Hello everyone,
This is a review and measurements of the SMSL PL100 CD player and transport:
SMLS PL100 - Presentation
Does it really need to be presented?
This one has been discussed, commented, praised, criticised, in many places, including here on ASR. So, let me skip a little this presentation to the elements of importance to me, before we go to measurements (to reveal all about it):
Only the phones out could have been on the front. Well...
I paid the SMSL a third of the recently reviewed Yamaha CD-S303. So we are talking about a very reasonably priced CD Player. We'll see if it gives us more than a third of the Yamaha
I am listening to this little beast as I write this review (Beyer DT770Pro 32ohms), and I am nothing else but pleased.
I like the fact I can power it on external battery, less convenient than having an internal one, but more than being stuck with a socket wall and also I can easily replace the external battery and/or reuse it.
All outputs, RCA, phones and SPDIF, are active all the time, which is nice, I think.
SMSL PL100 - Measurements (RCA out)
All measurements performed with an E1DA Cosmos ADCiso (grade 0), and the Cosmos Scaler (100kohms from unbalanced input) for analog outputs, and a Motu UltraLite Mk5 for digital.
I am now consistent with my specific measurements for CD Players, as I described them in the post “More than we hear”, and as I reported them for the Onkyo C-733 review. Over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed.
The SMLS outputs 1.97Vrms. The two channels are perfectly matched matched at 0.00dB, which is what we should always get from a modern device.
I saw a phase shift of 180° across the bandwidth.
----
As usual, let's start with my standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without dither) from the Test CD (RCA out):
Hmmm, the THD is extremely low, but we have a pack of random and correlated noise at the foot of the fundamental. It impacts a little the SINAD, as we are loosing 2-3dB into that.
The two channels have the exact same performances.
Let's try the same 6dB lower:
Again, it repeats. THD is even lower here, too bad to have that low level noise, else we had a winner.
It's free of power supply related leakage:
On that zoomed view between 20Hz to 1kHz, and with linear frequency scale, you can better appreciate the correlated noise (all these low level spikes). Their frequencies tell me nothing, I've never seen that. Also, note how the noise floor increase when approaching the fundamental. This is very low level random noise.
Note that I tested these powering the SMSL from a phone's charger but also from a battery (delivering the required 5V/2A) and I got the same results.
We can suspect this type of issue to reveal itself with the Jitter Test, see below.
----
Next is the bandwidth:
This is very flat and you can see that the two channels are perfectly matched, even with that zooming. This is nice.
And let's have a look at it with a wider bandwidth:
The red trace show the filter's response beyond 20kHz. It's fully active at 24kHz with max attenuation of -95dB. We can see the noise shaper of the DAC increasing the noise floor past 45kHz.
You can also see that the aliases of the 18kHz&20kHz tones are very well attenuated. This is good performance.
Now, again, we can't miss the random noise floor at the feet of the two test tones, it is higher at these frequencies than previously at 1kHz. But all this being at -100dBr, at worst, will easily be masked by music.
----
Let's have a look at the multitone test that a lot of you like very much:
This is when you get to like it, because it reveals issues, when there are. This provides you with a view that this problem of low random and correlated noise (not to call it distortion) increase with the frequency. CD Audio format at 16bits is still preserved, but by an hair.
----
Well, time has really come to finger point the problem, with the jitter test:
Ah, yeah, it looks nasty.
The red trace is from the digital output of the SMSL, blue one from the RCA out.
So we get to see our noise and distortion. The SMSL suffers from Jitter, but at a low level, one more time. The highest side-bands are the closest to the fundamental, meaning that the problem will remain hidden to our ears when playing music, hopefully. But this is not nice.
----
Started with the Teac VRDS-20 review, and on your request + support to get it done (more here), I'm adding now an "intersample-overs" test which intends to identify the behavior of the digital filtering and DAC when it come to process near clipping signals. Because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. And this effect shows through distorsion (THD+N measurement up to 96kHz):
The results of the SMLS mean that the oversampling filter has very little headroom to process intersamples over. It's better than none.
