SMSL SU-1 MQA MQA-CD Audio Decoder AK4493S XU316 768kHz/32Bit DSD512 Hi-Res DAC

Update: March 13, 2024 (previously 1 star rating, now I give it 5 star rating). After several exchange of messages between Leaudio seller and myself, it was suggested that I install SMSL SU-1 driver from smsl-audio.com official website, which I did. To my surprise that fixed my DAC! Now I am finally able listen to music from my PC sent to SU-1 by USB cable, which is connected to my SMSL A300 by RCA. It seems the driver installation to my Windows 10 fixed whatever issue I was having with SU-1 DAC. As result of this, I'm updating the previous 1-star rating to 5 stars. As for the sound quality from SU-1, as stated below, it's an improvement over my SMSL A300 amplifier by 15 - 20%, but more specifically, it is the sonic clarity and separation that are the most notable. Though a minimal audio improvement over my amplifier's internal DAC, the sound clarity and instrument separation are noteworthy, and for that I give a 5-star rating. Also, through this DAC, vocals seem to be slightly more forward and clearer. March 6, 2023, initial review, I gave it 1 star rating due to the DAC's failure after 10 days of use. Bought this SMSL SU-1 DAC in November 2023, but I couldn't use it since I didn't have a pair of RCA cables to connect it to my class D SMSL A300 amplifier that I purchased from Amazon at the same time. The DAC was on Black Friday sale, so I figured to try it with my new amplifier. Fast forward to Feb 2024, I finally ordered a pair of CESS 163-4i RCA cables, connected the DAC to my amplifier. The SMSL SU-1 DAC improved the quality by about 15% over my SMSL A300 internal DAC. I used the DAC on and off for about 10 days, then today it simply failed on me. It simply fell dead silent while playing a music file from my PC (PC to USB cable to SMSL SU-1 DAC to RCA cables to SMSL A300 amplifier). I tried another RCA port in the back of my SMSL A300 amplifier, but that too didn't work. The DAC simply does not work at all. I also tried powering down my amp completely, unplug RCA cables between the DAC and the amp, then powered both up again, and toggled between various input options in the DAC to no avail (USB, coaxile, and optical just in case the internal circuit's connectivity had glitched and that toggling among input sources might reset it). The source-light LED still functions on the DAC, but I get absolutely no audio signal going into my amplifier. Heck, I even rebooted my PC just to see if that may be causing an issue, but it was futile. After 2 hours of wrestling with the connections and toggling between input sources and settings, I gave up. Now I'm back to connecting my PC directly to my SMSL A300 amplifier by USB cable, which works fine. As far as SMSL SU-1 DAC is concerned, it was a decent DAC for the price (while it worked). However, the unit I got simply failed after about 10 days of usage. I'd instantly return it for a refund, but the Jan 31 deadline return date is closed, so sadly it's not an option for me. A good-sounding, affordable DAC with a high quality DAC chip, but in my case, I must have received a lemon, so quality control seems questionable. Maybe it's just bad luck on my part, but I still wouldn't recommend this DAC to anyone. You'd be better off to spend a bit more money on a high quality DAC with its own power supply built in. Update On March 11, 2024 I emailed with photo attachments of the failed SMSL SU-1 DAC to [email protected]. According to their site, they'll honor their product warranty up to 6 months with either a repair, replacement, or refund if their product proves to be defective. Hopefully they'll reply in a timely manner with a resolution. As others may encounter a product failure after the Amazon's 30-day free return policy, I'll post further updates for reference. Update, March 11, 2024, 8 hours later, shenzhenaudio.com support staff replied my to my email, asked for the Amazon purchase invoice and order number. I forwarded them the necessary information. According to their reply, they'll forward my case to their Amazon Support Team. I hope this will be resolved asap as I'll need to either get a replacement DAC or get a refund and buy another DAC, so for now I'm stuck in a limbo with 70 bucks tied up in a failed DAC unit. For now I'm stuck to using the internal DAC of my SMSL A300 amplifier, which is quite ok, but I did like the somewhat improved audio fidelity of SMSL SU-1 DAC. Update March 12, 2024. Got a reply from Leaudio requesting detailed info on what's wrong with my SMSL SU-1 DAC. I forwarded an account of how it simply stopped working while playing music from my laptop connected to it by a USB. Also forwarded 3 photos of the DAC. Hope this matter will be dealt with either a refund, replacement, or repair soon, because at this point, the DAC is useless.

