How stable is the D6? Can it handle 512 for long periods without hiccups?
I have a Gustard X16 that apparently measures very well. It’s not stable though, I usually get short blips/hiccups every x amount of minutes when giving it high rate PCM or DSD. They can make things appear good on certain measurements but cut corners on the rest of the dac functions.
After the X16 experience, I’m wary of these lower cost stellar measuring dacs.
Very stable - just fix it at x44.1k rates, as I mentioned just few posts above. And latest firmware is essential at DSD512 as mentioned above
I measured feeding D-6 with DSD256x44.1 and DSD512x44.1k from HQPlayer specifically (gauss-long, EC modulator)
I dunno if the Gustard measures well with the same tests? Haven’t seen any such measurements
Gustard is/was an ASR high rated (measured) dac last year.
I know but wasn’t fed DSD256/512 from HQPlayer at ASR.
It could measure worse with DSD ( it wouldn’t be the first DAC to measure well with PCM44.1k and crap with DSD). Maybe that’s why it sounded crap too ?
I can confirm D-6 measures well with DSD256x44.1 and DSD512x44.1 from HQPlayer
Got you. My main question was about stability. It sounds like the D6 is not giving you issues like I have with the X16, so thats good. The X16 sounds fine, it just can’t handle high rates consistently.
Running at DSD512 for months , with not a single hiccup.
I have mine connected to NAA running NAA OS image.
Not to labour my point above - but you can’t assume that everything that measures well on ASR (he only tests with PCM44.1/48k) will automatically perform well with DSD from HQPlayer.
Jussi has publicly shown some examples of Topping DACs doing really crap when fed DSD256/512.
So you gotta actually measure it, connected to HQPlayer and see.
D-6 passes the tests (if you do all the above mentioned checks)
Totally understand and agree.
It doesn’t like 48k at all. Playback is slooooooow at 48k rates.
So I don’t get to enjoy sinc Lm which has grown on me with the D300 and the Rohm chip, but the D-6 is AKM and it sounds great (and different) with gauss long and ASDM7ECv2 at 256x44.1 so I’m happy. 
How? Slow to start playing or slower music playback speed.
I don’t feel crazy having 3 DACs now 
Music sounds/is slow.
Lazy.
Half speed.
Drags.
3 minute song could take 6 minutes of your time. 
Lol. I guess that is a good description.
Spot on 
gauss / gauss-long / gauss-hires-lp is all everyone needs anyway !
So no practical issues fixing to x 44.1k DSD rates 
Only one box there is used as a DAC (SMSL D-6).
The RME ADI-2 is only used to feed HQPlayer these days - I feed any TOSlink and digi coax source through HQPlayer.
At the moment playing Apple Music Hi-res bit perfectly through HQPlayer. iPad → USB to digi coax coverter → RME ADI-2 → HQPlayer
And the 3rd box (Topping A90 Discrete) you see is just a dumb analogue headphone amp , no DAC inside 
I love the dot matrix display and resistor ladder volume control for perfect channel balance
But I have more DACs in other rooms 
You need another dac. I have 3 as well, I may get the SMSL D-6 to up my dac count.
not using roon?
I buy your license
I have come across various needs of an USB to coax, what device do you have?
If you’ve already incorporated hqplayer In your signal path, the cost to quality ratio is a no brainer with the D-6. Lots of bang for the buck!
Best $200 bucks spent if you include the TRS to XLR cables.
D300 is based on the RoHM chip (I have D300 as well). It is just like TI DAC chips, that it is always direct mode, there’s nothing else than direct mode. It has multiple conversion configurations though. For best performance, set the conversion filter to lowest frequency setting. And use DSD256 from ASDM7ECv2 modulator if possible.
I’ve read about this somewhere, but I have not even found these updates myself. Where are those?
SMSL has also got couple of really buggy USB interfaces, M400 and M500 mkII to list few. For M400 the solution was to use I2S from Holo Red to bypass it’s USB. I will soon check if this solves the M500 mkII issues as well (through USB it doesn’t work at DSD512 or 16x PCM input rates correctly, similar problem as M400 had).
D-6 with updated firmware has been working fine though what I’ve been testing/measuring it.
Spring 1 did this too, it was running using 44.1k clock. Holo fixed this on Spring 2.