----
Let's continue with the good old 3DC measurement that Stereophile was often using as a proof of low noise DAC. It is from an undithered 997Hz sine at -90.31dBFS. With 16bits, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal:
Wow, this is a beautiful trace, perfectly symmetrical and undisrupted by noise at this low level. This is ver nice. Theoretically we should get a square at this lowest level of the PCM 16bits format, and we don't because of the limited bandwidth. The ringing tells us that the reconstruction is asymmetrical, and yes it is:
To come back to the noise that you might worry about, I need to tell you that the problem vanishes at lower level, proof is this very neat 3DC scope trace above, maybe the best I have to report.
And so let me show you more measurements. The below are two measurements of a 999.91Hz test tone with rectangle dither (on 0.5LSB) and they are absolutely flawless:
This is really not often that I see such neat traces, as they compare with the initial WAV file. So the problem of noise I spotted before shows itself at -20dBFS and above, in fact where it will be easily masked into music.
----
Other measurements (not shown):
The Dynamic range is the best I measured and can measure. No trace of crosstalk, and my test includes very low signal on the other channel to prevent it to shutdown. But really here, no crosstalk that I can measure.
Same goes with the clock precision (pitch error) which is better than what I can measure. It had to happen one day. SMSL commented that they made an effort on this aspect, and I can confirm. Well done, I'm happy I finally witnessed that.
----
Last and not least, I like to run a THD vs Frequency sweep at -12dBFS as it shows how the conversion has evolved over time. I am currently using the beta version of REW and I discovered that this sweep gives better and more reliable results than before. And for once I did not overlay with other CD players, because it's the best trace I got, and actually it is the same as if I run the test from the digital output of the SMSL:
You can appreciate the THD score in the graph (plot at 1kHz), this is indeed the bottom of the digital recording, or say what the software can compute on this sweep. I did not put the right channel on the view, but it is very precisely the same. This CD player is absent from harmonic distortion.
----
As I did with the Sony CDP-597, I add a "max DAC resolution" measurement test. It is performed from a 999.91Hz sine @-12dBFS with shape dither (from Audacity). I restrict the THD+N span to 20Hz - 6kHz in REW not to account for the noise of the shape dither beyond 6kHz. I take the calculated ENOB and simply add 2bits to it (due to the -12dB attenuation, as 1bits=6dB). The potential maximum, when calculated from the digital WAV file, is 18.7bits under this test. A "transparent" DAC should achieve 18.7bits, ie 100% in this test.
Here are the results compared to others:
One more time, it is the low random noise of the SMLS that limits the performance here. But, in the end, it does much better the Yamaha CD-S303. So when it comes to compare apples-to-apples...
I think I like this test
SMSL PL100 - Testing the drive
What would be good measurements if the drive would not properly read a slightly scratched CD, or one that was created at the limits of the norm? The below tests reply to these questions.
The SMLS took only 4 seconds to read the TOC of my 40 tracks test CD, this is good. It takes on 1sec to load the disc, so in five seconds max, you get music.
Here are the results:
The SMSL PL100 was able to read without generating typical digital noise with dropouts up to 3mm. I could measure interpolation starting at 2.4mm but I could not hear it. This is a crazy good result. Same goes with the narrower pitch and dropouts, it passed even in the worst case scenario. I rarely see this.
That said, I was surprised that it did not appreciate at all successive dropouts. It simply stops playing with as low as 0.2mm successive dropouts. Normally the score there is the same as with a single dropout. So, I suspect some software decision to stop the reading for some reasons in this case.
SMSL PL100 - Measurements (Digital Optical Out)
I know several of you want to know, is it a good transport?
So let's go with the 999.91Hz @0dBFS:
This is what is on the WAV file. Same with my usual 3DC measurement:
This is what we want to see.
