I know that most of you are focusing on your speakers, headphones, maybe on amplifiers, cables or room acoustics. Some are swearing that low-priced digital to analog converters like SMSL SU-9N can’t get any better and that’s perfectly fine. However, I will remind you that everything happening in your stereo or headphone setup, starts with your source. A good source will never limit dynamics, stage size, detail retrieval and it will never increase the noise floor. From a dozen of digital sources I’ve tried in the last two years, the ones that had no cons were counted with three fingers on a hand and SMSL’s D2 seems to be one of them. I was not surprised hearing gobs of details brought to the surface, a vast and expansive soundstage and a punchy low-end delivery, but I was surprised having them all, while putting a higher accent on the act of music listening. Sounding squeaky clean and noiseless isn’t a challenge anymore, but sounding extremely dynamic, yet organic and full-bodied is still a big challenge, especially when it comes to chip-based converters. Their D1SE was an exemplary DAC in this area, always highlighting the leading edges and the smallest nuances like it would be a child’s play and D2 goes with the same winning formula. If you’re crazy about your music on a micro-scale, then be prepared hearing the truth alone. With D2 on my table, I’m sure that the only limiting factors would be my upstream equipment, my amplifiers and transducers in a headphone or speaker form. I can’t say a single bad word about its build quality, it is really well-made, it’s built at higher standards, it’s pretty small and cute, but at ~1.65 kilos (3.6 lbs) it feels solid and quite heavy. Its heavier case tells me that a bigger transformer is sitting in there and that thought alone makes me very excited. Thanks to its smaller case, you could easily place it in tight spaces, in a killer headphone or loudspeaker setup, you can hide it just below your TV, or on top of your gaming console or Blu-ray player – in this regard it’s versatile unit.

SMSL M400 Review — Headfonics

Mid-bass is also linear without being over-emphasized, there aren’t drops or rises in here, just a perfect rendition of it. It is something to be heard with headphones like Audeze LCD-4 and Hifiman Susvara, as it was always tactile and impactful sounding.All in all, SMSL D1SE uses only top-grade components, one of the best transformers, audio grade capacitors and a very capable DAC chipset and I expect some great things coming out of it. My ears started itching, so what are we waiting for? Let’s hit some eardrums! Without messing with you too much, I’ll tell you that D1SE is a different sounding unit to any other ES9038 PRO equipped SMSL unit I’ve tried before. It’s not about an extremely detailed and transparent presentation as it has that in spades, it’s not about being honest, noiseless and distortion free or about preserving the frequency response in full, as it’s doing that already. Finally, some emotions made an appearance in my music as if a miracle happened in front of me, voices felt fuller and weightier sounding as if a muse was singing directly into my ears. The soul of the music awakened from a deep sleep, adding textures and colors, I’ve felt a longer vibration of string-based instruments. It didn’t sound like an ESS-Sabre equipped converter at all, it was considerably more organic and alive and this isn’t an exaggeration from my part. When it comes to driving easier loads as IEMs, portable headphones, even desktop dynamic headphones, I would give an edge to the HPA4 which was simply noiseless and was providing the cleanest power unleashing their maximum potential. SP400 was very close to it, but it wasn’t as crystal clear and transparent sounding.

SMSL VMV D1SE Review - Headfonia Reviews SMSL VMV D1SE Review - Headfonia Reviews

The Achille’s Heel of all THX amplifiers has always been the soundstage size and while it was never bad or anything like that, only very few of them were great in here. For example, SMSL SP200 and Drop THX-789 weren’t that impressive when it comes to soundstage. Sure, there was some air around the notes and a decently spread stage, but those didn’t sound holographic or totally 3D. SP400 on the other hand is entirely a different animal, its quad-mono design and its close to zero channel crosstalk on the balanced output are leaving a huge mark on its sound-staging capabilities. Flux Lab Acoustics FA-10 and Burson Conductor 3 are still reigning supreme in here, but I’m putting SP400 and HP4 next in line which tells a lot how I feel about them. Its smaller brother D1SE performed good even at 15 meters away from the sender, thanks to its external Bluetooth antenna that worked as a signal booster, but its limited codec support seriously downgraded the final outcome. With D2, SMSL went much higher, arming it with every possible Bluetooth codec, including AptX-HD, AptX-LL, Sony’s LDAC and industry’s best UAT codec that can receive 24-bit 192 kHz files at speeds up to 1.2 Mbps. I don’t own a UAT enabled smartphone, mine does LDAC (0.99 Mbps) only, which was more than enough. With D1SE, aggressive music as heavy metal can be a little fatiguing after about an hour or so, while D2 sounded more organic, it put more life in those guitars, while gently smoothing out the ringing of the cymbals. What’s more interesting is that dynamics themselves were going higher on D2, easier reaching their peaks, releasing a higher engagement factor. While the family resemblance is quite big and both units have plenty of technicalities in common, D2 wanted to impress a lot more with music reproduction more than anything else. It took me and carried over my childhood memories when I was still listening to music through a cassette player. I’m not fond on using this word, but it was more musical and more organic sounding to me. Another striking difference was the bass output, D1SE felt immaculate when it comes to speed and decay, but D2 punched nicer and delivered a heftier bass output quantity wise. It was punchier and harder smalling in there, transforming regular electronica into something impactful and toe-tapping all the time. When I’m getting new toys to play with, I would pop their hoods, as good audio starts with good PCB design and with high-quality internal components. I would follow their signal path, finding some cool ideas, simplified/overkill digital or analog sections, sometimes small mistakes, but always suggesting a few things. Opening it up was a difficult task, as several ribbon cables are holding its PCB in place, so I took just a small glimpse of what’s inside. Carving two rooms inside its aluminum case, a smaller one for its power supply section and another one for its analog and digital section, already tells me that SMSL is very serious about this one.Midrange had a natural and a life-like timbre, something that is highly usual for ESS-Sabre based converters. Male and female voices carried just the right amount of weight with them. It was somewhat warmer and denser sounding in here to a point of becoming soul grabbing with some particular music. SMSL tuned it very differently this time around, tilting it towards naturalness and fullness. Its midrange performance is very reminiscent of own Matrix Element X that is far from being thin, harsh or bright sounding. This is actually one of the nicest Sabre DACs that has some meat on the bone and it certainly grabbed my attention with its midrange presence. SMSL traded some linearity with warmth and tonal density. Everything happening in this region just feels more energetic, like there is a higher dynamic range in my music that I know for a lifetime.

S.M.S.L M400 Digital to Analog Convertor (DAC) - SHENZHENAUDIO

This is basically it, a very simple and straightforward graphical user interface. Most of these settings are set and forget, with the exception of the Gain setting which will be used more often. HPA4 can sleep tightly now, as Benchmark implemented a lot more features, which I did mention in its dedicated review. This is a highly polished DAC that delivered countless hours of satisfaction, more so than many other converters tested around here and as such, it’s my pleasure awarding it with my highest, Gold Award. It was fully deserved and I wish more manufacturers would put a higher importance to component selection and on actual music listening.The knob has notches in relief which help you grip it as well as providing a bit of design variance. The knob itself is actually a digital stepped wheel, with discrete steps for volume adjustment as well as navigation through the menus of the firmware. It has a bit of weight to it that makes turning it (and therefore adjusting volume) with precision easy. Features & Specs Anyone else having problems with the supplied remote control (RC-3) not working? I was sent a replacement which doesn’t work either.