SMSL PL150 Review (CD Player)

[Michou]

To ensure that our customers receive products of the highest quality, we are working at full capacity to produce and test the PL150. Orders will be shipped gradually in about one week.
Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Picked up an SMSL PL150 CD player to replace a PL100 that arrived DOA. Setup was straightforward, build feels decent for the price, and for a while everything seemed fine.


After a bit of use, a problem started showing up. On standard pressed CDs, especially longer albums, playback will sometimes stop abruptly right near the end of the final track. It is consistent in that it tends to happen on the last track rather than randomly, and so far I have not seen it on shorter discs or on anything burned.


It is a bit frustrating because everything else appears stable, and the transport otherwise tracks normally. It almost feels like a timing or buffer issue that only appears under certain conditions, but that is just speculation at this point.


Not sure if this is a known quirk with the unit or if I just got unlucky twice in a row with SMSL CD players. Either way, it takes the shine off what is otherwise a neat little player.


Has anyone else seen similar behavior with the PL150 or found a fix or firmware update that addresses this?

 

[Daniele CL]

@Michou : Dearest, you missed my posts #179 and #163 on page 9. The mechanics aren't Philips, and they haven't updated the firmware. Their answer is clear and can be summed up as: "So you got it, so you keep it." Others have responded that the available memory is full and they can't make updates.
I repeat, a CD player without the Sony/Philips <Compact Disc Digital Audio> logo is not a CD player.

 

[Fwen]

According to the official PL150 disassembly video, its build quality exceeds that of all commercially available CD players in the same price segment.

A Closer Look at the Engineering Behind Our Hi-Fi CD Player

Foshan ShuangMuSanLin electronics Co., LTD. founded in 2009 which located in Shenzhen, China. And our branch company VMV Technology(HK) Company Limited registered in HK in 2013. Our company is specialized in the audio DAC, stereo headphone amplifier, power amplifier, and with own R&D...

www.smsl-audio.com

 

[Daniele CL]

According to the official PL150 disassembly video, its build quality exceeds that of all commercially available CD players in the same price segment.

A Closer Look at the Engineering Behind Our Hi-Fi CD Player

Foshan ShuangMuSanLin electronics Co., LTD. founded in 2009 which located in Shenzhen, China. And our branch company VMV Technology(HK) Company Limited registered in HK in 2013. Our company is specialized in the audio DAC, stereo headphone amplifier, power amplifier, and with own R&D...

www.smsl-audio.com

Don't ask the barber if you need a haircut
In Italian "non chiedere all'oste se il suo vino è buono" (Don't ask the winemaker if his wine is good.)
A good transport can be bought for a few dollars at the junkyard. The PL150 transport may be excellent (it certainly fixes badly damaged CDs), but its firmware is truly lacking, probably because it was optimized for the original PHILIPS transport:
1) It's not GALPESS, never, originally it was, at least when reading from the beginning;
2) It sometimes skips a few seconds and cuts a few seconds from songs.
3) It won't read certain discs at all and gets stuck in an infinite "READ" loop (see post #179). It can only be unlocked using the remote control.
4) The microcontroller's memory seems full and updates will never be made.

Conclusion: You can have the best bike in the world, but if you don't have the legs, you won't get very far.

 

[EJ3]

Don't ask the barber if you need a haircut
In Italian "non chiedere all'oste se il suo vino è buono" (Don't ask the winemaker if his wine is good.)
A good transport can be bought for a few dollars at the junkyard. The PL150 transport may be excellent (it certainly fixes badly damaged CDs), but its firmware is truly lacking, probably because it was optimized for the original PHILIPS transport:
1) It's not GAPLESS, never, originally it was, at least when reading from the beginning.

2) It sometimes skips a few seconds and cuts a few seconds from songs.

3) It won't read certain discs at all and gets stuck in an infinite "READ" loop (see post #179). It can only be unlocked using the remote control.

4) The microcontroller's memory seems full and updates will never be made.

Conclusion: You can have the best bike in the world, but if you don't have the legs, you won't get very far.

Sort of like being a one legged man in a butt kicking conest!

