SMSL M7 2xAK4452 32Bit/768KHz DSD512 Hifi Audio USB DAC with Headphone Amplifier

My main system is old school Audiolab kit comprising of pre and mono power amps, cd player and m-dac feeding B&W Nautilus 804 speakers so I think I have a reasonable idea (at least subjectively) of what good recorded music reproduction sounds like. The S.M.S.L M7 is quite simply a game changer not only because of it's low price but the M7's resolution, detail retrieval and highly musical presentation which is nothing short of staggering (to my ears anyway).Don't believe the sneering 'Chifi' detractors trolling the online forums and those writing unfairly negative reviews here on Amazon - this is a fantastic piece of kit for anyone seeking to discover just how good your desktop, laptop or tablet can sound once you bypass the internal sound card with a well designed external dac such as the M7.Mine is hooked up using usb and getting up and running on Windows 10 took no longer than five minutes. M7 drivers for Windows are easily located and downloaded from the SMSL website support pages.***I'm not big on review writing but I am so delighted with this purchase I thought it warranted sharing. I paid for the above with my own money, have not been asked or prompted to write this review nor am I affiliated in any way shape or form with SMSL Audio.PS - I haven't experienced any driver issues or Windows error notifications mentioned by a US reviewer. If I do I will add a note to this review.

This one, digitally, is completely dead quiet. The sound, is really, very very good. This one does have a professional sound. There is still, drawback being there, though. This brick can produce electro-mechanical noise, due to the fact, that that power-block ("Triad" transformer...) has had been inbuilt inside in to that unit itself. In my case, I`m gonna to accept that, because, this way could be re-done by me myself, in the future, to re-set up it on to the some noise absorbing silicon bumpers. I appreciate, if You, have been forgive me for that my just entry level plain English. I`ve tried my best. Today, for stars for SMSL M7.

Great build quality, great sound, but unfortunately you are paying extra for nothing more then an SMSL M6. I don't know what the issue is, but you can't get 768Khz out of it. SMSL did not reply to my ticket, there was nobody on reddit who could help, and the only answer I could get was "maybe is the driver", but in over a year since I got it there was no driver update. Sure sound is great but again, for what you get out of it, you should get an SMSL M6 for way less money.

Product not geared to easy setup as without instructions I was unable to get this working.however the item appears faulty as nothing I did got sound.Avoid

Another of those ridiculously good for the money Chinese offerings. This thing has good dynamics as well as a warmth characteristics of AK dacs rather than the more neutral ess dacs. The headphone driver is powerfull, I suspect SMSL have published the figures of an inferior driver chip. Works with all my phones from 16 to 300 ohms but especially Fidelio X2s .It can't match a good otl valve amp with phones of over 200 ohms but anything up to 100 and it is a serious contender. Seems well made ,the only drawback is the hopeless handbook so working out what all the tiny lights mean is akin to a Mensa puzzle.

Very happy, does what it's advertised to do.

Bought this to pair with my dt 1770s. I have not noticed any major improvement in the sound quality over connecting them to my motherboard. I don't understand what the dac should do and the amp in this is not impressive. Looked it up, the actual chip is only 2£ and everyone can buy it. Since I didn't need a dac i will return it

