Gain: Low (best setting for IEMs or sensitive headphones), Mid or High (for your power-hungry headphones)

SMSL m500 MQA DAC How to upgrade the firmware on your SMSL m500 MQA DAC

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 & SpecsBoth of the devices have the same flagship DAC of the ESS Technology. They both have detailed, clean, and resolving signatures, however, A/B’ing them side by side showed me that the SU-9 is a tad more analytical compared to the D1SE. The D1SE’s presentation feels effortless compared to the SU-9 and its micro-detail retrieval is superior. Also, the tonality of the D1SE is more organic and natural compared to the SU-9. The D1SE also has the upper hand when it comes to positioning and layering. SMSL VMV D1SE vs. GUSTARD X16 There’s a Bluetooth receiver on board that supports the nicest Bluetooth codecs available right now as SBC, AAC, AptX, AptX-HD, AptX-LL, LDAC and UAT. Its antenna works as a wireless signal booster and its operating distance should be around ~10 to 15 meters, depending on how many walls are in between the sender and receiver (D2). 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. IEMs: FiiO FH9, FH7, FD7, FA9, Meze Rai Penta, LittleDot Cu KIS, Hiby Crystal 6, 7Hz Timeless & others

SMSL M400 High-Fidelity MQA Bluetooth Distortion-Free Audio

While feeding a stronger signal of 84 dB into a 300 Hz sine wave into both amplifiers I am getting these results on high gain: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. If you are interested in driving headphones only and you own a single DAC, get the SP400 and move to the conclusions. If you want to drive headphones, but you also need a decent preamplifier for your loudspeaker setup: get the SP400 and move to the conclusion. If you have multiple audio sources (DACs, CD players, Turntables) and you need the most precise and uncolored headphone amplifier and preamplifier section then you should proceed with this comparison. People that are really interested in HPA4 would probably use it in a speaker setup too, as it’s still the best preamplifier bar none I’ve tried and don’t forget that it has 4 analog inputs! Two single ended and two balanced inputs. It’s so easy comparing two or even four DACs with HPA4. Via its graphical user interface, I can volume match each analog input so that I would have the same sound pressure level with 4 different DACs. All my DAC comparisons were done via HPA4, it is not only a headphone amp, but much more than that, hence the huge price difference.