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.