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WolfX700 Measurement of SMSL Sanskrit 10th AK4493 Edition

ichonderoga

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Thx for this @WolfX-700. I’ve just ordered one :)
 

SMSL-Mandy

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Zek

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But there is no visible indication that this is a Mk II model?
 

Tks

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Now I'm wondering how optical performs.

Regardless, for this price, this is an awesome purchase. Great job @SMSL-Mandy to you and everyone back in the workplace. Great improvement over the original.
 

amirm

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But there is no visible indication that this is a Mk II model?
I would look for mention of it using AK4493 in the advertising at least to indicate it is the second version.
 

kouki_monster

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Now I'm wondering how optical performs.

Regardless, for this price, this is an awesome purchase. Great job @SMSL-Mandy to you and everyone back in the workplace. Great improvement over the original.

Is it possible that optical is not ok? I would be purchasing for optical use only...
 

Tks

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Is it possible that optical is not ok? I would be purchasing for optical use only...

If I had to put my money on it, I'd wager it's surly better than Coax. Seems Coaxial has been a lingering thing that doesn't get much use or attention these days (I sure never used one in my life, then again I never took audio serious before the downloadable music era, so I never used CD players and such).

For the price, I doubt you'd do yourself a disservice and try it out. Regardless of how it goes, you still got pretty much the best bang for buck desktop DAC currently I'd say (and more than enough USB input users that wouldn't mind having it in case you end up not liking it).
 

ichonderoga

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@Zek just got mine and nothing besides the V2-sticker on the front sets it apart physically. So I would also be looking for AKM4493, MKII or V2 when searching/ordering and crossing my fingers that they send the right hardware.

smsl_10th - Kopi.PNG
 
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odyo

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Considering the unusually cheap price, I will buy a secret one of my friends for quality tracking after it is officially launched.

This dacs looks too good to be true lol. Did you bought the secret unit ? I'm curious about it.
 
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nhatlam96

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Hello, noob question here.
Coax has 109db and usb has 113db. Why does coax has 4db less than usb? Is it due to the added jitter?
Amir said that toslink is a bit better than coax, so toslink would be around 110db then?
 

Veri

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Hello, noob question here.
Coax has 109db and usb has 113db. Why does coax has 4db less than usb? Is it due to the added jitter?
Amir said that toslink is a bit better than coax, so toslink would be around 110db then?
USB implementation in this device is simply much better. Probably, the receiver for coax/jitter is a mediocre one. 109dB still isn't "bad" by any means, though.
 
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nhatlam96

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109dB still isn't "bad" by any means, though.
No, it's not^^ I just wanted to understand if the jitter decreases the thd+n value. Does the thd+n also account for multitone?
 

Veri

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No, it's not^^ I just wanted to understand if the jitter decreases the thd+n value. Does the thd+n also account for multitone?
It's likely to have a similar, small effect, yes. That 3dB drop in SINAD is less than 5% of a setback though, I'm sure it's fine.
 

hawk01

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this is great, but i'm stuck with a copy of the old version (not that i use it...)

keep in mind that the volume control on the 4493 is, afaik, lossy, so you need a preamp

@SMSL-Mandy any chance of an upgrade discount or replacement? i'd like to use the new version in my portable rig.

i was hoping to use the sanskrit dac directly connected to power amp without preamp since it has digital volume control. i read that properly designed digital volume control is better than analog which is common to preamps. is the sanskrti volume control really lossy? lossy meaning 16-bit is degraded when you reduce volume?
 
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nhatlam96

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It's likely to have a similar, small effect, yes.
jitter is timing error in digital devices. the frequency change here is so rapid, that it manifests as noise, which decreases the sinad score slightly.
 
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