I am not typically impressed with modern audio gear. It just doesn’t seem to compare with the great sound that we get from the vintage audio gear. That said, audio chip designers are coming up with some interesting products. And audio component designers are taking advantage. I wanted to improve the audio system connected to my multimedia workstation. The systems already has a pair of vintage RCA Minimus 7 speakers and more modern Lepai LP-2020A Class T amp. These are far from audiophile quality but, for their modest price and demur size, they do a credible job. Sadly, the same can’t said for my DAC. It doesn’t sound great and has become intermittent. It was time for a replacement. I read reviews of the S.M.S.L SU-1 MQA MQA-CD Audio Decoder. Reviewers and osers described it as “amazing." Since it sells for a very reasonable $85, it was worth the gamble so I bought it. After connecting it up to my PC and audio system I tested it with a number of high def audio files. It sounded quite good. Then, just for fun, I fed a DSD file into it. I expected noise because few DACs can handle DSD files. What I got instead was a DSD decode from the device. Apparently, the designers included DSD decode into the chip that runs the S.M.S.L SU-1 MQA MQA-CD Audio Decoder. Amazing! What was more amazing was what I heard when a started listening to “Billy Jean” on the Michael Jackson “Thriller” album. It is a DSD file mixed from the original master tape. The drum beats at the beginning of the song were so sharp, so clear that it literally startled me! Hats off to the designers of this inexpensive, amazing DAC!

Nice DAC worth the money...So far I have just used this connected to my CD player for experimentation, and evaluation. I'm not really a digital aficionado, more of an analog person, but I wanted to try something new and this seemed like a safe bet....My CD player has a Wolfson WM 8718 DAC which was a pretty good chip in its day. My CD player still has a very good sound and I remember when new, how much better it made my CDs sound over the DVD player it replaced... Any way the sound of this DAC hooked up to the CD player using optical was very good, a more detailed, forward sound, treble slightly elevated. On my system this was not offensive as treble is slightly recessed to begin with. I did not notice any anomalies like sibilance or distorted bass, or digital jitter, Soundstage was present and had plenty of non-turbulent air between instruments. Bass extension also seems to be better controlled at the lowest frequencies. Overall I think its a good DAC...I haven't tried any really expensive DACs so what improvements they might add couldn't say, This DAC is slightly analytical but I did not find it offensive. I think it does everything a good DAC should do and probably punches above its price range.

