Review on 🎧 S.M.S.L M300 MKII HiFi Audio DAC: AKM4497EQ Apt-X USB DAC Decoder with Hi-Res Bluetooth 5.0 and Full Balanced Output - New Edition (Black) by Chris Shepherd

I like this device, it gives a very balanced sound, but it's not the best value for money -Relationship. Before I bought this I had a SMSL 10th Anniversary Sanskrit DAC and an Audioquest Dragonfly with an ESS chip. I find that the ESS chip sounds better than the flagship AKM chip even in the cheaper Dragonflies. I find the 10th Anniversary Sanskrit AKM chip to sound just as good as the flagship AKM chip in this device. My kit didn't have Bluetooth or a working remote control, which was disappointing. However, I can say that you are better off buying a 10-year-old Sanskrit DAC or a mid-range Dragonfly DAC and hooking up a good Bluetooth receiver (about $50 or more with your own DAC) to your system. Then spend more money on this machine. As nice as it is to have a balanced sound from this chip, it's too balanced, I ended up buying an equalizer to manually adjust the tones at the end. So I have it running, power scrubber, to the USB noise filter, to the Audioquest Evergreen cable to the DAC, then to the EQ, then to the headphone amp. All connections are Audio Quest. It's an expensive system for something that sounds only marginally better than Sanskrit 10th Anniversary, no fancy cables and just a headphone amp.