The ultimate proof is when I reuse the intersample overs test at 5512.50Hz, with a phase shift of 67.5°, like I did for the TASCAM CD-200 review. This signal generates an overshoot of +0.69dB and so if the signal would be modified before being sent, it would show either a reduction of amplitude or we'd see some sort of saturation/increase noise/distorsion. So here we go, the below is a comparison between the WAV File directly processed by the PC, and when played by the SMSL via the optical out:
You could think I made a mistake and they are the same single measurement, but no, one really comes out of the SMSL. I rarely get to see exact same thing because this 999.91Hz sine @0ddBFS without dither, generates more 65k+ unique PCM subcodes in less than four seconds. So there's usually a little variation in the calculation and representation that I share. But here I got lucky and recorded at the exact same time (I did many many takes, though, so I forced my luck).
All in all, this is an obvious "perfect" transport.
(EDIT 27/08/2025) - Measurements of phones out (into 100kohms load)
Following the interesting questioning of @Ruffy and my reply, I thought I needed to update this initial post with the findings.
@Ruffy was wondering if he could directly drive his amplifier via the phones out of the PL100, as they obviously offer volume control. And I decided to test the PL100 in that context, that means feeding my interface (in fact the Cosmos scaler that has an input impedance of 100kohms). And the results are really interesting, so I copy/paste here.
The PL100 outputs 2Vrms max (so I guess it should be sufficient to drive many amps to their max output, but you'll need to check yours) and I saw the same performances from the PL100 in that case:
I also tested the same but reducing the output by 6dB (1Vrms output):
No changes, which is good news. And I notice that the volume control is obviously in digital domain since it goes by very precise steps of 0.5dB. So I thought of two complementary tests
First, I wondered if (at this lower output level) we'd loose linearity/precision and/or get more noise to the point of negatively impacting our famous 3DC test? And no:
This is still one of the best and most silent trace I got from this test.
What about resistance to intersamples over? Well, not a surprise, but because of the lower digital level, the interpolateur of the oversampling filter has now all required headroom to process ISOs:
Note this is inclusive of noise up to 96kHz and it's impacted by the noise shaper of the converter. The THD alone ranges from -104dBr to -93dBr, ie there's no distortion to complain about.
All other tests were not impacted (at this -6dB lower output level, I mean) and actually some IMD tests improved too.
These few complementary tests mean that using the phones out directly into a power amp (or an external phones amplifier) is more than a good idea!
Conclusion
Wow, that was long, longer review than I thought. But considering the low price, I thought you needed to know more that just about a SINAD at full scale.
The Denon DCD-900NE stays on his throne, but for a quarter of the price, this little SMSL delivers!
Yes it suffers from noise with the highest test tones. But at lower and very low levels, it's probably the most silent CD Player I measured (in audio band). So it will not hide anything in the quietest moments of any recording, especially if they were mastered with shape dither.
Should you have a concern about the analog outputs, you get a perfect transport here, so…
At the end of the day, it is good to see some small flaws as it means SMSL has room for improvements in analog domain. Does the SMSL PL150 perform even better, or the PL200? It'd be nice to know…
EDIT 27/08/2025: using the phones outputs directly into a power amp or a headphones one is an alternative you can consider.
I hope you enjoyed this review!
----
PS: besides listening to music and testing CD Players, I thought I'd try to write a short novel (I get bored rapidly). So that's a less than 20 pages one that I'd like to share with you, if you fancy spending 15min on a sci-fi story that I created for my kids. It is the attached PDF (Echoes of Eden).
This is a review and measurements of the SMSL PL100 CD player and transport:
SMLS PL100 - Presentation
Does it really need to be presented?
This one has been discussed, commented, praised, criticised, in many places, including here on ASR. So, let me skip a little this presentation to the elements of importance to me, before we go to measurements (to reveal all about it):
- It reads only the CD Audio, and I like it, of course.
- It's gapless provided you don't FFW or REW, skipping a track will not stop gapless playback.
- The drive is fast, thanks SMSL! It also takes only 4sec to read the TOC of my 40 tracks test CD, cool.
- It did not scratched nor left traces on the CD I made it swallow.
- It has remote, but phones out is on the back, at least it has it.
- Buttons are difficult to read and undifferentiated, that was a burden at the beginning but I got used to them.
- It comes without power supply, but you certainly already have what's required (5V/2A). I used a phones charger or an external battery for my tests.