Ok, I’ll begin by initial unboxing and first impressions. Cosmetically this is a very attractive all metal clad brick. The external construction along with the quality black anodizing makes for a very attractive unit. The volume knob is not a potentiometer, but a digital encoder with nice snappy stepped jog scroll wheel. The only downside I can see is the jog wheel is plastic instead of metal, but everything looks great here! With the massive internal transformer, you’ll immediately think this is worth considerably more than the asking price. The status LEDs are marked for source, bitrate, and audio profiles.Now I’m excited, lets plug it in!When connected, Windows 10 will use standard USB audio drivers, however, added functions such as ASIO and DSD audio will require XMOS USB audio drivers. It’s advisable to install those drivers BEFORE connecting this DAC to your computer. Once everything is good to go, you’re greeted with an extremely transparent and neutral sounding DAC. Headphone power is surprisingly adequate and powerful enough to drive most of my headphones, including high impedance HD-600s with plenty of headroom to boot. When using inefficient Fostex T50RP-Mk3s on the other hand, there’s a little muddiness in the bass detail and sounds slightly less controlled when nearing maximum amp volume levels. However, I still find the built in Solid State amp more than adequate in performance and a great companion to use alongside my Schiit Valhalla 2 OTL tube amp. How does this compare to other headphone amps/DACs? For observation, I’ve used three different headphones and DACs I’m very familiar with. The Sennheiser HD600 (300Ohm, sensitive), Fostex T50RP-MK3 (50 Ohm Planar, Requires a lot of power), and a Monolith M1060 (50 Ohm, Sensitive Planar). For DAC/AMPS I’ve compared against the SMSL M6, and AudioQuest Dragonfly V1.2. For both the high impedance Sennheiser and hard to drive Fostex, the M7 seems to exhibit better control and clarity in the midrange and midbass compared to the M6 with a slightly better bass response to the Dragonfly. The M6 sounded V-shaped to me and quite fatiguing with the Fostex planars. On the other hand, the M7 even though is lacking the power of the cheaper M6, sounded more enjoyable with the midrange detail and non-sibilant highs. With extremely efficient headphones like the M1060s and a quick audition with an SR80i; all were too close for me to tell any major difference.Native DSD decoding and ASIO support also works well on this too once you install the required XMOS drivers and configure a player such as Foobar2000. As a note, the first M7 I received had issues with sample rates of over 96K, the right channel would begin to hiss. That occurred in both Windows audio settings and playback of DSD files in Foobar. I’ve reached out to SMSL via email for support. They were concerned for this issue and requested to have my unit sent back to their distribution center in California to allow their engineers to investigate the cause of the defect. The day I’ve mailed my defective unit, their support arranged to have Amazon deliver a fresh brand new replacement. Fortunately, the new unit is flawless and even though their company is in mainland China, they still obviously care about the quality of their product and that truly speaks volume to me.I love how this produces a clean, noise free source that supports the latest DSD formats. In my opinion, it easily rivals DACs costing more than double the asking price! It’s not perfect though. Usability wise, the front indicators are not clearly explained in the manual. I’m also not fond of filter, and “Sound Styles” EQ presets, I would personally prefer a flat linear output. I also wish the built in AMP had a little more power. Overall, I’m quite happy with this DAC and find it a tremendous value for the money.

Smsll form factor (smaller than it appears pictured) and fits comfortably on my desk. Much enhanced listening experience for HD music and videos. Handles 512 DSD nicely.Manual lacks info however as i am still unable to wholly understand it. No explanation as to what most of the markings around the knob mean. All in all good value for the money and happy with purchase. Shipping was also very fast.

I hated the way you change the setting by clicking the knob, holding it down. I didn’t know what I was setting. However it did have amazing audio for its price range I was using them with the HD700 and HD660s both had great sound quality from the the DAC AMP. JUst wasn’t what I was actually looking for.

The sound is great. The quality feels good, the item is heavy-ish, solid looking. Nice, cute, size. The black does tend to capture your hands/fingers, so this was not a good choice for the case. I guess it's not that relevant - other than the knob you wouldn't touch the case.My biggest issue was that the item stops during play, mid-song. Stop and play resolves the issue immediately, but it is very annoying because as a rule it stops right in the middle of the best part :)I contacted the seller and they suggested that the issue was Windows - and I should change my computer or operating system... right.

its been less than 24 hours with this dac and i am not happy at all i cant get this thing to work properly the usb disconnects from the computer for no reason i installed and unistalled the driver software i have done everything but this thing only work at times this is my first dac and i am very disappointed there is no way i can keep this im sending it back were it came from the knob its not easy to figure out and the manual its almost useless