 

[carverguy]

After a bit of use, a problem started showing up. On standard pressed CDs, especially longer albums, playback will sometimes stop abruptly right near the end of the final track. It is consistent in that it tends to happen on the last track rather than randomly, and so far I have not seen it on shorter discs or on anything burned.


It is a bit frustrating because everything else appears stable, and the transport otherwise tracks normally. It almost feels like a timing or buffer issue that only appears under certain conditions, but that is just speculation at this point.


Not sure if this is a known quirk with the unit or if I just got unlucky twice in a row with SMSL CD players. Either way, it takes the shine off what is otherwise a neat little player.


Has anyone else seen similar behavior with the PL150 or found a fix or firmware update that addresses this?

I had the same problem with pressed and burned CD's. Size made no difference. From my observation its shutting down playback a few seconds early. Since this is a FW bug and the file size is maxed out SMSL can't modify the code and fix it.

 

[JMacFlint]

So I initially got the PL150 from Amazon on June 14th. Right away noticed it was not only lacking gapless, but was also muting the first two seconds of the song. Something to note, it did start playback without having to hit play. I immediately ordered an exchange for another unit, and the 2nd unit had no issues with both gapless nor the weird muting that was occurring during the beginning of tracks. It also doesn’t auto play the cd though. I’ve been playing multiple cds in it daily since, and just tried a cd I burnt an audiobook using the mp3 format, with some chapters being over an hour long. Happy to report it handles that fine as well. I wish I could remember what exactly the boot screen showed on the first defective unit, but this second unit shows smsl ver 1.0 on boot, for whatever that’s worth. I’ll make sure to reply if I do run into any sort of issue though.

 

[Michou]

I measured the power consumption of the PL150, and it typically draws between 2.4 and 2.6 amps. To power it, I’m using a relatively inexpensive genuine Raspberry Pi 4 power supply paired with a USB-C female to USB-A female adapter that includes a built-in voltage display. Under load, it consistently reads around 5.2 V.

So far, the unit has been performing well, especially compared to my previous PL100, which unfortunately arrived dead on arrival and was promptly refunded by Amazon.

One useful feature that is not always mentioned is that the unit can be powered off either via the remote control or by a long press of the pause button on the front panel. This makes day-to-day operation more convenient and eliminates the need to physically disconnect the power supply when the player is not in use.

Both the 3.5 mm single-ended output and the 4.4 mm headphone output are specified at 60 mW per channel into 32 Ω. Despite the common assumption that a 4.4 mm output is inherently more powerful or balanced, the published specifications do not indicate any difference in output power between the two. Unless someone can provide measurements or official documentation showing otherwise, the available data suggests both outputs are effectively identical in rated performance.

In practice, the headphone amplifier is surprisingly capable and provides more than enough power for most listening with easy-to-drive headphones. I have not experienced any CD scratching issues so far, which was one of my initial concerns.

Overall, first impressions are positive. The real test will be long-term reliability, but everything is working as expected at this stage.

Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed with the SMSL CD player. It failed to read quite a few CDs all the way through, and on some tracks it would randomly cut out for 3 to 5 seconds for no apparent reason.

SMSL support confirmed that there is indeed an issue, but unfortunately the firmware cannot be modified, so there is nothing they can do about it. I ended up getting a refund.

What a bummer. I really wanted to like this player.

 

[surjray]

Hi there,

Thank you for purchasing the SMSL PL150 and for sharing your feedback.

Regarding the gapless playback issue you mentioned (e.g., with The Dark Side of the Moon), we understand that a seamless transition between tracks is important for certain albums.

Could you please let us know:

• Whether you are playing original CDs or burned discs?
• If the issue occurs with all CDs or only specific ones?
• Which output method you are using (e.g., optical, coaxial, analog)?

This will help us confirm if it’s a design limitation or a potential firmware-related issue. We are always looking to improve the user experience and will take your feedback seriously.

Thanks again for your support.

Best regards,
SMSL Audio

I just got the SMSL PL150 and I can replicate exactly many of the comments above about the ending of tracks being cut off. Thus, i am getting a noticeable gap between each track, which can be quite jarring for certain discs/albums. This is happening with all the old/brand new discs I played.