Doesnt look special at all. For this money why anyone gonna buy it instead of Spring 3?
I have bought one.... Have had for a week
Quick impression?
After a week of 24/7 " break in" , I d say its a VERY refined and musical sounding unit. It is very naturally "organic" and nuanced sounding (I know its a widely used and abused term, but its term that comes to mind, if you know what actual live classical music sounds like), but does not imbue music with artificial sense of caramel sweetness and "smoothness" that I could not stand with ALL the dacs (regardless of price) that I ve tried that use AKM 4499 chips.... Worth its asking price in my opinion, if you have "high" end ancillary gear. I use mine in a very revealing high end speaker based system. Will wait for about 500 hour mark of break in, to form an definitive opinon, as the high end SMSL dacs tend to take awhile to sound their best.
Use of opamps is typical for SMSL, but it is not the best for high frequency ladder switching products. For all above reason it will have hint of a vintage sound (smoothed, losing low level details during fast transients).
I do not have any dsd music, sorry
I play only PCM format files, so for me the DSD & MQA , etc. features are moot....Also, in my experience the BOM more often than not has little to do with a particular unit's sonic performance. I think the SMSL with its very short signal path, and its construction design is probably at least competitive with any other 1704 & R2R based designs, price notwithstanding.SMSL looks visually attractive, there is a separate parcel for power supply, but it is not NOS DAC. A commercial oversampling filter is used, I think FPGA based (as used by competitors) is better. There is no DSD support in PCM1704, DSD has to be converted to PCM. Commercial page do not mention this fact, it is better better to hide things.
A price shows how much you are being taxed. A similar product from Audio GD has 8 PCM1704UK chips a highest grade (each one cost on the market $150), other BOM cost is also doubled, and a price is lower than SMSL.
Construction is actually not bad, but what you do you mean by a short signal path, I wonder?
Look at the D3 inside construction, and then at that GD unit for which you ve provided a link ... The GD looks like just an aggregation of lots of parts (in the dac designs the quantity of parts is not necessarily make unit sound great) and warns users its units can not stay turned on for a long, because of the overheating danger. I d say some "engineering" on the GD's part . The GD's page also talks about firmware updates, issues, etc, which to me suggests a design just to impress, and not carefully engineered & tested. The SMSL D3 on the other hand , as far as I know took quite some time to design and implement.
Are firmware upgrades bad? Where did you get such idea? Something I cannot argue, really. .LOL.
I'm not that competent to argue the fine points whether op amps in the signal path in one specific design is inferior, or superior to the discreet components design you ve mentioned with whatever features. As I ve stated , IMHO the design of the GD dac you ve brought up is not very well executed (some would say crappy), when it is in danger of overheating after few hours of being turned on, is in need of frequent firmware updates, which means they don't have competent software engineers, and I think the design of the D3 is to be a refined one, as it plays on forever and has very stable firmware. I can comment on the dac's sound I ve just bought myself, and comment on its sonics compared to other dacs I ve personally have had first hand experience. If I ever get to purchase the GD dac myself I will comment on its sonics as well. Should the GD sound be superior to the D3 I ll state that
So, again, according to your opinion, firmware upgrades are bad. It is why D3 has no firmware upgrade port, for a supermarket grade product like SMSL is dangerous, consumer has to unscrew the enclosure and manipulate inside to do firmware upgrade.
I' have never said firmware updates are 'bad", I ve said frequent firmware updates are signs of lack of proper software development and design, and by the way most Chinese digital companies have very few, if any, software engineers on their staff , as a competent digital software engineer commands very high salary if you ask around, even in China.So, again, according to your opinion, firmware upgrades are bad. It is why D3 has no firmware upgrade port, for a supermarket grade product like SMSL is dangerous, consumer has to unscrew the enclosure and manipulate inside to do firmware upgrade.
BTW, which model is overheating according to your knowledge? Certainly not this one I linked above.
