SMSL PL100 Review (CD Player)

[Bleib]

Oh well, maybe the next player

 

[UPitus]

Unfortunately I contacted Shenzhenaudio about this and they have confirmed that the PL 100 Pro does not support gapless playback
It's a pity, I'd get it in a heartbeat otherwise. I'm going to buy the OG PL100 instead.

Hi. I wonder why they responded like that? Apart from the second chip and the balanced circuit, this player is no different from the PL100. So, you have to understand that the PL100 has gapless, but the Pro version doesn't. )))
Logically, that's nonsense.

 

[aagstn]

Hi. I wonder why they responded like that? Apart from the second chip and the balanced circuit, this player is no different from the PL100. So, you have to understand that the PL100 has gapless, but the Pro version doesn't. )))
Logically, that's nonsense.

It is different in another way. The PL100 had a Philips drive, the pro and current PL150s have Fujitsu drives. That seems to be the cause of the loss of gapless. SMSL probably could solve the issue, but I doubt they bother.

 

[Bags]

I was going to buy the PL100 PRO but no gapless support is a deal breaker - I bought the PL100 instead - not many left online.

 

[UPitus]

Hello, everyone. I decided to give up on this gapless feature, ordered the PL100 Pro on 2 February, and received it 10 days later. What can I say... it plays great, I'm listening to it on headphones, it's nighttime now and I haven't connected it to my audio system, and I won't be able to check it during the day either because they turn off the lights for 8-9 hours. I live in Ukraine. I took out my favourite CD from my youth and immersed myself in pleasant memories.
Maybe I'll write about it in more detail after a while. For now, I can say that this player is minimalism itself. It works with any 5v 2A or 5v 3A power supply. I connected my old 2013 5v 2.1 A power bank, and it also works without any problems. I bought it on AliExpress with coins and coupons for $128.
P.S. It really doesn't have a gapless feature. I played the album from start to finish without switching tracks. There is a small gap. Well, it's a shame, of course. I would have liked there to be no gap, but that's how it is. It's not a big deal for me.

 

[anibal66]

P.S. It really doesn't have a gapless feature. I played the album from start to finish without switching tracks. There is a small gap. Well, it's a shame, of course. I would have liked there to be no gap, but that's how it is. It's not a big deal for me.

Thanks for your feedback. It's a shame indeed. I downgraded my vote.

 

[AlexX333BY]

I bought the PL100 instead

Have you already received your unit? I was also looking into PL100 Pro / PL150, but now it looks like PL100 is a better option due to not being produced anymore. But it would be nice to have a confirmation.

 

[Ampuser]

PL100 Original VS PL100 PRO - What the specs don't tell you:

I have had an original PL100 since April 2025 and I love it - it cost £106 then - I have had no issues at all. I now needed another small CD player for another room and ordered the new version "PL100 PRO" for £149 and have had it a Week now.
Here is what I found: The PL100 PRO is a very different device to the original PL100. If you are only going to use one of these as a CD transport (like I do) and you are going to therefore disregard the "improvements" to the DAC, added Balanced outputs and improved headphone outputs then the differences to the original PL100 are as follows:

PL100(Original):
Plays gapless (as has been documented in reviews), Requires you to press "Play" to play a CD after CD insertion or power on with a CD already loaded, Very fast power on about 3 seconds and fast power off 2 seconds, . Display shows the CD total time length when Stopped, Display shows time in current track when paused, Optical output is continuous (LED is on) all time power is on (This may be an issue if you use source autodetect as it might think the player is still playing when it has stopped, I have not had a problem with this myself). The display shows how far in time through a track you are when playing - but you need to know yourself how long a track actually is in total . When powered off the display still glows very faintly and and a little red LED comes on to show that it has an active power supply.

PL100 PRO:
No gapless playback. It Auto-plays the CD as soon as you insert it or if you power it on with a CD already loaded. Very much Slower power on and power off than the PL100 Original, the CD total time is not displayed when you press Stop - the display just says "Stopped", When Pause is pressed he display says "Paused" rather than saying how far through the track you are, The Optical output LED is switched off when the player is Stopped or Paused and it switches the LED on only when actually playing a track (This might be an advantage if you are using source autodetect on something like a WiiM device as it will see no signal when the Player is paused or stopped.) The PL100 PRO has a brighter display then the PL100(Original), Display fonts are smaller but bolder than Original and it also tells you how many tracks are on the CD and it includes a bar along the bottom of the display to show relative progress through the current playing track. When powered off the display goes completely black and there is NO little red LED to show that it has an active power supply.

The PL100 original is heaver than the PL100 PRO and is slightly longer from front to back. The Silver finish on them is also different, more shiny silver on the PRO and more Grey silver on the original.