06-10-2024 Update, With Amazon's help I was able to get a full refund + shipping. I'd like to say the Amazon customer service staff is excellent. I still have questionable feelings about the seller, but that's just me and it may have been a language issue? As for the SU-1 DAC I will say when it worked it was great for the money. I would have given it 5 stars, but this experience has jaded me. If you purchase a SU-1 and if it's bad or questionable send it back to Amazon before the 30 days. Don't rely on the warranty. For a little more money you could buy it from Apos Audio and get a 7-day test drive, a 45-day return, and a 2-year warranty, I think. As for me I will be purchasing a Schiit Modi+. Thank You Amazon. 06-03-2024 Update, Got the strangest message back from the seller. At this point I feal they are giving me the run around hoping I'll just drop it. I messaged them back asking questions about their message. I will get Amazon involved again if I don't get a satisfactory response. 06-01-2024 Update, the latest message I received from the seller (SHENZHENAUDIO) was questionable at best. I've contacted Amazon who will be contacting the seller on my behalf. I just want to say the Amazon customer service staff have been super helpful and wonderful. I will be updating this review till this has been resolved. 05-31-2024 Update, 23 days after receiving a message stating a replacement will be shipped in a week, NOTHING has been shipped or no messages have been received. I have asked for a full refund + my return shipping (like that would ever happen). I suggest avoiding S.M.S.L. products and purchasing products from SHENZHENAUDIO, due to their possibly fictious 1-year warranty claim. Keep in mind this is my experience to date. Lessons learned 1. if you have doubt about a product purchased from Amazon, make sure you return it within the 30 days. let them sort it out. 2. for me, an American made product from Schiit Audio or Geshelli Labs would have made more sense. And with better consumer support. 3. Take Youtubers reviews and Amazon reviews with a grain of salt. 05-19-2024 Update, received a message over a week ago that a that a replacement will he shipped and still nothing. 05-09-2024 Update, still working on the replacement. The defective unit was shipped back, and they received it. The problem is I sent all the shipping info in the return package, yet they ask for it to be sent again? Oh, and I had to contact them to keep the ball rolling. To date, $79.88 for DAC, $35 for cable to test, and $10+ to ship back. Better then hitting the trash I guess? 04-28-2024 Update, I went to the S.M.S.L. website and found a place to ask questions and was told to contact Amazon for a replacement. And after rereading the terms I found the warranty terms are only suitable for mainland China, and the last line reads " other region pleaserefer to the policy of the local sales agents and nations." So, I contacted Amazon who then got me in contact to the seller. I want to say I can't fault the seller, but we have gone back and forth a few times and I'm still without a resolution. So, I just asked for a refund. We will see what the answer is. The Value for the money would be 5 stars if my unit worked properly. I Missed my Amazon return window by 5 days. Darn! The music would drift in and out when hooked up to the optical output of my TV. At first, I thought it was my old TV, so I purchased a Type C to Coax to hook up my phone. But then the music would completely drop then come back on, so I thought maybe it's my phone. Don't get me wrong the music sounded better through the DAC than the Bluetooth from my preamp. So lastly, I hooked up the DAC to my garage system using my 300+1 CD changer as a transport via the optical and back to my receiver. That was a huge letdown. the sound quality was horrible. The bright side of all this is my garage system sounds amazing by removing the RCA cable from the CD changer to the receiver and using an optical input on the receiver. The receivers DAC sounds much cleaner than the CD changers built in DAC. Guess I'll need to contact SMSL for a replacement. would I purchase it again? Probably, I think I just got a defective unit, on the other hand, maybe it's time for a Geshelli Labs J2S. After reading the return policy from SMSL I may just chuck it in the trash before I ship it back to them.

Set-up: PC USB > S.M.S.L. SU-1 DAC > Douk Audio A5 amp > Vera-Fi Audio Vanguard Scout speakers Application: PC speakers, including Amazon Ultra music streaming The speakers run $300 a pair, when you can get them. They sound great, if a bit warm, and come beautifully finished in real cherry wood veneer. The DAC is $85, the Douk Audio A5 amp is $76. Add maybe $30 for decent RCA and banana plug speaker wires and you have a fantastic little system for a total system cost under $500. You could probably spend $150 on a pretty good pair of speakers and still have a nice sounding system for near-field listeningfor a total of around $350. The little Douk amp puts out plenty of power. It can drive the Scouts with their 84.5db efficiency rating to well over 90 dB at 3 - 4 feet The combination of the Douk Audio A5 and the S.M.S.L. SU-1 produces a clean, punchy sound. Some have reported that the A5 leans toward analytical, which is a perfect complement to the fairly warm Scouts. The result is sound that is rich, yet detailed with great sonic imaging with nice instrument separation and a very wide sound stage. You won't mistake this rig for a $5,000 system, but your banker and your spouse will be much happier with this setup. Or maybe you already have a $5,000 system in your den and need a small system for your home office. Either way, this setup deserves consideration. Your results will, of course, depend on the source material. So far I have auditioned The Eagles Hotel California album ,The Doors LA Woman, and Paul Simon's Graceland. All are beautifully produced and engineered albums and all sounded lively and clean, but not overly analytical. Full Disclosure: I have hearing loss that rolls off quickly starting around 5kHz so there may be sibilance and other artifacts I can't detect. As always, YMMV. But frankly this Douk/SMSL/Scout setup is, to my ears at least, the bargain of the century.

