SMSL PL200 Review (CD Player)

[Toku]

As a Japanese person, I was surprised to see the ONKYO brand name mentioned. In Japan, the ONKYO name is practically a relic; while the company still exists to sell earphones and similar products, it no longer manufactures or sells audio equipment.

Upon researching the ONKYO brand, I discovered that the brand name was sold to a US corporate group, which is now manufacturing and selling audio equipment.

 

[Chanur]

As a Japanese person, I was surprised to see the ONKYO brand name mentioned. In Japan, the ONKYO name is practically a relic; while the company still exists to sell earphones and similar products, it no longer manufactures or sells audio equipment.

Upon researching the ONKYO brand, I discovered that the brand name was sold to a US corporate group, which is now manufacturing and selling audio equipment.

Yes they bought the distribution rights to Onkyo. They had success recently with their last gen AVRs and recently put out a line of HiFi products.

 

[Roland68]

As a Japanese person, I was surprised to see the ONKYO brand name mentioned. In Japan, the ONKYO name is practically a relic; while the company still exists to sell earphones and similar products, it no longer manufactures or sells audio equipment.

Upon researching the ONKYO brand, I discovered that the brand name was sold to a US corporate group, which is now manufacturing and selling audio equipment.

Onkyo has essentially been sold twice. After its insolvency, it was first acquired by VOXX, and then by VOXX, it was acquired by Gentex Corporation.
Gentex is one of the largest and most innovative suppliers in the automotive sector, which could naturally offer advantages for the audio companies under VOXX, particularly in the area of development.
Klipsch, Magnat, Heco, Onkyo, and Integra are currently continuing operations; Pioneer is no longer part of the group and is once again independent.

However, Onkyo's core development still appears to take place in Japan.

 

[Roland68]

Yes they bought the distribution rights to Onkyo. They had success recently with their last gen AVRs and recently put out a line of HiFi products.

No, you're confusing it with Pioneer, but the distribution rights for Pioneer have since been withdrawn.
Onkyo is 100% owned by Gentex Corporation, even though it operates under the VOXX/Premium Audio Company, LLC brand.

 

[Wolf11Man]

Maybe a little OT, but ONKYO is an example of a once high quality brand that was finaly brought down by cheaping out on one tiny component. They used this part in all their AVR's.
This chip was not suited to be soldered to the PCB they used, resulting in corrosion in the ball grid array. The chip was supposed to be heated higher than the surrounding components could stand, so it did not reach the soldering temperatur it needed. The correct way would have been to use a small intermediate PCB, as it is often used with such high integrated BGA chips. They saved the extra cost for this tiny part.
This part does fail in any Onkyo AVR after some time of use and turns a 100% perfect receiver into useless garbage. The super smart "we can do it cheaper and save money in production" guys with the red pencils, finally killed Onkyo and destroyed countless jobs.

I have Onkyo AVR's worth around 10.000$ new in my basement, all because of this single, same component.
Onkyo, even after knowing about the problem, keept on using this component and production technique on generations of their AVR family, hoping consumers wouldn't notice that it hit all AVR's, not only their unit. Maybe they would accept a failure after 3-5 years. They forgot about the world wide web, connecting consumers today.
When consumer protest got too loud, they started a repair program. The (unreliable) repair they offered must have cost them a fortune, but did not convince customers about their honesty. Also, it was a temporary fix only and they tried to reduce the number of repairs as much as possible, declaring some serial numbers not to be problematic. Which was a straight lie.
Had they spent maybe 2$ more in production or redesigned the board, they would still be the leading AVR manufacturer.

Me personaly, a loyal Onkoy customer for more than 30 years, bought a DENON AVR for replacement.

 

[NTTY]

I hope NTTY and Amir will get the new Merak CD player from Fosi to test out. It's a nice looking unit, CD player/transport. Should be out this month.

I’d be happy to test it!

