SMSL DA-9 - surprise, surprise?

[Sansiiro]

Ever so often we need to change something in our audio system. I personally don’t enjoy shuffling with cables and sockets, shifting stuff around. But I did it.

Since I had a pair of extra speakers, old and cheap ones, I felt the irrational need to hook them up to something. So I was searching for a cheap integrated amp, something that would not immediately make ears bleed. After not long research I fancied the SMSL DA9 (50W into 8), for 240. euros on the Amazon. It arrived, I hooked it up. The ears did not bleed. Used it with them old-cheap speakers and a little chromecast dongle. It was quite fun, though it clipped quite a bit.

Then I felt a weird obligation, as an audiophile I call myself, to also try it in the main system. I almost disgarded the idea but did so nonetheless. I hooked it up to my ifi zen stream, denafrips Ares II and Bowers & Wilkins 603, replacing the 2 XTZ Edge A2-300 monoblocks and a Topping pre90 preamp, which cost me altogether over 1 600 euros, plus cables.

So there I was, listening. And as time went on it became more and more obvious to me, that I am in fact going to clear out the old system from my rack. It was surprising and a strange experience, although somewhat positive, yet bittersweet to have my previous supposedly superior system to be outplayed like that.

So now I have been listening to it for about 6 days. One thing is true, and easy to spot even for a beginner - the detail retrievement is superior, there just is no question about it. I hear a LOT more with that cheap little integrated, sporting balanced inputs (and also a bluetooth antenna).
Also, at some instances, I felt like “oh!, that was kind of brief and uneventful?!, almost like something went missing”. I realize - it is the distortion that is missing, some notes are just so clean now, they seem to have shrunk.

Now I got to thinking. There must be something I am missing. Things like that just CAN NOT happen. You can not get something for nothing and you always get what you pay for. Yes there is this clipping thing. Although in the settings I chose “soft clipping” and that fixed it for the most part, at some songs, at louder levels, it does clip. Though I don’t usually listen above 75 db, and there also is a subwoofer output present, which I believe can help out a lot.

But is there nothing more to complain? Perhaps I am unable to hear the REAL VALUE of my “previous” system? What about tonality? What about the dynamics and soundstage?

Of tone, I had never been fully satisfied with how the XTZ-s sounded. They sound stern, they sound dry, although with a lot of authority. Listening to them often seemed lonely and academic to me. They are not very fun, as I see it, they lack something (life?) in the mid-range.
SMSL straight out of the box sounded friendly and full-bodied. Hence the immediate excitement. Perhaps it loses on the bass category, since it has been clipping I feel uncomfortable listening loud bass.

So for further comparisons, I hooked up one XTZ amp again, straight into DAC (XTZ has a little attenuation knob at the back) (I really don’t like to shuffle), and sharpened my ears.
What I found was, it definitely has more power (150W into 8), I can crank it up way louder, without the fear it sounding brittle or shouty, not to mention clipping. And that is only with one XTZ block. And the way I see it, if you have that kind of power-advantage, you kind-of have more dynamics and wider soundstage ANYHOW. And also - at them volumes, you probably will have a noisier background, which I also noticed right away.

So my questions kind of got answered. SMSL clearly wins on the detail and clearness and I will give tonality also to “it”, but what’s the problem, it can not do it with no authority and scale. Compared to XTZ+XTZ+Topping combo.

What I am interested now, is to get that Infineon class d chip (that SMSL uses) and to get some more power along with it. As of now, I think I will use ths SMSL with my bookshelf speakers.

Thank you for reading. I am not claiming to educate nobody, I like to share my findings.

Veiko

[Puffin]

Interesting reading. I have put together a lot of Class D amps over the years and they never cease to make me smile for the small outlay. I have also made Class A and other chip amps. I have recently built a Pass Labs Class A and today I was putting it into a proper case with proper heat sinks. As I could not listen to it I put in a Class D I put together a couple of years ago and although it was different, it was no less capable. Do you listen at insane levels?

[Sansiiro]

I don't listen at extreme levels, but my listening room is quite big, about 62m2, so sometimes yes, I will
add more volume.
I like to feel that the amp is capable enough, and it is not playing at its limit.
That would make me worry and ruin the experience.

As of now I am not 100% sure what amp to use where, as I have 3 systems and listening places now.

Also because I ran into an issue, as I moved the DA9 upstairs and tried to connect two RCA
sources to it. DA9 only has 1 RCA input, other one is XLR. So I had earlier bought these adapters,
that make male RCA into male XLR. But the result is very loud and ugly hum, and very very weak signal.

Could this mean that since the particular XLR is for balanced input, adapting unbalanced RCA to it will
not work? And result in a chaos like this?

I bet building amplifiers is inspirational.

Veiko