SMSL DO200 Pro DAC Review

[torgeirs]

@staticV3, @JIW, some time ago I measured such a series for a single cs43131 on a large bandwidth, but taking into account only 9 harmonics. The rise on the left is due to clipping, on the right to “pumping” harmonics by noise shaping. Curious what might change after averaging a few chips. I suppose that nothing will change on the left, on the right distortion may decrease due to noise reduction. But by how much?..
BTW I consider THD+N vs Frequency measurement on a wide bandwidth a very unindicative measurement, because the total noise of such a bandwidth is always high and hides all details.
View attachment 429982

This approach improves dynamic range but is ineffective against distortions.

Is’t the trick to make the -6dB line to be the 0 dB line?
That is lessen the load on each DAC so they get less load dependent distortion.
Then they together can drive the low load with low distortion.
With low load I mean the low noise LP filter

 

[Elfriede]

A stupid question from a newbe. Which SINAD is still audible for the average human hearing?

 

[torgeirs]

Masking is destroying the ability to hear noise. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_masking
The proof is MP3.
But maybe -60 to -80 dB in a silent chamber depending on frequency content of signal

 

[torgeirs]

The easy way of checking is using a digital volume control with dB scale.
Play music at the normal volume. Note the dB value
Turn down music until you dont hear it anymore. Note the dB value
The difference is the needed SINAD for that listening session

 

[antcollinet]

The easy way of checking is using a digital volume control with dB scale.
Play music at the normal volume. Note the dB value
Turn down music until you dont hear it anymore. Note the dB value
The difference is the needed SINAD for that listening session

That will tend to exaggerate the SINAD you need due to the masking effect you note in your previous post. The "turned down until you can't hear it" level has no masking signal to make it more difficult to hear.

I pretty much agree with your 60 do 80dB for a large majority of listeners in real world listening conditions (speakers in a room with typical background noise.)

For all listeners - even those with the best hearing, who are trained on what to listen for, in silent conditions and using headphones, we have this:

Audibility thresholds of amp and DAC measurements

Introduction A recurring theme on ASR is whether or not the various measured qualities of the devices are audible. In this post, I'll present some clear and visual thresholds for when those imperfections can be considered a potentially audible concern. I will not explain the basics of amp/DAC...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[nick_l44.1]

Is’t the trick to make the -6dB line to be the 0 dB line?
That is lessen the load on each DAC so they get less load dependent distortion.
Then they together can drive the low load with low distortion.
With low load I mean the low noise LP filter

I'm not sure I understood you correctly. The external load on the chip was extremely low, about 200 kOhm.

 

[agnostic]

Hi Amir

Thanks for reviewing this one.

The HDMI Arc input is an interesting selling point.
It's too bad you can't measure it.

Are you ever able to measure through HDMI Arc ?
Any way you could do it in the future ?

No, it's a weird design. This HDMI input can't take any signal from Blu Ray player. According to the handbook, it's desgiend for the ACR HDMI from TV to provide better sound quality, which is useless at all. The optical output of TV can be much common to use. And Before I returned this DAC I tried ACR HDMI from my Samsung TV, but it didn't work either.

 

[Jimster480]

No, it's a weird design. This HDMI input can't take any signal from Blu Ray player. According to the handbook, it's desgiend for the ACR HDMI from TV to provide better sound quality, which is useless at all. The optical output of TV can be much common to use. And Before I returned this DAC I tried ACR HDMI from my Samsung TV, but it didn't work either.

You mean HDMI ARC? So does it support I2S over HDMI but not ARC? Because I have seen some DAC's that just do I2S but use an HDMI cable.

 

[staticV3]

So does it support I2S over HDMI but not ARC? Because I have seen some DAC's that just do I2S but use an HDMI cable.

The DO200 Pro does not support i2s via HDMI. Only ARC.

 

[Jimster480]

The DO200 Pro does not support i2s via HDMI. Only ARC.

Yet another member said he can't get it to work with ARC?

 

[staticV3]

Yet another member said he can't get it to work with ARC?

Perhaps they forgot to enable ARC output in the TV settings, who knows ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

 

[agnostic]

You mean HDMI ARC? So does it support I2S over HDMI but not ARC? Because I have seen some DAC's that just do I2S but use an HDMI cable.

This DAC claims HDMI support not just I2S as others.

 

[agnostic]

Perhaps they forgot to enable ARC output in the TV settings, who knows ¯⁠\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

The point is not TV, but it's not useful totally. Why don't I just use the toslink from TV to get better sound if necessary? But if someone really need HDMI to connect DAC with Blu Ray, this HDMI port is completely useless. So why does it exist? Also it's so weird almost all Chinese DACs equipped with I2S, which is a very uncommon port.

 

[antcollinet]

Why don't I just use the toslink from TV to get better sound if necessary?

Becasue not all TVs have toslink. It is gradually being replaced with ARC as a more capable output for AVRs.

So why does it exist?

It is intended for the use cases when all your devices are connected to the TV (including your Blu-ray) and you want to send the sound of whatever device is connected back out to an external amp, avr. soundbar etc.

