SMSL DO200 Pro DAC Review

[mc.god]

This DAC has a dozen CS43131 chips

View attachment 421750

Are they trying to do a discrete ladder?

 

[French Meloman]

Another good SMSL dac whose main attraction is the HDMI ARC input. This is not enough to justify its existence. The offer is becoming plethoric. Thank you to Amir for tirelessly devoting his time to these DACs whose technical performance can now be predicted will always guarantee audible transparency. It is the ergonomics of use that must be considered as the main purchasing criterion. The tests are more fun when they concern pretentious and expensive brands that often have ridiculous performance compared to their price.

 

[transformer-coupled]

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.
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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:
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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:
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RCA output costs a bit of penalty but still fully transparent:
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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:
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IMD distortion is kept in check with a wide margin compared to our reference:
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Loading up the output makes little difference:
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There is inconsequential low frequency jitter over both inputs:
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Likewise, linearity shows a tiny bit of deviation:

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Multitone output shows impeccable results:
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Behavior or default filter is quite good:
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We do see artificially high level of noise in our wideband, 90 kHz distortion test:
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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.
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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/

Great review and measurements as always, i like the , beside needed usb audio input, the hdmi audio input too, wish my topping dacs got it hehhehe

 

[trl]

You need to write Mr. Atkinson at stereophile about that. To make at least one test comparable to his, I picked this one. Neither the source frequency, nor the 600 ohm loading make sense to me.

I have made sure that the scale and parameters are as close to his as possible to make it easy to compare DACs.

I thought @John Atkinson at is only testing headamps 50Hz @600Ohms, while DAC outputs he's testing 50Hz @100kHz.

 

[welwynnick]

Are they trying to do a discrete ladder?

No, it's a way to reduce the noise floor.

 

[Bleib]

Vast majority of DACs I have sitting here are from SMSL! Over the summer, they seemingly were sending me a new one every week!!!

That's good a sign of confidence

 

[Beershaun]

Thanks for another great review @amirm . What makes this DAC "Pro?" Is there a specific professional interface or featureset that professional sound engineers would use with this DAC?

 

[Lambda]

Another almost perfect one...
I’m missing the THD+N vs. output level?! dose this one "only" go to 4V?

 

[JIW]

Another almost perfect one...
I’m missing the THD+N vs. output level?! dose this one "only" go to 4V?

It does 5.2 V per specs in post #2 but also has a 4 V mode.

 

[John Atkinson]

Hi @amirm. I apparently missed the testing procedure threads because it's apparent to me that I don't understand why 50Hz is used as a test reference. Why 50Hz? Does this not mask 60Hz of the North American standard AC supply? Am I off base in asking?

This procedure is based on a suggestion by Martin Colloms in the 1980s. By using a test tone adjacent to the AC mains frequency, spectral analysis will reveal power supply modulation effects (if any are present). Martin is based in the UK with its 50Hz mains frequency, so he used a 60Hz tone for his low-frequency spectral analyses. As I am based in the US, with its 60Hz mains frequency, I use a 50Hz signal.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

 

[mc.god]

No, it's a way to reduce the noise floor.

you broke the spell

 

[Doodski]

This procedure is based on a suggestion by Martin Colloms's in the 1980s. By using a test tone adjacent to the AC mains frequency, spectral analysis will reveal power supply modulation effects (if any are present). Martin is based in the UK with its 50Hz mains frequency, so he used a 60Hz tone for his low-frequency spectral analyses. As I am based in the US, with its 60Hz mains frequency, I use a 50Hz signal.

John Atkinson
Technical Editor, Stereophile

Thank you for the reply. I'll be keeping a eye out for test results so I can see when this occurs.

