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SMSL M500 MKIII DAC & Amp Review

Rate this DAC & HP Amp

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 6 2.1%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 5 1.8%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 52 18.5%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 218 77.6%

  • Total voters
    281

doug2761

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I like the narrow form factor that doesn't take up much width space on a shelf by exploiting the depth instead. You can place it next to another component like an audio computer, streamer or optical disc player on the same shelf.
I have an SMSL M300 MKII in blue. I think it's a very cute form factor sitting net to my Hypex NC252 and raspi streamer in my second system. Amazing that a state of the art hifi system fits on a small shelf. Active speakers will make even that go away in time.
 

srkbear

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People are still buying the DAVE because it continues to be listed on Stereophile's list of Top DACs - Unbelievable that a 6 year old DAC is still considered state of the art by some. It's as if time stood still and things can't get better for $7K
$14,000!
 

Caliban

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Last edited:

srkbear

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Stereophile and The Absolute Sound are in need of a major wake-up, shake-up. After many years of subscription to both, I have not renewed them as they did not offer useful advice and hardly ever they dare to publish negative reviews.
Stereophile has been an audio woo outfit for years—maybe they were authoritative in the 70’s analog era, but in the digital age they seem determined to continue using analog terms to describe ones and zeros.

That’s why I’m here at this forum—the corporate/advertising-funded rags are responsible for the ongoing dominance of brands that invoke mythical claims to shill products at unfathomable prices. Stereophile in particular seems to perpetuate classist dogma that the “boutique” gear with five figure price tags are synonymous with some rarified zenith of sound.

One would think that one of the advantages of digital technology would be to achieve higher and higher quality at ever more accessible price points—but if Stereophile acknowledged that they’d lose their cache as a reference for luxury scale products. There are vanishingly few sources of information such as ASR that champion performance over prestige.

I think back to my high school days in the eighties and consider how thrilled I would have been to have access to this extraordinary little SMSL product—I could have afforded it back then, and I would have worshiped it. I wish more kids knew about their options these days.
 

srkbear

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who are you to decide if MQA should be boycotted or not
MQA is a dicey topic on this forum. It gained dominance by presenting itself as a solution to a problem that never existed—by the time we were able to stream hi-res files that required such wide bandwidth, access to the storage media required had already become widely accessible to both streaming sources and end users, and the availability of high speed internet and cellular had also become democratized.

I don’t want to rehash it on this review forum, but a lossy format that purports to sound “better” than its lossless equivalents, particularly one that comes at a hefty price tag to both manufacturers and consumers, is fairly antithetical to the group consciousness on here. I still prefer gear that has MQA capability, only because Tidal has a large catalog of some of the highest quality masters of albums I love, some of which are proprietary.

But I’m not at all happy about the stronghold tactics MQA has managed to infiltrate into all aspects of the consumer audio supply chain, nor am I pleased at the surcharges I must pay as a result.

And by the way, Stereophile’s leading guru was one of the earliest champions of this technology, calling it a revolution in audio science and helping convert countless others into adopting its alleged assets. Make of that what you will…
 

mediocrebutarrogant

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MQA is a dicey topic on this forum. It gained dominance by presenting itself as a solution to a problem that never existed—by the time we were able to stream hi-res files that required such wide bandwidth, access to the storage media required had already become widely accessible to both streaming sources and end users, and the availability of high speed internet and cellular had also become democratized.

I don’t want to rehash it on this review forum, but a lossy format that purports to sound “better” than its lossless equivalents, particularly one that comes at a hefty price tag to both manufacturers and consumers, is fairly antithetical to the group consciousness on here. I still prefer gear that has MQA capability, only because Tidal has a large catalog of some of the highest quality masters of albums I love, some of which are proprietary.

But I’m not at all happy about the stronghold tactics MQA has managed to infiltrate into all aspects of the consumer audio supply chain, nor am I pleased at the surcharges I must pay as a result.

And by the way, Stereophile’s leading guru was one of the earliest champions of this technology, calling it a revolution in audio science and helping convert countless others into adopting its alleged assets. Make of that what you will…
Well it just sounds better to me , whatever vodoo it is, and I don’t need to subscribe to any collective consciousness, everything sounds better on tidal with Roon even more so
 

mediocrebutarrogant

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Are not forum fellows allowed to express their opinions ?
And are not other members allowed to disagree? This is an influential forum , and if boycott MQA opinion goes unchallenged, those that love MQA may get the short end without any fault
 

alekksander

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customizable display and i'm getting one.
 

Caliban

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And are not other members allowed to disagree? This is an influential forum , and if boycott MQA opinion goes unchallenged, those that love MQA may get the short end without any f
What is to love about MQA ?
As the web gets faster, the need for lossy formats is reduced.
I myself has moved from Tidal to Qobuz. I would never pay extra licence for an MQA DAC.
Do you remember Sony ATRAC, who remembers that today, it is a little the same.
But I agree with you - an explanation would be in place to why do I not like MQA (did I spell that correct..?)
 