- The build quality is more than decent, full aluminium. Buttons have a luxury touch.
Only the phones out could have been on the front. Well...
I paid the SMSL a third of the recently reviewed Yamaha CD-S303. So we are talking about a very reasonably priced CD Player. We'll see if it gives us more than a third of the Yamaha
I am listening to this little beast as I write this review (Beyer DT770Pro 32ohms), and I am nothing else but pleased.
I like the fact I can power it on external battery, less convenient than having an internal one, but more than being stuck with a socket wall and also I can easily replace the external battery and/or reuse it.
All outputs, RCA, phones and SPDIF, are active all the time, which is nice, I think.
SMSL PL100 - Measurements (RCA out)
All measurements performed with an E1DA Cosmos ADCiso (grade 0), and the Cosmos Scaler (100kohms from unbalanced input) for analog outputs, and a Motu UltraLite Mk5 for digital.
I am now consistent with my specific measurements for CD Players, as I described them in the post “More than we hear”, and as I reported them for the Onkyo C-733 review. Over time, this will help comparing the devices I reviewed.
The SMLS outputs 1.97Vrms. The two channels are perfectly matched matched at 0.00dB, which is what we should always get from a modern device.
I saw a phase shift of 180° across the bandwidth.
----
As usual, let's start with my standard 999.91Hz sine @0dBFS (without dither) from the Test CD (RCA out):
Hmmm, the THD is extremely low, but we have a pack of random and correlated noise at the foot of the fundamental. It impacts a little the SINAD, as we are loosing 2-3dB into that.
The two channels have the exact same performances.
Let's try the same 6dB lower:
Again, it repeats. THD is even lower here, too bad to have that low level noise, else we had a winner.
It's free of power supply related leakage:
On that zoomed view between 20Hz to 1kHz, and with linear frequency scale, you can better appreciate the correlated noise (all these low level spikes). Their frequencies tell me nothing, I've never seen that. Also, note how the noise floor increase when approaching the fundamental. This is very low level random noise.
Note that I tested these powering the SMSL from a phone's charger but also from a battery (delivering the required 5V/2A) and I got the same results.
We can suspect this type of issue to reveal itself with the Jitter Test, see below.
----
Next is the bandwidth:
This is very flat and you can see that the two channels are perfectly matched, even with that zooming. This is nice.
And let's have a look at it with a wider bandwidth:
The red trace show the filter's response beyond 20kHz. It's fully active at 24kHz with max attenuation of -95dB. We can see the noise shaper of the DAC increasing the noise floor past 45kHz.
You can also see that the aliases of the 18kHz&20kHz tones are very well attenuated. This is good performance.
Now, again, we can't miss the random noise floor at the feet of the two test tones, it is higher at these frequencies than previously at 1kHz. But all this being at -100dBr, at worst, will easily be masked by music.
----
Let's have a look at the multitone test that a lot of you like very much:
This is when you get to like it, because it reveals issues, when there are. This provides you with a view that this problem of low random and correlated noise (not to call it distortion) increase with the frequency. CD Audio format at 16bits is still preserved, but by an hair.
----
Well, time has really come to finger point the problem, with the jitter test:
Ah, yeah, it looks nasty.
The red trace is from the digital output of the SMSL, blue one from the RCA out.
So we get to see our noise and distortion. The SMSL suffers from Jitter, but at a low level, one more time. The highest side-bands are the closest to the fundamental, meaning that the problem will remain hidden to our ears when playing music, hopefully. But this is not nice.
