SMSL PL200 (CD Player)

[CleanSound]

I know no one really plays CDs anymore, but this looks high end. Too bad doesn't play SACD.

What do you think about this product?

PL200

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

 

[kongkong]

It looks good and also useful as DDC/DAc with CD player.

 

[MCH]

As someone that still owns and uses CDs, I love the idea (just wonder why if you add a super DAC you put spdif outputs instead of inputs...)
But these people are so much out of their field with something that requires mechanical parts that 40 years later they come with... a detachable cover (???) Hilarious I imagine a team of designers in their mid 20s that never actually used a CD player....
I wonder what other usability peculiarities it might have... Hold on, headphones plug on the back? This one they should know it!

 

[AdrianusG]

I know no one really plays CDs anymore, but this looks high end. Too bad doesn't play SACD.

What do you think about this product?

PL200

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

Well,

I play plenty of CD's

 

[Steven Holt]

The price is a little high, but I like it. Very interesting DAC chip.

 

[AdrianusG]

As someone that still owns and uses CDs, I love the idea (just wonder why if you add a super DAC you put spdif outputs instead of inputs...)
But these people are so much out of their field with something that requires mechanical parts that 40 years later they come with... a detachable cover (???) Hilarious I imagine a team of designers in their mid 20s that never actually used a CD player....
I wonder what other usability peculiarities it might have... Hold on, headphones plug on the back? This one they should know it!

Yeah,

That Headphone on the back is really
For the rest it looks quite nice actually, if they can back it up with good sound and reliability.
And CD's aint dead yet, in fact i hope they will make a come-back akin to Vinyl now.

 

[CleanSound]

Hold on, headphones plug on the back? This one they should know it!

That is by far one of the silliest design. Why would you put the headphone jack in the back?

 

[AdrianusG]

That is by far one of the silliest design. Why would you put the headphone jack in the back?

Exactly, there's plenty of space left on the front here.

 

[CleanSound]

The price is a little high, but I like it. Very interesting DAC chip.

Of course everyone is the utmost authority for what is a reasonable price for them individually. But consider this: a world class DAC, a premap, headphone amp and CD player all for less than $700USD?

 

[VintageFlanker]

OMG... It's a top loader!

If you're are looking for a transport only (which I do myself), I would rather go for the Shanling ET3, also a top loader, but with the CD cover made of dark glass (so you can see the CD spinning ).

Why ? Because Shanling does have a long term experience manufacturing CD players, and as far as I know, should have less failure rate than S.M.S.L in general.

Also, bear in mind that you will never get this performance out of CD playback:

 

[CleanSound]

Also, bear in mind that you will never get this performance out of CD playback:

Yeah, I think that spec is only for their DAC.

I know I'm ignorant in this area, but I am not sure how do you even measure a CD player THD+N with an AP, there are no input signal to the CD player DUT from the AP to compare it with the output.

 

[VintageFlanker]

I know I'm ignorant in this area, but I am not sure how do you even measure a CD player THD+N with an AP, there are no input signal to the CD player DUT from the AP to compare it with the output

You ideally have to use a textbook CD test with standardized test tones (1kHz 0dBFS sine wave etc etc). Or create one with a CD-R (less reliable). Then measure what comes at either analog or digital outputs.
I personally did there :

Rotel DT-6000 Review & Measurements (CD Player / DAC)

Rotel DT-6000 Review & Measurements Hi folks, I am back for another review. Today's one is about the Rotel DT-6000 CD player and DAC. The latter is self-qualified by the company as a "DAC Transport", which sounds a bit unusual. It has been launched in 2022, as part of the Diamond Series...

www.audiosciencereview.com

Was my first attempt, imperfect, so I could improve the precision (from -91 to -93dB THD+N) in further testing. Anyway, you can't get better than ≈93dB SINAD with some 16/44 dithered test files, whatever in digital or analog domain.

@amirm also did some CD Playback measurements here:

Marantz SA-10 Review (SACD Player & DAC)

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Marantz SACD player and USB balanced DAC. It is on kind loan from a member and costs US $7,499. The industrial design is good although usability is poor with super tiny fonts for various settings (e.g. filter number top left). Disc tray opens...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Bleib]

I can imagine even in the future throwing in a 64bit DAC just to play 16bit CDs.. hah

 

[Audioagnostic]

View attachment 320747
OMG... It's a top loader!
View attachment 320746

If you're are looking for a transport only (which I do myself), I would rather go for the Shanling ET3, also a top loader, but with the CD cover made of dark glass (so you can see the CD spinning ).
View attachment 320748

Why ? Because Shanling does have a long term experience manufacturing CD players, and as far as I know, should have less failure rate than S.M.S.L in general.

Also, bear in mind that you will never get this performance out of CD playback:
View attachment 320750

They both look cool but I have sufficient cd players already.

 

[sonci99]

Beautiful. Probably my next purchase.
It's similar to my trusty Sony Playstation SCPH 1002, no dac or cd player has taken that place, you need just too much distortion to sound as good as a playstation does .

 

[CleanSound]

Beautiful.

You can tell they hired a proper industrial design firm. With the exception of the headphone jack in the back, that is just weird.

 

[sonci99]

Also, bear in mind that you will never get this performance out of CD playback:

Why is that? Because 2 cd players don't measure great? I thought at least jitter for a cd player should be better than an external dac, because the clock and the dac are in the same box.

What do they mean by "All the signals that appear are original and the JITTER is very low!"?

 

[CleanSound]

Why is that? Because 2 cd players don't measure great? I thought at least jitter for a cd player should be better than an external dac, because the clock and the dac are in the same box.

CD is 16bit, and is limited to 96db.

What do they mean by "All the signals that appear are original and the JITTER is very low!"?

Who knows, it's probably lost in translation. A lot of these smaller Chinese brands don't have a proper marketing or documentation department, which is also why we are enjoying the extremely great value.

 

[Steven Holt]

Of course everyone is the utmost authority for what is a reasonable price for them individually. But consider this: a world class DAC, a premap, headphone amp and CD player all for less than $700USD?

Thank you, point taken. But as the Flanker pointed out, the software will never keep up with the hardware.

 

[mackat]

I was able to spend a little while using it at CanJam earlier this month. Cool little device! The buttons feel very nice.