I have mentioned my love affair with the THX AAA 789 and my search for a price-appropriate DAC, and my test of the $80 SDAC. But it didn’t satisfy. So I tried the SMSL SU-8, also from a Massdrop. It cost $200, still in the appropriate range. After a few hours, very impressed. We’ll see.
I casually set Roon upsampling to Max PCM (power of 2). Later I wanted to see what happened with an MQA album I was streaming, and Roon was upsampling it to 705k!
I am in exactly the same boat (not quite this minute because I am in a different time zone), but in terms of having the AAA 789 and SDAC combo. I too considered the SU-8. However, SMSL is known for its QC issues, and this unit apparently depends on a finicky remote.
I am holding out for something better, ideally balanced. There is apparently a balanced version of the SDAC in the works, but I’d love to learn your take on the SU-8.
No issues so far.
Wrt operation with the remote, I haven’t “operated” it at all. Plugged in USB cable and analog cables and it did what the SDAC did, Roon recognized its capabilities and upsampled.