----
Started with the Teac VRDS-20 review, and on your request + support to get it done (more here), I'm adding now an "intersample-overs" test which intends to identify the behavior of the digital filtering and DAC when it come to process near clipping signals. Because of the oversampling, there might be interpolated data that go above 0dBFS and would saturate (clip) the DAC and therefore the output. And this effect shows through distorsion (THD+N measurement up to 96kHz):
| Intersample-overs tests Bandwidth of the THD+N measurements is 20Hz - 96kHz | 5512.5 Hz sine, Peak = +0.69dBFS | 7350 Hz sine, Peak = +1.25dBFS | 11025 Hz sine, Peak = +3.0dBFS |
| Teac VRDS-20 | -30.7dB | -26.6dB | -17.6dB |
| Yamaha CD-1 | -84.6dB | -84.9dB | -78.1dB |
| Denon DCD-900NE | -34.2dB | -27.1dB | -19.1dB |
| Denon DCD-SA1 | -33.6dB | -27.6dB | -18.3dB |
| Onkyo C-733 | -88.3dB | -40.4dB | -21.2dB |
| Denon DCD-3560 | -30.2dB | -24.7dB | -17.4dB |
| Myryad Z210 | -70.6dB (noise dominated) | -71.1dB (noise dominated) | -29.4dB (H3 dominated) |
| Sony CDP-X333ES | -30.5dB | -24.8dB | -16.3dB |
| BARCO-EMT 982 | -32.7dB | -24.5dB | -16.3dB |
| TASCAM CD-200 | -73.5dB | -36.3dB | -19.7dB |
| Sony CDP-597 | -30.4dB | -24.7dB | -16.5dB |
| SMLS PL100 | -53.1dB | -31dB | -19.1dB |
The results of the SMLS mean that the oversampling filter has very little headroom to process intersamples over. It's better than none.
----
Let's continue with the good old 3DC measurement that Stereophile was often using as a proof of low noise DAC. It is from an undithered 997Hz sine at -90.31dBFS. With 16bits, the signal should appear (on a scope) as the 3DC levels of the smallest symmetrical sign magnitude digital signal:
Wow, this is a beautiful trace, perfectly symmetrical and undisrupted by noise at this low level. This is ver nice. Theoretically we should get a square at this lowest level of the PCM 16bits format, and we don't because of the limited bandwidth. The ringing tells us that the reconstruction is asymmetrical, and yes it is:
To come back to the noise that you might worry about, I need to tell you that the problem vanishes at lower level, proof is this very neat 3DC scope trace above, maybe the best I have to report.
And so let me show you more measurements. The below are two measurements of a 999.91Hz test tone with rectangle dither (on 0.5LSB) and they are absolutely flawless:
This is really not often that I see such neat traces, as they compare with the initial WAV file. So the problem of noise I spotted before shows itself at -20dBFS and above, in fact where it will be easily masked into music.
----
Other measurements (not shown):
- IMD AES-17 DFD "Analog" (18kHz & 20kHz 1:1) : -86.8dB
- IMD AES-17 DFD "Digital" (17'987Hz & 19'997Hz 1:1) : -96.1dB
- IMD AES-17 MD (41Hz & 7993Hz 4:1): -104.1dB
- IMD DIN (250Hz & 8kHz 4:1) : -96.5dB
- IMD CCIF (19kHz & 20kHz 1:1) : -95dB
- IMD SMPTE (60Hz & 7kHz 1:4) : -98.4dB
- IMD TDFD Bass (41Hz & 89Hz 1:1) : -115dB
- IMD TDFD (13'58Hz & 19841Hz 1:1) : -104dB
- Dynamic Range : 98.9dB (without dither @-60dBFS)
- Crosstalk: unmeasurable (below -135dBr)
- Pitch Error : 19'997.00Hz (19'997Hz requested) ie <1ppm
- Gapless playback : Yes (provided you don't press FFW/REW buttons)
The Dynamic range is the best I measured and can measure. No trace of crosstalk, and my test includes very low signal on the other channel to prevent it to shutdown. But really here, no crosstalk that I can measure.
Same goes with the clock precision (pitch error) which is better than what I can measure. It had to happen one day. SMSL commented that they made an effort on this aspect, and I can confirm. Well done, I'm happy I finally witnessed that.
----
Last and not least, I like to run a THD vs Frequency sweep at -12dBFS as it shows how the conversion has evolved over time. I am currently using the beta version of REW and I discovered that this sweep gives better and more reliable results than before. And for once I did not overlay with other CD players, because it's the best trace I got, and actually it is the same as if I run the test from the digital output of the SMSL:
You can appreciate the THD score in the graph (plot at 1kHz), this is indeed the bottom of the digital recording, or say what the software can compute on this sweep. I did not put the right channel on the view, but it is very precisely the same. This CD player is absent from harmonic distortion.
