I have a question that I may already know the answer too. I recently bought a SMSL su-8 (thanks Zeos) for my primary PC DAC. It hit all the things I wanted, Full Power supply (I know odd) Alloy case, form factor was spot on and Balanced Outputs.
I been enjoying it up until last week, when for some reason I had no audio on my PC. the SU-8 was on.
I load up and connect to the XMOS program and see that it shows nothing is connected, but its connected. Even when I unplug the SU-8 the display will say no signal, and when I plug it in, it will not say that.
I tried Optical too and same thing.
The SU-8 is not even listed in the devices, and windows won’t even try and see if there is anything, its almost as if the Input board or connector is dead?
I would hate to give up on it but I feel that its dead and sending it to SMSL for repair might cost more than it’s worth.
I tried power off, and leaving it off, different cables, different power cables ect. Nope dice.
I tried to do a factory reset but not sure how to accomplish this, I tried many combos and again no dice.
Any chance to test it together with any other source? Be it via USB, TOSLINK (optical) or COAX. Is your onboard audio working okay otherwise? Seeing as it would be the soundcard or motherboard possibly having issues if no audio output is sent from the optical output when you tried that.
No USB driver warnings? Tried reinstalling drivers? You can manually uninstall them from the device manager, there you can also see if it has any issues with the unit when it is connected (if it even recognizes that it is connected that is).
It seems that your DAC at least recognizes that a cable or source has been plugged in, so let’s just rule out any possible issues with the PC before going further.
Thank you all for the speedy replies, much appreciated.
To answer the questions.
I have connected it to another computer well 4 with the same result.
I have audio on my PC, right now I am using no dac, just connecting my input straight into the AMP even bypassing my preamp.
I just did the Factory Reset. Thank you for the guide, It got it back to no sig when USB was not connected. Then upon connection it goes to UNLOCK, in which I do the remote thing and get it unlocked but still no sound from my PC to indicate something has been plugged in and nothing in my Managed Devices. I did use the same USB port and plug and hooked up another USB device and it got the normal sound upon connection and showed what was just connected.
And yes my PC does not even see the device, I forced to on optical and did a test and no sound. And its been in a audio rack, connected to a power conditioner that was connected to a UPS
I would really not recommend having a UPS plugged into any audio components, it could cause issues
That’s very strange that you get nothing from your optical as well. Just to check is your optical on your pc set to output a normal sample rate and not being forced into dolby digital or something like that?
It depends on the type of design they use and how you spec them out. You want something with lots of power handling and also something that would something is a pure sine wave generator (expensive ones). You don’t want to get a double conversion or modified sine wave UPC because it can actually degrade the sound quality if that is the case
Well, if you can confirm that all the tests you have tried don’t work, I would send it into repair imo. If it doesn’t work with optical, I feel like there is really something wrong with it
Also just to check, there is no output on both balanced and unbalanced output (this one is a long shot)?
Thanks and yes I tried the RCA outputs. I have a M100 on order to replace this for the time being, until i can get a better DAC, been looking for a rackmount one that can fit in a standard rack that is not 5k.
I will remove the UPS and just have it hooked up to the power conditioner. My entire office is wired with an industrial UPS but i have a couple bypass outlets I can use.
I actually bought a M100 and it has its days counted as i’m gonna return it. It has been acting up where one of the channels (left) “shuts” off…Or makes a distorted noise and then comes back to life. Especially on youtube. Already tried diferent cables, amps and with a diferent DAC this doesnt happen. I plugged in the aux power it help (it doesnt happen so frenquently) but still happens.
That was my first experience with SMSL and obviously i’m not impressed. I had a topping NX4 and i actually liked the sound of the DAC more. That is one more minus for SMSL M100. Looking into diferent options but havent decided yet.