Joined in 2023 
82 
63 About this deal
Sub-bass is exemplary and impressive from even from the first notes. It easily reaches 20 Hz notes and can sustain even longer bass notes with ease. If you love clean undistorted bass, with layers and sub-layers of it, SP400 will easily show them to you. It is linear in here, but powerful and hard slamming when called for. It reminds me a lot about my own HPA4 with the exception that SP400 is even more powerful and full-bodied in here. Compared to their former flagship DAC chip (AK4497), the newest silicon doubled its pin numbers, die-size increased substantially and it’s their first silicon that outputs current instead of voltage. Since this is a quad-channel DAC, a single piece is enough to create a fully balanced signal, but a precise I/V (current to voltage) conversion stage needs to be built around it. For that SMSL used several OPA op-amps that are known to be on the warmer and smoother side of neutral. Its analog output stage was built around two OPA1612 dual op-amps, suggesting that D2 is indeed a true-balanced design.
SMSL m500 MQA DAC How to upgrade the firmware on your SMSL m500 MQA DAC
SMSL M400 has a familiar sound signature, very similar to the one I observed in the brand’s much more affordable model Sanskrit 10th MKII, but make no mistake this is a higher class product that simply sounds bigger, bolder, and better. While it is still not as precise as HPA4 is when it comes to ultimate transparency and detail retrieval, it still has double the power and that was immediately felt with headphones like Audeze LCD-4 and Hifiman Susvara. I knew that HPA4 was controlling well the drivers of some of the best headphones there is, but SP400 did that so gracefully and so easily, like it was nothing for it. HPA4 is no slouch and it is still one of the best I have ever heard, but with some particular headphones, SP400 worked better at less than ~4.75 times the price of HPA4, impressive! Isn’t it? Is it hugely different from listening to the great Soncoz LA-QXD1 DAC or another top-tier measuring 9038-based DAC? Of course not. The SU-9 simply shares too much of the same pedigree to be anything but reasonably similar. The SU-9 (bottom) compared to the Soncoz LA-QXD1 DAC (top). Az S.M.S.L. átfogó értékesítési hálózatot hozott létre, ami 33 nagyvárosra terjed ki; stratégiai partnerséget alakítottak ki Japánnal, Nagy-Britanniával, Németországgal, Portugáliával, Szingapúrral és más országokkal, termékeiket világszerte több mint 30 országba exportálják, és immáron Magyarországra is, a Muzix Group jóvoltából. Like the SMSL SP200 amplifier, the internal ultra-low noise power supply is located within the case, rather than utilizing a wall-wart type power adapter. The SU-9’s power supply. BluetoothLest you think I’m exaggerating the sheer number of menu options, the SU-9 allows users to toggle between seven PCM filters, four DSD filter cutoffs, ten sound colors, fifteen DPLL bandwidth settings, and the list goes on. Multiply that all together to see how many unique combinations you can come up with. D2 is coming with a full-blown MQA decoder that will unfold and decode MQA files natively, but there is a catch – it will work only via USB input. Forget about MQA via Optical, Coaxial or I2S. Even external DDC converters can’t help you with that. Gain: Low (best setting for IEMs or sensitive headphones), Mid or High (for your power-hungry headphones) Instead, I’ll write about one of the most interesting delta-sigma modulation converters that passed through my hands in 2021. It sounded in such a way, that I’ve completely changed my preconceptions about this particular brand. Everybody knows Shuang Mu San Lin Technology by now or SMSL for short. I’ve covered most of their gear, starting with affordable and finishing with top-end units. Just months ago, I’ve learned that there is a sister company under their umbrella, calling themselves VMV Technology that releases only top of the crop that SMSL has to offer. One of their most valuable deeds was releasing a DAC that forced a new spin of competition among industry members.
S.M.S.L M400 Digital to Analog Convertor (DAC) - SHENZHENAUDIO
This applies for most countries. However, large items such as headphones and desktop DAC/AMPs (e.g. HarmonicDyne G200, MUSICIAN MDP-2, and etc.) are excluded. So now I’m scratching my head trying to figure out if the DAC’s processing of the bluetooth signal may be the culprit? In looking at the DAC again for the first time in ages (outside of turning it on and off, I have not touched it ) I realized there are some (way too many for me) filter/other settings, I’m wondering if there is a setting I might adjust to resolve this issue. 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 isn’t overly large, but at 3 kilos (6.6 lbs) it feels solid and quite heavy. Its heavier case tells me that big transformers are sitting in there and that thought alone makes me quite excited. Thanks to its slim profile case, you could place it in tight spaces, in a killer headphone or loudspeaker setup, you can hide it just below your TV, gaming console or Blu-ray player. A big portion of its face plate is surrounded by a sheet of tempered glass, under it they hid its infrared sensor and of course that beautiful LCD screen. To its right there are two buttons that lets you choose 6 digital inputs and the one below it lets you choose your desired output. Its volume knob doesn’t wobble, it offers a decent physical resistance and it doubles as a menu navigator. It’s easy to use and you can access all its features from there or better yet – you can use its metallic remote from afar.
IEMs: FiiO FH9, FH7, FD7, FA9, Meze Rai Penta, LittleDot Cu KIS, Hiby Crystal 6, 7Hz Timeless & others
SMSL SP400 Review — Headfonics SMSL SP400 Review — Headfonics
This is a topic were all THX amplifiers excelled at and SP400 is really no different, with one big exception: it is even cleaner sounding than most of them, save for the HPA4 that still sits on an iron throne, reigning supreme. This is really the easier chapter to write about as there aren’t more transparent and more detailed headphone amplifiers than this. If you have any experience with THX or NFCA amplifiers, then this is basically the same. It has an output impedance close to zero so that damping factor wouldn’t be affected at all and at only 1.9 micro volts of noise, it should pair nicely even with ultra-sensitive IEMs. Most THX AAA amplifiers have their noise floor undetected at any volume level, but will see how SP400 performs with ultra-sensitive loads very soon. I have made a good comparison to all of them before I made a modification to my SMSL SU6, and M400. SP400 has a close to zero impedance, meaning that its higher power would be delivered instantly to your headphones, its damping factor is fully preserved with low and high impedance headphones and nothing would be stopping those drivers from achieving their maximum potential.
TL;DR: recap
D2 is a true balanced DAC that offers a lower channel crosstalk via XLR outputs and when I’m switching to a headphone setup, the left to right soundstage is increasing in size, simply because both channels aren’t interfering with each other as much as they are doing via RCA. That is a non-issue in a stereo setup for obvious reasons, but with headphones you don’t want the sound from one channel leaking to the other and that is precisely why XLR outputs are sounding wider in a headphone setup. I want to outline that D2 will not increase or decrease the stage size of your recordings, if they were meant to sound big, they will sound that way and vice versa.
Great Deal 
New Comment