----
As I did with the Sony CDP-597, I add a "max DAC resolution" measurement test. It is performed from a 999.91Hz sine @-12dBFS with shape dither (from Audacity). I restrict the THD+N span to 20Hz - 6kHz in REW not to account for the noise of the shape dither beyond 6kHz. I take the calculated ENOB and simply add 2bits to it (due to the -12dB attenuation, as 1bits=6dB). The potential maximum, when calculated from the digital WAV file, is 18.7bits under this test. A "transparent" DAC should achieve 18.7bits, ie 100% in this test.
Here are the results compared to others:
| CD Player model or DAC | Calculated ENOB (999.91Hz sine @-12dBFS with shape dither, THD+N span = 20Hz - 6kHz) | Percentage of max resolution achieved (higher is better) |
| OPPO BDP-95 | 18.7bits | 100% |
| SMSL PL-200 | 18.7bits | 100% |
| SMSL PS-200 (from CD player) | 18.6bits | 99.47% |
| Denon DCD-SA1 | 18.5bits | 98.93% |
| Denon DCD-900NE | 18.5bits | 98.93% |
| Onkyo C-733 | 18bits | 96.26% |
| SMSL PL150 | 18bits | 96.26% |
| SMSL PL100 | 17.9bits | 95.72% |
| Sony CDP-597 | 17.5bits | 93.58% |
| Onkyo DX-7355 | 17.3bits | 92.51% |
| Denon DCD-3560 | 17.2bits | 91.98% |
| Yamaha CD-S303 | 16.8bits | 89.84% |
| Accuphase DP-70 | 16.6bits | 88.77% |
| Sony CDP-337ESD | 16.6bits | 88.77% |
| Teac VRDS-25x | 16.5bits | 88.24% |
| Marantz CD-73 | 14.9bits | 79.68% |
One more time, it is the low random noise of the SMLS that limits the performance here. But, in the end, it does much better the Yamaha CD-S303. So when it comes to compare apples-to-apples...
I think I like this test
SMSL PL100 - Testing the drive
What would be good measurements if the drive would not properly read a slightly scratched CD, or one that was created at the limits of the norm? The below tests reply to these questions.
The SMLS took only 4 seconds to read the TOC of my 40 tracks test CD, this is good. It takes on 1sec to load the disc, so in five seconds max, you get music.
Here are the results:
| Test type | Technical test | Results |
| Variation of linear cutting velocity | From 1.20m/s to 1.40m/s | Pass |
| Variation of track pitch | From 1.5µm to 1.7µm | Pass |
| Combined variations of track pitch and velocity | From 1.20m/s & 1.5µm to 1.40m/s & 1.7µm | Pass |
| HF detection (asymmetry pitch/flat ratio) | Variation from 2% to 18% | Pass |
| Dropouts resistance | From 0.05mm (0.038ms) to 4mm (3.080ms) | Up to 3mm |
| Combined dropouts and smallest pitch | From 1.5µm & 1mm to 1.5µm & 2.4mm | Pass |
| Successive dropouts | From 2x0.1mm to 2x3mm | 0.1mm |
The SMSL PL100 was able to read without generating typical digital noise with dropouts up to 3mm. I could measure interpolation starting at 2.4mm but I could not hear it. This is a crazy good result. Same goes with the narrower pitch and dropouts, it passed even in the worst case scenario. I rarely see this.
That said, I was surprised that it did not appreciate at all successive dropouts. It simply stops playing with as low as 0.2mm successive dropouts. Normally the score there is the same as with a single dropout. So, I suspect some software decision to stop the reading for some reasons in this case.
SMSL PL100 - Measurements (Digital Optical Out)
I know several of you want to know, is it a good transport?
So let's go with the 999.91Hz @0dBFS:
This is what is on the WAV file. Same with my usual 3DC measurement:
This is what we want to see.
