SMSL PL150 Review (CD Player)

[Parky]

I have one came dead on arrival. I tried every power adapter I have (i have a pl100 and these usb adapters work with pl100 but not the pl150) and it does not work. Wating on a 5.2v 2 amp adapter. I did support a kickstarter which is a desktop cd player with 3.5mm and 4.4mm outputs also has a pc mode.

 

[anonyless]

I have one came dead on arrival. I tried every power adapter I have (i have a pl100 and these usb adapters work with pl100 but not the pl150) and it does not work. Wating on a 5.2v 2 amp adapter. I did support a kickstarter which is a desktop cd player with 3.5mm and 4.4mm outputs also has a pc mode.

it should work fine on any 5V 2A adapter , i don't think a 5.2v PS would make any difference

 

[NTTY]

I would open it and verify the connectors, to check if one is wrongly inserted.

 

[Droid_chinchilla]

I would open it and verify the connectors, to check if one is wrongly inserted.

Maybe they did not obey the rule "Scrap if dropped"...

 

[amirm]

Nice. Promoted to home page.

 

[RogerSmith]

Very good measurements, optical out, even headphone out (albeit quite weak), nice price, very decent design, what is not to like?

 

[milosz]

The line. 'Drill a hole in a CD and the SMSL will read it without you noticing an issue!' immediately made me think of drilling a hole in a record.
Pretty sure that would rip the stylus off!

I'm sure that chronic vinylheads would argue that this PROVES analog / LPs are superior.

 

[totti1965]

Epic. Thanks @NTTY

 

[telemike]

Would love to see a review of the Shanling CR60

 

[NTTY]

Nice. Promoted to home page.

Thank you Amir! I wondered why so many likes suddenly and I realized you previously promoted the Yamaha CD-S303 and the SMSL PL100, thanks for these too! I probably should get out of my cave sometimes...
I also recently reviewed the Onkyo C-7030 but it seems it’s EOL in some regions, so less of an interest since it became a challenge to source one.

 

[NTTY]

Would love to see a review of the Shanling CR60

It’s a transport only, so it would be faster to review, but it’s not cheap. May I ask what is of your interest with this one?

 

[Droid_chinchilla]

Shanling advertises on the website the CR60 having Sanyo laser and Philips mechanism.

Meanwhile a guy in Russia opened it and found out it uses cheap 3 dollars aliexpress drives (video in russian, use cc):

Shanling took position on Headfi.org and said they will remove (only) the Sanyo advertising. Till now they did not.

Whole thread here:

Introducing Shanling CR60 - CD Transport & CD Ripper at just 269 USD

In principle, the author of the video rates the assembly of the transport as excellent, as a cheap device. The only minus is the non-original Phillips drive and the Sanyo laser head.

www.head-fi.org

I had a CR60, returned it because it did not read all CDs - sound stopped randomly or skipped tracks by itself after trying to read them. Had problems when ejecting CDs when the errors occured and it restarted itself.

Looks good, but I do not think it is worth the money. The PL150 is miles ahead in product value.

Personal oppinion

 

[Parky]

Those cd optics are in a lot of cd player/receivers they do make it a lot easier to repair. I have used them in a few different systems and had no issues.

 

[aagstn]

There is nothing wrong with Shanling sourcing the CD components from the Chinese factories that used to make them for Sanyo, Philips, Sony or whatever. It is however, very disingenuous for them to use the names of those Japanese companies to imply their components have the same quality. There is no way to know if the quality is at the same standards it was for Sanyo with these newer clones. Just be upfront or at the very least just leave the Sanyo and Philips name out of your advertising if they had nothing to do with the manufacturing of the components. Sanyo hasn't existed in over a decade.

 

[milosz]

Headphone out can be useful for troubleshooting. You can use a CD player as a convenient known signal source to check an audio device / system. By listening to the 'phones output you can verify that the CD player is working.

 

[Bleib]

It's obviously not a super powerful headphone amp but I've tried and it works with all the headphones I have. I don't notice it distorting or running out of juice.

 

[aagstn]

For anyone looking for one in the US, Amazon has had the silver staying available to order the past day or two with a late September ship date from the official SMSL store. Edit: changed wording since they are not available to ship currently.

 

[anonyless]

For anyone looking for one in the US, Amazon has had the silver staying in stock the past day or two with a late September ship date from the official SMSL store.

it's not really in stock. and I wouldn't trust that late September delivery date - i waited for over 2 weeks when I ordered with "expected delivery date" and no one could actually tell me (to a point where Amazon blocked me from entering their live chat) when would it actually be shipping.

 

[Marcivan]

I bought one yesterday. When I tried to load and unload CDs i noticed that the loading mechanism scratches the CD surface. I do not know if I was unlucky or it is a common problem.

 

[aagstn]

I bought one yesterday. When I tried to load and unload CDs i noticed that the loading mechanism scratches the CD surface. I do not know if I was unlucky or it is a common problem.

I don't know how common it is but that is really bad. I've seen this kind of damage mentioned in other forums though the majority of people have no issues with the Pl100 or PL150. It does speak to SMSL's lack of quality control and makes me think these may be old reused drives not just surplus. I canceled my order for one.