S.M.S.L. SU-1 experience?

May 26, 2025 at 4:39 AM Thread Starter Post #1 of 3

FritzS

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I recently bought a
S.M.S.L. SU-1 MQA MQA-CD Audio Decoder AK4493S XU316 768kHz/32Bit DSD512 Hi-Res DAC
Sale by SHENZHENAUDIO DE STORE
https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/detail/id/889.html

Plays well (a bargain at this price), not distinguishable from my older Corda Daccord ff https://www.meier-audio.de/daccord.html aurally with any certainty.

The Corda Daccord ff has its own power supply unit and uses pulse transformers at the digital inputs for galvanic isolation.
With the SU-1, a box with USB isolation (impulse transformer) and its own power supply from the SU-1 would be interesting for me.

M1 Mac-Mini Sequioa 15.4, player Audirvana Studio, headphone amplifier Austrian.Audio Composer, headphones please see my signature
Music on hard disc, mostly FLAC; formats CD, HighRes, MQA, DSD

The SU-1 is a test purchase to sound out the performance of S.M.S.L. devices.

What your experience?
 
May 26, 2025 at 12:03 PM Post #2 of 3
Audiosciencereview did complete measurements and it really performs well. I got two a while ago and it performed similar to many other DACs costing a lot more. Ken Sheriff did measurements on the Samsung ETA0U60JBE charger, and it scored as well as the Apple charger as a power supply. I put one of them on it using optical to connect it, and liked the sound better than USB power from the desktop computer. A cheap used Insignia USB optical cable worked just as well, those provide power and data (unlike the older Corning cables that were just data).
 
May 26, 2025 at 1:14 PM Post #3 of 3
I connected a Belkin USB2 hub with its own power supply between the Mac and the DAC.
I also tried it directly on USB 2 and USB 3 ports on the Mac and it also worked perfectly. But I prefer that the DAC is not supplied with power from the Mac.

It's a pity that new Macs no longer have a TOSLINK connection!
 
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