The ultimate proof is when I reuse the intersample overs test at 5512.50Hz, with a phase shift of 67.5°, like I did for the TASCAM CD-200 review. This signal generates an overshoot of +0.69dB and so if the signal would be modified before being sent, it would show either a reduction of amplitude or we'd see some sort of saturation/increase noise/distorsion. So here we go, the below is a comparison between the WAV File directly processed by the PC, and when played by the SMSL via the optical out:
You could think I made a mistake and they are the same single measurement, but no, one really comes out of the SMSL. I rarely get to see exact same thing because this 999.91Hz sine @0ddBFS without dither, generates more 65k+ unique PCM subcodes in less than four seconds. So there's usually a little variation in the calculation and representation that I share. But here I got lucky and recorded at the exact same time (I did many many takes, though, so I forced my luck).
All in all, this is an obvious "perfect" transport.
(EDIT 27/08/2025) - Measurements of phones out (into 100kohms load)
Following the interesting questioning of @Ruffy and my reply, I thought I needed to update this initial post with the findings.
@Ruffy was wondering if he could directly drive his amplifier via the phones out of the PL100, as they obviously offer volume control. And I decided to test the PL100 in that context, that means feeding my interface (in fact the Cosmos scaler that has an input impedance of 100kohms). And the results are really interesting, so I copy/paste here.
The PL100 outputs 2Vrms max (so I guess it should be sufficient to drive many amps to their max output, but you'll need to check yours) and I saw the same performances from the PL100 in that case:
I also tested the same but reducing the output by 6dB (1Vrms output):
No changes, which is good news. And I notice that the volume control is obviously in digital domain since it goes by very precise steps of 0.5dB. So I thought of two complementary tests
First, I wondered if (at this lower output level) we'd loose linearity/precision and/or get more noise to the point of negatively impacting our famous 3DC test? And no:
This is still one of the best and most silent trace I got from this test.
What about resistance to intersamples over? Well, not a surprise, but because of the lower digital level, the interpolateur of the oversampling filter has now all required headroom to process ISOs:
| Intersample-overs tests Bandwidth of the THD+N measurements is 20Hz - 96kHz | 5512.5 Hz sine, Peak = +0.69dBFS | 7350 Hz sine, Peak = +1.25dBFS | 11025 Hz sine, Peak = +3.0dBFS |
| SMSL PL100 (RCA out) | -53.1dB | -31dB | -19.1dB |
| SMSL PL100 (Phones out -6db into 100kohms) | -73.5dB | -74dB | -75.5dB |
Note this is inclusive of noise up to 96kHz and it's impacted by the noise shaper of the converter. The THD alone ranges from -104dBr to -93dBr, ie there's no distortion to complain about.
All other tests were not impacted (at this -6dB lower output level, I mean) and actually some IMD tests improved too.
These few complementary tests mean that using the phones out directly into a power amp (or an external phones amplifier) is more than a good idea!
Conclusion
Wow, that was long, longer review than I thought. But considering the low price, I thought you needed to know more that just about a SINAD at full scale.
The Denon DCD-900NE stays on his throne, but for a quarter of the price, this little SMSL delivers!
Yes it suffers from noise with the highest test tones. But at lower and very low levels, it's probably the most silent CD Player I measured (in audio band). So it will not hide anything in the quietest moments of any recording, especially if they were mastered with shape dither.
Should you have a concern about the analog outputs, you get a perfect transport here, so…
At the end of the day, it is good to see some small flaws as it means SMSL has room for improvements in analog domain. Does the SMSL PL150 perform even better, or the PL200? It'd be nice to know…
EDIT 27/08/2025: using the phones outputs directly into a power amp or a headphones one is an alternative you can consider.
I hope you enjoyed this review!
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PS: besides listening to music and testing CD Players
, I thought I'd try to write a short novel (I get bored rapidly). So that's a less than 20 pages one that I'd like to share with you, if you fancy spending 15min on a sci-fi story that I created for my kids. It is the attached PDF (Echoes of Eden).
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