SMSL SU-8 switching between sample rates

Equipment / Electronics / Gear / Accessories DACs
1

So, after a while being stuck with AKM dacs exclusively, thinking I’d despise the sound of ESS dacs as too analytical and not as musical I bit the bullet and bought an SU-8 to pair with my new RNHP after @M0N had recommended me it.

I absolutely love the pairing and it runs circles around the Modi 3 for days. It’s so much more refined, clean and retrieves a lot more detail as well. To be perfectly honest going from the Modi to the SU-8 is almost a bigger change than going from the Atom to the RNHP :laughing:

I do have a small issue though (which might be normal for this DAC, hence me asking here):

Switching between songs which have a different sample rate, e.g. going from 44.1kHz to 48kHz or 96kHz the SU-8 takes a good 2-3 seconds to adjust and won’t output any music whatsoever, while foobar obviously is already blasting ahead. It’s not that big of a problem, however I do have some playlists with many songs with different sample rates and switching back and forth between them results in a pretty disruptive listening experience.

I’ve tried using ASIO4ALL, WASAPI and even direct sound to no avail. Changing the buffer size in the XMOS drivers and / or in foobar hasn’t helped either.

Am I missing something or has anyone got any idea what I could try? Or is that just the way it is and I need to live with it?

Audio chain is: Computer -> USB -> SU-8 -> XLR -> RNHP

Thanks in advance!

2

Did you install the xmos drivers from the smsl site?

Also the modi 3 is pretty bad imo lol, the su8 will allow you to further take advantage of the rnhp

3

Yea I did install them. Using ASIO in foobar also shows in the XMOS drivers that it’s using ASIO

4

So even on wasapi it’s that slow? 2-3 seconds?

5

Yea. Foobar starts playing, the SU-8 shows the old sample rate from the previos song on its little display for 2-3 seconds before it switches to the new sample rate and only then I hear sound.

6

So in Windows try and set it to 24 192 through the sound control panel and then go back to using it with wasapi, just make sure it’s not on 32 bit

7

Same result unfortunately. The XMOS drivers also snap back into 32 bit after I set it in Windows

8

So now just try to use Windows directsound, does it do the same thing?

9

On direct sound the dac stays on 192khz across all songs and upsamples, but the delay is gone.

10

dizzve5P.png386×657 276 KB

11

Ok so at least that works fine

It is normal for wasapi to do this unfortunately, as you need to give the dac some time to switch. This is somewhat unavoidable and to fix it you would have to double buffer and in the end everything would just feel super sluggish

At work I got tired of this and just use it with directsound with my iloud mtms

12

Alrighty, thanks a bunch. Is it ok to just have it upsample everything? Feels sketch to me. I wonder how the Modi did it, perhaps upsampled everything as well? Would you recommend ASIO over WASAPI or vice versa?

13

Asio and wasapi are similar in sound, so I wouldn’t worry about that tbh. Also if you just skip around with asio or wasapi it will change sample rates constantly depending on what music you have and how much it varies. What I have done is that I have macros to switch between DS and wasapi lol.

But I would just set it at 24 96 and call it a day imo

1 Like
14

Thanks again as always, especially for recommending the SU-8, still astouned by how good it sounds compared to the Modi :grin:

15

The modi is pretty colored with the schiit sound, and also carries the old schiit compression, it’s not that great of a dac tbh

16

Some software players have a deep menu setting where they will output a 96khz signal (or whatever the new sample rate is) for a brief period before the new track actually plays. A delay in DACs detecting new sample rates isn’t rare, unfortunately. Idk if Foobar has this option, though it’s so feature packed it probably does somewhere.

17

I haven’t checked but it’s most likely in the advanced settings menu. Also I’ve gotten it to where there is no delay on asio, but then with the tweaks I made there are constantly buffer overflows that are very unpleasant to listen to at high volumes lol

18

The slowness of the switch is just an SU8 thing.
The D10 and other low end DAC’s also switch but it’s sub second.
The higher end Schiit stuff switches with an audible click (relay), but it’s still << 1 second.

19

Correct, some of my other dacs are much faster in this regard

20

Thanks a lot for clarifying that! Coming from a Modi 3 though, the sound coming out of the SU-8 is so good in comparison that I can live with the delay for now :grin: Just something I thought would be discussed a lot more publicly as I haven’t found anything about it concerning the SU-8 prior my purchase. Might have gotten the D50s instead if I knew that.