S.M.S.L. Releases Next-Gen SU-9 PRO DAC Using ESS Sabre ES9039PRO



The SMSL SU-9 PRO ES9039PRO DAC is now available! Priced under $500, SMSL brought another decent DAC—the SU-9 PRO. It has the highest performance commercial DAC chip in the form of the new ES9039PRO and is one of the most affordable DACs capable of fully unfolding and natively decoding MQA files. All this, and more, comes at just a $499.99 price tag.

The SU-9 Pro is a technological marvel. It boasts the latest flagship, 8-channel, ES9039PRO decoding chip from ESS Technology to maximize its performance. It also utilizes a self-developed brand-new CK-03 jitter processing circuit, greatly lowering the clock jitter. As for the amplification stage, 11pcs OPA1612 were used. SU-9 Pro is built-in shielding and low-noise power processing, improving the power efficiency, bringing a lower power consumption, and specially designed discrete component linear regulated power supply and several low-noise regulated power supplies provide low-noise power supply for analog circuits!

SMSL went with the fastest XMOS chipset that will handle incoming USB signals, it is the famous newest 3rd generation XU-316, a true 32-bit USB solution, supports DoP and Native DSD, PCM supports up to 768kHz, DSD supports up to DSD512! Furthermore, it fully supports MQA and MQA-CD, and will let you stream songs in Master/HiFi quality. The SU-9 Pro supports all the standard Bluetooth codecs, including AAC, SBC, aptX, aptX-HD, and LDAC, the Bluetooth range is impressive and more than capable of uninterrupted playback.

Like everything from SMSL, the SU-9 Pro design features their family’s cues, such as the CNC milled aluminium chassis, and a chamfered, anodized matte black finishing. delivering first-class texture. It has a clean-looking front panel, with a good-looking volume knob, plus a big fully fitted LCD screen in the middle makes it quite a looker, which also makes you clearly see the volume level and the selected input. On the back, come rich high-end gold-plated input/output interfaces, as the RCA and XLR out, and of course USB, Coaxial and Optical, a Bluetooth antenna socket, and an AC inlet.