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xnor

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who are you to decide if MQA should be boycotted or not
That's a valid question if genuine.

I'm a consumer that does not want to see yet another proprietary, lossy codec baked into hardware in more and more products.
Buying MQA products supports this damaging agenda (damaging to consumers, manufacturers and content owners and rights holders) and will lead to more and more products including the MQA licensing fee, reducing choice and when followed to its logical conclusion forcing it on every consumer. That's Meridian's wet dream anyway, to "control and extract revenue from every part of the supply chain, and not just over content that they hold the rights for."

Boycotting is the only rational choice .. which a lot of consumers sadly are not. Especially nowadays given the widespread availability of open and actually lossless codecs.


Well it just sounds better to me , whatever vodoo it is, and I don’t need to subscribe to any collective consciousness, everything sounds better on tidal with Roon even more so
Some people also prefer mp3s, so what?
 
Last edited:

Garrincha

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Well it just sounds better to me , whatever vodoo it is, and I don’t need to subscribe to any collective consciousness, everything sounds better on tidal with Roon even more so
What do you want to say, MQA sounds better to you than what, red book CD, High-Res, or 320kbit/s mp3/AAC?
 
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wfujay

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Another outstanding DAC/Amp from SMSL. Thanks for the review Amir. It's crazy how Amir's top 20 DAC list now classifies the contenders by differences measured in tenths of dBs and starting at 120 dBs. I like the narrow form factor that doesn't take up much width space on a shelf by exploiting the depth instead. You can place it next to another component like an audio computer, streamer or optical disc player on the same shelf.
Did he post an actual top 20 list somewhere?
 

Jimbob54

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Pretty sure every angle of the MQA debate has been thoroughly explored elsewhere on this very site at least 50 times so not sure why it is coming up again.

SMSL burned their bridges with me on the M500 V1 "dodgy HD if you dared play stereo" issue. This V3 seems to be flogging an old design to death and other than the superfluous 4.4mm output (buy the v2 and get a 4.4 to 6.35mm adaptor and save money) and the display improvements it seems pretty much nothing more than a reason to get reviewers to talk about their AiO offer again.

That said, I have never heard any talk of an SMSL amp frying headphones after you had the temerity to drag your ass off the sofa and touch it. So there's that.
 

PeteL

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MQA is a dicey topic on this forum. It gained dominance by presenting itself as a solution to a problem that never existed—by the time we were able to stream hi-res files that required such wide bandwidth, access to the storage media required had already become widely accessible to both streaming sources and end users, and the availability of high speed internet and cellular had also become democratized.

I don’t want to rehash it on this review forum, but a lossy format that purports to sound “better” than its lossless equivalents, particularly one that comes at a hefty price tag to both manufacturers and consumers, is fairly antithetical to the group consciousness on here. I still prefer gear that has MQA capability, only because Tidal has a large catalog of some of the highest quality masters of albums I love, some of which are proprietary.

But I’m not at all happy about the stronghold tactics MQA has managed to infiltrate into all aspects of the consumer audio supply chain, nor am I pleased at the surcharges I must pay as a result.

And by the way, Stereophile’s leading guru was one of the earliest champions of this technology, calling it a revolution in audio science and helping convert countless others into adopting its alleged assets. Make of that what you will…
Not going to take position on MQA but as of today there is no streaming services that offers high res in Canada, and I would assume that it's the same in many other countries. Not saying that MQA is better than Redbook 44/16 but saying that if you want High res streaming, you need Qobuz, if Qobuz is unavailable, CD quality or MQA it is. It could certainly be argued that 44/16 is all you need and I will not debate this. But In the end, Tidal is all we got here (unless I'm missing something) and yes, well that may not be because of the tech itself but in the end there are plenty of superbly sounding MQAs, I don't know why I should boycott my pleasure.
 

Jimbob54

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Not going to take position on MQA but as of today there is no streaming services that offers high res in Canada, and I would assume that it's the same in many other countries. Not saying that MQA is better than Redbook 44/16 but saying that if you want High res streaming, you need Qobuz, if Qobuz is unavailable, CD quality or MQA it is. It could certainly be argued that 44/16 is all you need and I will not debate this. But In the end, Tidal is all we got here (unless I'm missing something) and yes, well that may not be because of the tech itself but in the end there are plenty of superbly sounding MQAs, I don't know why I should boycott my pleasure.
What about Amazon (Im not saying its a great user experience , but it is Hi-res. ) ?

Now actually getting all those many res' to your DAC is a challenge , for sure, but Chromecast and the Wiim mini seem to have cracked it.
 
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