I used the same USB power supply with both the PL100 Original and the PL100 PRO - a "Core+ 5v 3 Amp USB Charger" - It works fine with both models.

Unfortunately I have now had problems with my PL100 PRO as follows - when in "stopped" mode It often will not respond again to the buttons or the remote control and requires the power to be disconnected and reapplied before it will behave again.
Regardless of the fault problem I will say I really do not like the PL100PRO - I hate the auto-play feature , the very slow power on/off is a pain compared to the original versions speed and the lack of a track time display when you pause or stop playback. So I am returning it for a refund and I have now just ordered another PL100 Original that I found still available for about the same price (£147 with free delivery) on AliExpress (With 90 days free return if there are any issues with it).

I suppose the changes SMSL have made might appeal to some people especially if you need the new DAC/Balanced outputs/headphone socket - but I prefer the PL100 Original for the gapless playback, No Auto Play, Improved on/off speed and the useful time displays when paused/stopped.

 

[UPitus]

PL100 Original VS PL100 PRO - What the specs don't tell you:

I have had an original PL100 since April 2025 and I love it - it cost £106 then - I have had no issues at all. I now needed another small CD player for another room and ordered the new version "PL100 PRO" for £149 and have had it a Week now.
Here is what I found: The PL100 PRO is a very different device to the original PL100. If you are only going to use one of these as a CD transport (like I do) and you are going to therefore disregard the "improvements" to the DAC, added Balanced outputs and improved headphone outputs then the differences to the original PL100 are as follows:

PL100(Original):
Plays gapless (as has been documented in reviews), Requires you to press "Play" to play a CD after CD insertion or power on with a CD already loaded, Very fast power on about 3 seconds and fast power off 2 seconds, . Display shows the CD total time length when Stopped, Display shows time in current track when paused, Optical output is continuous (LED is on) all time power is on (This may be an issue if you use source autodetect as it might think the player is still playing when it has stopped, I have not had a problem with this myself). The display shows how far in time through a track you are when playing - but you need to know yourself how long a track actually is in total . When powered off the display still glows very faintly and and a little red LED comes on to show that it has an active power supply.

PL100 PRO:
No gapless playback. It Auto-plays the CD as soon as you insert it or if you power it on with a CD already loaded. Very much Slower power on and power off than the PL100 Original, the CD total time is not displayed when you press Stop - the display just says "Stopped", When Pause is pressed he display says "Paused" rather than saying how far through the track you are, The Optical output LED is switched off when the player is Stopped or Paused and it switches the LED on only when actually playing a track (This might be an advantage if you are using source autodetect on something like a WiiM device as it will see no signal when the Player is paused or stopped.) The PL100 PRO has a brighter display then the PL100(Original), Display fonts are smaller but bolder than Original and it also tells you how many tracks are on the CD and it includes a bar along the bottom of the display to show relative progress through the current playing track. When powered off the display goes completely black and there is NO little red LED to show that it has an active power supply.

The PL100 original is heaver than the PL100 PRO and is slightly longer from front to back. The Silver finish on them is also different, more shiny silver on the PRO and more Grey silver on the original.

I used the same USB power supply with both the PL100 Original and the PL100 PRO - a "Core+ 5v 3 Amp USB Charger" - It works fine with both models.

Unfortunately I have now had problems with my PL100 PRO as follows - when in "stopped" mode It often will not respond again to the buttons or the remote control and requires the power to be disconnected and reapplied before it will behave again.
Regardless of the fault problem I will say I really do not like the PL100PRO - I hate the auto-play feature , the very slow power on/off is a pain compared to the original versions speed and the lack of a track time display when you pause or stop playback. So I am returning it for a refund and I have now just ordered another PL100 Original that I found still available for about the same price (£147 with free delivery) on AliExpress (With 90 days free return if there are any issues with it).

I suppose the changes SMSL have made might appeal to some people especially if you need the new DAC/Balanced outputs/headphone socket - but I prefer the PL100 Original for the gapless playback, No Auto Play, Improved on/off speed and the useful time displays when paused/stopped.

Thank you for the detailed comparison. Could you please tell me which AliExpress store you bought your PL100 Pro player from? Does the return policy include free shipping back to China? You mentioned a 90-day return period. Can the reason be anything, or is it limited to defects?

 

[Ampuser]

Thank you for the detailed comparison. Could you please tell me which AliExpress store you bought your PL100 Pro player from? Does the return policy include free shipping back to China? You mentioned a 90-day return period. Can the reason be anything, or is it limited to defects?