 

[RogerSmith]

If SMSL/Topping/etc started by default putting PEQ into their DACs, is one enough? I have my DAC set up to run to both my speakers and headphones (desktop setup). If a DAC has either a single PEQ or no dedicated button to switch to another already-defined PEQ, it might as well not be there as I'd instead keep using EAPO/Peace and my one-key shortcut to load my headphones/speakers profile. Is this common for others or do most here want PEQ for a more permanent solution, e.g. hooked up to a TV/receiver or only a set of speakers? I'd prefer for the DAC to do the PEQ than my PC, but ease of switching between profiles can't be understated. I don't want to fiddle through a menu or deal with a remote - it's gotta be a button on the DAC face or no dice. Whether a button to toggle to the next profile or a slider switch of a set of 2/3/4 stops to set to a specific one.

I personally prefer to do EQ at the source, in my case my MacBook (for headphones, IEMs). It would probably be asking for too much to store many profiles on a DAC, in SoundSource I can have as many as I want (at least I haven't encountered a limit yet). This DAC is stellar and has HDMI Arc. I guess people will neve stop to ask fo more.

 

[RogerSmith]

Another SMSL Dac with a SINAD exceeding 120 db. What a surprise! Time for boiler plate about how it should have a PEQ capability, bass management, and subwoofer outputs. There, done. I guess the only real question is how many of SMSL's DACs reviewed here are still available for sale. Would be kind of nice for someone to make sense of how all these models fit into a line, who each model is more likely to be for, etc. Same for Topping.

Thanks again for this review, Amir.

I couldn't agree more. It is a DAC, after all. Why doesn't it iron and cook as well?

 

[DrZingo]

If using as a DAC what's the point of this compared to an smsl DL 100 for $179?

Multicolour display?

 

[Rusk Reeder]

I wish that you would consider measuring THD at 15khz. Ken Pohlman used to do this for CD Review in the 90s. Many of the CD players measured 12-15%. The best would measure around 2-3%. Now, it might not matter now. Improvements might have dropped it to a negligible level. On the other hand, something might show up. You could just try a few you have around, and if it amounts to nothing, you could say, "no,"and drop the matter.

However if the results were significant, you might want to include in in your measurements.

 

[Sir Sanders Zingmore]

I wish that you would consider measuring THD at 15khz. Ken Pohlman used to do this for CD Review in the 90s. Many of the CD players measured 12-15%. The best would measure around 2-3%. Now, it might not matter now. Improvements might have dropped it to a negligible level. On the other hand, something might show up. You could just try a few you have around, and if it amounts to nothing, you could say, "no,"and drop the matter.

However if the results were significant, you might want to include in in your measurements.

Isn’t that contained in the final chart?

 

[JIW]

Isn’t that contained in the final chart?

View attachment 421967

That depends on how many harmonics are to be included in THD. For N harmonics at a given frequency, bandwidth needs to be N times the frequency. For a 45 kHz bandwidth, 15 kHz only has second and third harmonics. However, the 90 kHz bandwidth performance, which includes harmonics up to the sixth for 15 kHz, being dominated by noise and hence largely constant for all frequencies also indicates no significant problem with high frequency harmonic distortion.

 

[amirm]

That depends on how many harmonics are to be included in THD.

As the chart indicates, my standard measurement bandwidth for DACs is 90 kHz. Are you still asking for something else?

BTW, whatever the other reviewer was testing, was including simple noise shaping as is the case with this DAC. At that time, noise shaping was much more severe and hence the reason he was seeing such high numbers. Can't imagine any DAC having that kind of real distortion.

 

[Trudius]

I bought this DAC back in late December. I was curious about the type of sound coming from 12xCS chips. I have not been disappointed so far. I previously bought the E70 velvet from Topping, which sounded equally good but had a problem with one of the balanced outputs, so it went back to the seller. Both DACS have the 4/5 V option, which is set as a switch on this DAC but it is a screen option in the Topping one. I feel that the menu of the SMSL and its remote control are better than the Topping unit. The HDMI-arc input option improves the sound of the LG TV that I have, even when compared to another box from Amazon that outputs the analog audio into my system. So far I am very pleased.

I am glad that Amir tested the DO200 Pro. The 12X CS43131 chips was worth testing to see if this array performs as good as other AKM and ESS chip based units.