+N vs frequency test looks bad:
If we run an FFT so we can see the spectrum, we can see why:
The DAC (IC) is pushing noise from audible band to ultrasonic which we happen to capture with our previous test. Since you can't hear that spectrum, it is audibly harmless. That said, competitor DAC ICs don't do this (or nearly to this extent).
Conclusions
From audibility point of view, the D2r DAC achieves transparency so that is good. From the point of view of it being a flagship DAC, objective performance doesn't back that. Company says that its audible performance proves that but I am not in a position to judge that.
I am going to put the VMV D2r on my recommended list even though it is priced high relative to its objective performance.
------------
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/