Short version If you are in the market for a high end DAC with clean, rich, spatially balanced sound, and thought you had to spend enough to buy a used car, look seriously at this unit. Long version I wanted a high quality DAC to bring lossless source to an older but very high quality sound system. I did not want to spend over $2K on another DAC, as i had to many years ago. So researching various options in the $200-600 range, i stumbled across this little beauty. All i want is a DAC, no silly controls to "adjust" the sound, no amp, not multiple channels, and most definitely no Bluetooth (who needs more EMF radiation in their home ?) So i read the reviews, and decided to try it, if it was not up to the job, then it would go back. The specs seemed too good to be true for the price, but let's see anyway. Open the box, take it out, plug it in, set the USB interface to the clock speed of choice and let it rip. Wow ! very impressive. Sound is rich, spatial positioning is incredible, at points i can actually hear the piano keys being pressed spatially at different points across the keyboard. You can hear the string of a bass voile linger after the note, you can hear the damper touching the piano strings, this is 95-98% as good as my older and far too expensive DAC i have. Overall sound balance it excellent. I ran jazz, orchestral, chamber, solo instrumental, and solo vocal source material through it, all come out just the way they should and completely as well as my expensive DAC, you could swear you were in the studio during the recordings. For me this is everything i wanted in a DAC, simple to use, easy setup, incredible full rich sound, no widgets and dongles i don't need, no need for external power, no extra systems to go wrong. For others who want to fiddle with the sound, or play with widgets this will not be so fulfilling. This unit is small, has one tiny white LED to show the current source, so it fits right into a low key equipment environment. If you like your sound system to have lots of lights and cascading displays, this will disappoint, if you like clean simple interfaces, where the only important thing is the actual sound, you should find this DAC completely satisfying. Oh and other reviewers are right, let it run for some hours, and it will get richer.

Why pay more for a high performance DAC? Independent reviews and measurements of this unit reveal its fantastic performance and value. It's noise level is so low it's imperceptible, and connecting it into a system is a breeze. It supports optical, coaxial, and USB inputs, providing great flexibility of use. I purchased this unit to decode MQA-CDs (although not necessarily an avid supporter of MQA), finding its performance with that media a sonic revelation. Listening to Rickie Lee Jones MQA-CD UHQCD debut album sounded like I was in the control room of the studio when it was recorded. It also had great performance when listening to conventional CDs. In addition to the unit itself, three additional items are required; an input cable (depending on source type), an output cable (an RCA-type audio cable), and a USB power source (cable included). I used the unit with an external CD transport, acquiring a digital RCA cable (a different impedance than similar looking audio cables) from Amazon to connect the transport's output to the DAC's Coaxial input. I used an existing audio cable to connect the unit's output to my preamp, and a cell phone charger to power the unit (not required if using USB as an input source).

I have a nice NAD CD player that back in the day cost $$$ that is getting ready to give up the ghost. I've had it for a long time. Unfortunately, I don't have the money to pony up for something of similar quality at this time. So I picked this up as a stopgap measure in case my old player does croak in the near future. I paired it with a $40 DVD/CD player (of course bypassing its terrible internal DAC) and compared it to the NAD. It did surprisingly well. In a nutshell, unless you are a serious audiophile, you will be more than happy with the performance of this unit. And even if you are, for a secondary system or again as a stopgap measure until you can get something better, for the money this unit definitely will not disappoint. Great sound quality. Just not quite up to snuff with top tier sounding stuff. Absolutely amazing though for under $100. Only real disappointment was my first unit was a dud and actually looked damaged and scratched. Returned it and ortunately this one seems fine.