In AV applications you are often working with multi channel audio - which Toslink can only do with compressed audio, and even then, only with up to 7.1. Bitstream not available.

Also it's so weird almost all Chinese DACs equipped with I2S, which is a very uncommon port.

I2s and ARC are two completely different interfaces and are incompatible. I2S should never have used an HDMI connector IMO. In fact I2S should never have existed as an external interface at all. It is particularly pointless.

 

[staticV3]

Why don't I just use the toslink from TV to get better sound if necessary?

Because HDMI ARC, if HDMI-CEC is implemented as well, unlocks two great features:

1. Volume control with the TV remote
2. Turning the TV on automatically turns the DAC on. Turning the TV off automatically turns the DAC off.

 

[agnostic]

Becasue not all TVs have toslink. It is gradually being replaced with ARC as a more capable output for AVRs.



It is intended for the use cases when all your devices are connected to the TV (including your Blu-ray) and you want to send the sound of whatever device is connected back out to an external amp, avr. soundbar etc.

In AV applications you are often working with multi channel audio - which Toslink can only do with compressed audio, and even then, only with up to 7.1. Bitstream not available.




I2s and ARC are two completely different interfaces and are incompatible. I2S should never have used an HDMI connector IMO. In fact I2S should never have existed as an external interface at all. It is particularly pointless.

It would be a case with low possibility that people who bought a cheap TV set without the toslink will like to pay for an external DAC for better sound quality. The last point, it's yes for the pointless of I2S.

 

[agnostic]

Because HDMI ARC, if HDMI-CEC is implemented as well, unlocks two great features:

1. Volume control with the TV remote
2. Turning the TV on automatically turns the DAC on. Turning the TV off automatically turns the DAC off.

Someone need better sound quality, but can accept TV as the preamp. That's weird.

 

[staticV3]

Someone need better sound quality, but can accept TV as the preamp. That's weird.

No. With CEC, you send volume commands to the TV via its remote, it passes them on to the external DAC via HDMI, and the external DAC applies the signal attenuation.

 

[biasedListener]

Hi,
I would find useful HDMI-ARC because of the lack for a second SPDIF/Toslink source in the device. My understanding is that ARC defines the channel and can mean different audio codifications; supporting both PCM2.0 (48KHz I believe) and compressed (AAC) Dolby Digital 5.1 (Do not know about DTS) through that channel (1Mbps max), that can be output from an average TV. I guess this device just supports PCM, so no crossovering or down mixing (ala miniDSP) of multiple channels. So just another SPDIF PCM2.0 equivalent connector + nice CEC features as commented by @staticV3.

My concern with TVs outputting 2.0 to an optical output is how they do the down mix, but being "certified" by Dolby I guess they implement the Dolby-mandated down mix algorithm.

 

[Ravekid75]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the SMSL DO200 Pro balanced stereo audio DAC. It was sent to me by Aoshida Audio and costs US $399.
View attachment 421734
The small curve on top of the display distinguishes this DAC from myriad of others from SMSL and adds a bit of class to it. Otherwise, the user interface is the familiar SMSL interface which is easy to use if not fancy. Rear panel shows a couple of variations from ordinary:
View attachment 421735
We have USB-C instead of type 2 and importantly, inclusion of HDMI ARC support for better integration with TVs outputting the same.

Power supply is included in the case which I appreciate.

If you are not familiar with my DAC measurements, please watch my tutorial on it:

SMSL DO200 Pro DAC Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard with volume set to 0 dB and output, XLR:
View attachment 421736
Distortion is vanishingly small and combined with noise, we are comfortably in the "transparent" zone for DACs. Ranking is way up there despite the modern cost:
View attachment 421737
View attachment 421738
RCA output costs a bit of penalty but still fully transparent:
View attachment 421739

I tried testing the HDMI ARC but whether it is the fault of my adapter or the DAC, I could not get stable output.

Noise performance is essentially state of the art:
View attachment 421740

IMD distortion is kept in check with a wide margin compared to our reference:
View attachment 421741

Loading up the output makes little difference:
View attachment 421742

There is inconsequential low frequency jitter over both inputs:
View attachment 421743
Likewise, linearity shows a tiny bit of deviation:

View attachment 421760
Multitone output shows impeccable results:
View attachment 421745

Behavior or default filter is quite good:
View attachment 421746
View attachment 421747

We do see artificially high level of noise in our wideband, 90 kHz distortion test:
View attachment 421748

As you can see in the inset, this is due to "noise shaping" which takes noise in the audible band and pushes it up to 50 kHz+. I reduced the bandwidth of the measurement to 45 kHz and as you can see in brown/green, the levels are vanishingly low.

Conclusions
The DO200 Pro DAC turns in state of the art performance for what is a very good price these days for a balanced DAC. Inclusion of HDMI ARC I am sure is appreciated by many. There are a few minor nits but nothing remotely interfering with fully transparent (to source) operation of the unit.

I am happy to recommend the SMSL DO200 Pro.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

I currently just purchased the Raw MDA 1. I’m getting close to my return window and found this . Do you see any reason or justification for the upgrade if I never plan on using HDMI? Thanks in advance for the advice.

Davin