• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required as is 20 years of participation in forums (not all true). There are daily reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

SMSL DO200 MKII DAC Review

Rate this DAC:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 9 3.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 14 5.9%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 64 26.9%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 151 63.4%

  • Total voters
    238

Burns

Active Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2023
Messages
142
Likes
58
I still have e70 and smsl do200mk2 in tests.
On each, the piano sounds the same (Chopin), so I think I have two DACs made of metal ;)

Do the two mentioned DACs sound identical, as indicated by the very strong group here? Yes, but I still maintain that 99.2%.
What is this 0.8% in my subjective opinion. I can define it in two ways: Wider soundstage (different concentration of instruments). The SMSL DO200 plays behind a slight fog, narrower stereo, more to the center.
e70 plays more space. The shortest and easiest way to describe it is as if I switched the DSP processor effects in the home theater receiver and turned on the hall effect for the e 70.
Let me remind you that I have one source, two DACs working at the same time, one M3si amplifier, so I only change the source on the AUX1, AUX2 amplifier
It's really a minor difference. In a blind ABX test, I would rather not distinguish which one plays, but I would distinguish that once it plays one and the other time.
What it comes from ? Different ESS, different company, different implementation, different PCBs, different paths, different capacitors - in a word, I don't know.
(e70 with a 2.5V output, the hall effect increases because it starts to play louder. Without measurements, I don't know if 2.5V is good for my amplifier or there is no distortion, there is a difference in the sound, but I don't like the sound it will seem distorted, I went back to 2V to be safe).
One last point.
I'm not a fan of MQA, but I have another problem with the DO200. Example of Tidal (this is also not my favorite music service) If I turn off MQA decoding in Tidal, if I switch from Master to HiFi package and DO200 detects that a given track is encoded with MQA, it decodes it anyway. The MQA mark appears on the DO200 display. Tidal is forcing MQA at all costs - a problem described on the forums.
To sum up, DO200 does not give me the control menu and the option to turn off MQA when I don't want it.

The summary will look like this
DO200 - return to the seller
E70 - probably will stay because I like its additional functions (trigger, display)
Unless, after sceptical assessments, I will return to the DX3pro + (but there I had to reset the power after connecting each new cable, there was some mismatch and instead of sound there was a squeak and noise from the speakers, I confirmed it on two pieces. I understand that cables are not switched outside of the tests , but I stopped trusting him that once my speakers would burn, maybe the Chinese forgot about some choke? - I don't know)
All of the above are my subjective feelings, I don't care about convincing anyone to the only right way.
 
Last edited:

Burns

Active Member
Joined
Feb 17, 2023
Messages
142
Likes
58
@amirm
The SMSL DO300 showed up, which has no measurements anywhere, even by the manufacturer. It has an ES9039mPro chip and, surprisingly, it is constantly 5/2.5V. And how will such a level be incompatible with the amplifier?
 
Last edited:

mocenigo

Major Contributor
Joined
Dec 8, 2018
Messages
1,146
Likes
937
I am sure PCM with much higher quality than CD, will sound about same as DSD. If this is what you mean, then I agree completely. In fact, I think the music should never be resampled. When I was recording lyrics and guitar i Cubase with a Lynx L22 PCI card, I could hear how the quality deteriorated quickly as soon as I resampled the music from the original file format 24bit/192kHz.

No, 16/44,1 is fine as a transport mechanism.
Apparently, you must have used a bad resampling algorithm.
 

MusicNBeer

Senior Member
Forum Donor
Joined
Jan 20, 2019
Messages
332
Likes
473
No, 16/44,1 is fine as a transport mechanism.
Apparently, you must have used a bad resampling algorithm.
Exactly, a resampling algorithm can get as accurate as the developer wishes. With 24 bit masters, resampling accuracy error can easily get below 16-bit resolution, meaning perfect playback once dither is applied and stream is truncated to 16 bits.
 

guddu

Active Member
Joined
Feb 10, 2020
Messages
249
Likes
124
Thank you @amirm for review.
Do you have smsl AO200 (original or mkii) review in line?
 
Top Bottom