Dac seems to built well. It feels like a quality item in hand. The recent reviews on Amazon are spectacular. For me it didn’t work. No sound. When I tried to download the drivers for my device listed on the SMSL page they would not install? There is no customer service no. Thank goodness for amazons easy return policy. As a footnote when adding a third party dac into an existing audio environment a lot can go wrong. From wiring to software conflicts and so forth. When searching online for other buyers with similar problems I found very few posts as SMSLs products seem to work pretty well out of the box.

Trochę nie wierzyłem, że tak tanie urządzenie może coś poprawić. U mnie jakość dźwięku z podstawowego streamera (TagaHarmony) zdecydowanie się poprawiła - dzięki głębszym basom i większej selektywności.

Très bon. Bons timbres, très dynamique et clair. Bonne profondeur de scène sonore. Il a remplacé un Topping E30 et est nettement meilleur. L'avantage est qu'il n'y a pas de filtres, ni de suréchantillonnage avec une lecture CD. Comme on dit en anglais, "Less is More". Il a de bonnes basses, bien tenues, mais pas extra profondes. Il manque un peu de medium. J'ai essayé ensuite le D6s qui avait un son dur dans les aigues et artificiel sur mon installation. Donc, je garde le SU-1, qui est imbattable en rapport qualité prix. Il faut lui associer une bonne alimentation linéaire et de bons câbles pour en tirer le maximum. La puce AK produit des sons très naturels. Je n'ai pas du tout aimé le son de la puce ESS sur le D6s.

今までは、ノートパソコンからREIYINのDAC、中華アンプ、小型ブックシェルフスピーカーと繋いでいたのてすがもっと音が良くなるかなぁーと思いこちらを購入しました。音だししたらイキナリの爆音！かなり出力が高いです。今までのDACは、ボリュームが付いて出力が調整出来ましたがこれは、入って来る音そのままに出てきます。アンプのボリューム絞りました。間にヘッドホンアンプ入れる場合も気をつけてください。後、パソコンでビットレートは、32bit.384kに設定しました。さすがに4000円のDACよりかなりや良い音です。特に音の分離感が素晴らしい。回路に余計な物を付与していないので尚更です。尚、SMSLのDACは、もう少し高いのも使っているんだが出だしの音は、少しシャリツキますが鳴らし込みでスッキリ澄んだ音になっていきます。ボディーもコンパクトで場所も取りません。欠点は、小さいので固いケーブルを使うとボディーが浮いてしまうことかな。

Bought this is on review recommendations. Just had an 1990s DAT player refurbished, brought back from the dead after it had spent thirty years in the garage, now it plays perfectly but it had a somewhat compressed sound. This DAC has one of the very latest/best chip sets usually found in units at ten times the price, the DAC in the DAT is thirty years old so could benefit from the latest tech to give it a boost. Some people think all DACs are the same but they are clearly not, a listening test shows this very clearly, just as all headphones don’t sound alike. I have six DACs, some are good, some are not so good and it does not always relate to cost. A have a Fosi which is ok as a headphone DAC and pre amp which is ok, warm sounding but lacking clarity, a Beyerdynamic slightly better but not enough for the additional cost, a Chord Mojo which is very good used between an ipad and twin rca cables to an amp, a Prozor for 5.1 sound from a modern tv to ancient analogue cinema amp which was very cheap but sounds great and now this which sounds brilliant, better than the Chord but at about a fifth of the price. A good DAC puts air and soundstage into the music, separates the instruments and gives clarity to bass and treble. This one has opened up the sound of this DAT player, giving a clearer sound, very pleased with the result for such a low cost item. Also as the DAT is optical cable and the CD player, also from the 90s, is coaxial digital, this unit can take both items and you can switch between them using the button on the front.