The "PL100 Pro" was bought from Amazon.co.uk not AliExress. But the new PL100-Original that I now have on order is from "Moonlight HiFi Store" - price has now increased to £150 and as of now looks like they only have 2 black ones left and no silver. The 90 days policy is the AliExress Fast Delivery cover with 5 free returns a Month and refunds for damaged or non-delivered items. I see the AliExress Return & Refund policy also says this allows you to return any item free "if you are not 100% satisfied with it" so that will cover any defects.

 

[DavidM1]

PL100 PRO:
No gapless playback.

SMSL seemed to nail most of the requests that appeared after the original PL100 launched. Odd that they completely missed the importance of gapless playback to most punters. I guess, in the end, they simply make use of components that meet budget.

Thanks for the thoughtful comparison.

 

[Ampuser]

My new PL100 (Original version) arrived today ! - only took 8 Days for delivery from AliExpress - all works perfect : with fast power on/off and Disc reading, Gapless Playback, No Auto play (Hooray!), Pause and Stop modes that show track and disc time on the display - features which I think make it is so much better (for me) than the newer PL100 Pro version which I had - and then returned to Amazon. My new PL100 shows the same Firmware version 1.1 on power up as my old one, so no changes there. I note the Serial Number is about 40,000 higher than on my old PL100 which I bought last April, if that is relevant to the number they have made I think that's a quite lot of units.

I would be interested to hear if anyone has both an old and a more recent PL150 to compare the two - have SMSL made any changes to that model since launch?

BTW: Another difference I noticed between the PL100 and PL100 pro is the PL100 does not change the volume of Analogue output with it's volume controls whereas PL100 Pro does.

 

[DavidM1]

My new PL100 (Original version) arrived today !

My PL100 is a pleasure and in use daily.

I visited my brother in another country a few weeks ago and he ran off copies of a couple of live Casals CDs we’d enjoyed on his system - souvenirs of a great time together. CDs are still a thing.

 

[A Posteriori]

I understand that the PL100 doesn’t follow the "Red Book" standard, but is this really critical in practice? If both the analog and digital output quality are high, would this be more of a negligible issue or not?

BTW I’ve been using the PL100 for over a year now with occasional use, and I haven’t experienced any issues so far.

 

[Ampuser]

I understand that the PL100 doesn’t follow the "Red Book" standard, but is this really critical in practice? If both the analog and digital output quality are high, would this be more of a negligible issue or not?

BTW I’ve been using the PL100 for over a year now with occasional use, and I haven’t experienced any issues so far.

I am not that bothered if a CD player actually follows the official Red Book Standard or not , but what does matter to me is that however it is designed it does not insert small gaps of silence between the tracks on (mostly live concert CD's) where no gaps are supposed to be heard.

 

[Bleib]

There are as has been said tons of even studio albums which are meant to have tracks that flow into the next track so to speak
It seems they never go all the way with any design, there are faults with all of them somehow

 

[Ampuser]

There are as has been said tons of even studio albums which are meant to have tracks that flow into the next track so to speak
It seems they never go all the way with any design, there are faults with all of them somehow

One of the worst CD's I have heard for the gaps sounding bad when they should not be there was "A Star Is Born Soundtrack - by Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper" - it has 34 tracks of which many are only about 20 Seconds long and they should just flow into each other.

 

[Dinakar]

Hi All,

I am new to ASR and found this forum while searching for a spare drive mechanism for my smsl pl 100. Surprised to see so many defective or rather refurbished product sold to many customers like me. The Drive did not work from day one , and i thought the power supply was the issue but later found some broken plastic parts after ( It took days to get the right screw driver to open the chassis....phew!!!) i opened the cover. I came to a conclusion that the mechanism has to be replaced and tried to contact the company. I was successful in getting a reply after repeated emails and chat messages (unattended) stating that the model is discontinued and no further support. so i would really appreciate if anybody can share information on where i can buy a spare mechanism online from any store.

 

[DavidM1]

Hi All,

I am new to ASR and found this forum while searching for a spare drive mechanism for my smsl pl 100. Surprised to see so many defective or rather refurbished product sold to many customers like me. The Drive did not work from day one , and i thought the power supply was the issue but later found some broken plastic parts after ( It took days to get the right screw driver to open the chassis....phew!!!) i opened the cover. I came to a conclusion that the mechanism has to be replaced and tried to contact the company. I was successful in getting a reply after repeated emails and chat messages (unattended) stating that the model is discontinued and no further support. so i would really appreciate if anybody can share information on where i can buy a spare mechanism online from any store.

I would never do this. Why not send it straight back if you bought it new?

 

[Dinakar]

I would never do this. Why not send it straight back if you bought it new?

I have contacted the seller ( it was not SMSL official website...a third party site) and reported the issue . They asked me to send pics which i did and since then i did not get any reply from them....