 

[aagstn]

Maybe a little OT, but ONKYO is an example of a once high quality brand that was finaly brought down by cheaping out on one tiny component. They used this part in all their AVR's.
This chip was not suited to be soldered to the PCB they used, resulting in corrosion in the ball grid array. The chip was supposed to be heated higher than the surrounding components could stand, so it did not reach the soldering temperatur it needed. The correct way would have been to use a small intermediate PCB, as it is often used with such high integrated BGA chips. They saved the extra cost for this tiny part.
This part does fail in any Onkyo AVR after some time of use and turns a 100% perfect receiver into useless garbage. The super smart "we can do it cheaper and save money in production" guys with the red pencils, finally killed Onkyo and destroyed countless jobs.

I have Onkyo AVR's worth around 10.000$ new in my basement, all because of this single, same component.
Onkyo, even after knowing about the problem, keept on using this component and production technique on generations of their AVR family, hoping consumers wouldn't notice that it hit all AVR's, not only their unit. Maybe they would accept a failure after 3-5 years. They forgot about the world wide web, connecting consumers today.
When consumer protest got too loud, they started a repair program. The (unreliable) repair they offered must have cost them a fortune, but did not convince customers about their honesty. Also, it was a temporary fix only and they tried to reduce the number of repairs as much as possible, declaring some serial numbers not to be problematic. Which was a straight lie.
Had they spent maybe 2$ more in production or redesigned the board, they would still be the leading AVR manufacturer.

Me personaly, a loyal Onkoy customer for more than 30 years, bought a DENON AVR for replacement.

Onkyo was my go to brand in the 90's and early 2000s. Then the AVRs starting failing over this and I never bought another one. It was a shame. I did try buying an Onkyo six disc carousel CD player a couple of years ago and both the ones I got from Best Buy had to be returned. The first was skipping right out of the box and the replacement I swapped it for turned on once and never again. I returned that one and scratched Onkyo completely from future consideration. Yamaha has the place Onkyo once had for home audio and video for me.

I don't have anything newer than 20 years for listening to CDs. This SMSL PL200 is under serious consideration. It seems made right and the price isn't that crazy considering most CD players are $400 and up from brands like Onkyo and Yamaha now for very entry level gear.

 

[Danieru Senpai]

A new Onkyo! Nice to see them back to business. This one would deserve a review, indeed But better than the PL200 is not possible, only resistance to scratched CDs can be improved…

My PL200 doesn't have any problem playing back super scratched CDs that skip on my Sony CDP-215 (old ass unit, I know) BUT funnily enough the SMSL sometimes has trouble reading my burned Verbatim CDs that play perfectly fine on my Sony (have to take the disc out, re-seat it and then it suddenly plays). Slightly annoying but thankfully I don't have many copied CDs so it's a very rare occurrence.

 

[NTTY]

Strange indeed since I tested this one from a burnt CD.

 

[Roland68]

My PL200 doesn't have any problem playing back super scratched CDs that skip on my Sony CDP-215 (old ass unit, I know) BUT funnily enough the SMSL sometimes has trouble reading my burned Verbatim CDs that play perfectly fine on my Sony (have to take the disc out, re-seat it and then it suddenly plays). Slightly annoying but thankfully I don't have many copied CDs so it's a very rare occurrence.

Strange indeed since I tested this one from a burnt CD.

Verbatim CD-Rs are among the best recordable media.

However, the burner also has a significant impact on readability.
The fact that the CD-R doesn't work immediately but plays after being reinserted suggests a problem with the burner, or at least some incompatibility. This means that the optimal values of both devices are in opposite directions. This could also be due to mechanical reasons.

 

[EJ3]

Verbatim CD-Rs are among the best recordable media.

However, the burner also has a significant impact on readability.
The fact that the CD-R doesn't work immediately but plays after being reinserted suggests a problem with the burner, or at least some incompatibility. This means that the optimal values of both devices are in opposite directions. This could also be due to mechanical reasons.

The tolerances of each stacked by chance in opposite directions can have this effect.
Change on or the other out for a different unit of the same model and they may be fine.
If not:
Maybe change them both out for other units of the same models.
Unfortunately, all that changing out is expensive
(and that still MAY not do the trick, as the tolerances MAY still end up stacked in the same manner as the first 2).
Unfortunately, one has no way of knowing until it is tried.