This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL D1se2 stereo balanced DAC. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $720.
I like the smooth font used and the highly responsive rotary control. VMV is the high-end brand of SMSL and it shows in inclusion of a nice metal remote:
I wish SMSL would add trigger in/out and color code the RCA connectors. Otherwise, the unit is easy to use and configure.
VMV D1se2 Measurements
Let's start with our balanced output dashboard with volume set to 0 dB (goes to +2 dB):
This is excellent performance and easily lands the D1se in our top 20 best DACs measured as far as SINAD (noise+distortion):
RCA performance as usual is a bit worse but still beyond transparent:
Here is the SINAD vs position of volume control:
Noise performance is a bit worse with RCA (typical) and hence the slightly lower SINAD:
IMD performance is superb:
There is a hint of low frequency jitter which is utterly inaudible:
Multitone performance is exceptional:
Linearity is perfect:
We have the usual set of filters:
Suggest avoiding "off" and going with Fast Linear:
Conclusions
I expect state of the art performance in DACs from SMSL and hence VMV and that is what we get in D1se. Competition is starting to advance feature set with fancy display and such. Hope SMSL follows the same trend and give us something to look at while playing music!
I am happy to recommend the VMV D1se2 stereo DAC.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I like the smooth font used and the highly responsive rotary control. VMV is the high-end brand of SMSL and it shows in inclusion of a nice metal remote:
I wish SMSL would add trigger in/out and color code the RCA connectors. Otherwise, the unit is easy to use and configure.
VMV D1se2 Measurements
Let's start with our balanced output dashboard with volume set to 0 dB (goes to +2 dB):
This is excellent performance and easily lands the D1se in our top 20 best DACs measured as far as SINAD (noise+distortion):
RCA performance as usual is a bit worse but still beyond transparent:
Here is the SINAD vs position of volume control:
Noise performance is a bit worse with RCA (typical) and hence the slightly lower SINAD:
IMD performance is superb:
There is a hint of low frequency jitter which is utterly inaudible:
Multitone performance is exceptional:
Linearity is perfect:
We have the usual set of filters:
Suggest avoiding "off" and going with Fast Linear:
Conclusions
I expect state of the art performance in DACs from SMSL and hence VMV and that is what we get in D1se. Competition is starting to advance feature set with fancy display and such. Hope SMSL follows the same trend and give us something to look at while playing music!
I am happy to recommend the VMV D1se2 stereo DAC.
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/