SMSL PS200 Budget DAC Review

[Bleib]

If anything (at all) then it's probably just a slight difference in output voltage which a reviewer hears..

 

[KSPV]

I am from Hyderabad, India, and this is my first post on ASR. I have been a keen follower of the ASR forum for the last two years.

I own both S.M.S.L. SU-1 and S.M.S.L. PS200 PRO.

My set up uses an Android TV as the Spotify Lossless streamer. The TV has “digital pass through” enabled. The TV is also used as an input selector between different sources, with the CD player, DTH receiver and the tuner connected to it. The digital audio stream from the TV is routed to the DAC (which is either the SU-1, or the PS200 PRO). The output from the DAC goes to a Yamaha AX-596 stereo amplifier. The amplifier output goes to a pair of speakers which are considered premium.

In this setup, I thought I heard a difference between the SU-1 and PS200 PRO. Could be expectation bias.

I felt that the “decay” part (as in “hit and decay” of the percussion instruments, and “pluck and decay” of the string instruments) is more audible with the PS200 PRO.

Otherwise, both the DACs are superb and entertaining.

 

[Watt768]

My Pro unit has arrived as well, and everything seems fine so far. The only thing that bothers me is that when the unit is turned off, the MQA and DSD LEDs stay lit in red. Why

 

[DSJR]

Amazon reviews suggest it 'sounds' better than the SU1, the latter sounding in comparison warm, stark, less revealing of reverb tails and neither as good as a Chord Mojo!!!

I give up, I really do...

 

[KSPV]

I am afraid I cannot say one is “better” than the other. Just that I “felt” they sounded “different.” It could as well be my imagination playing up. After switching between them several times over the last one week, I decided that I will go with the SU-1. I liked the AKM flavour more.

 

[Watt768]

In terms of the technical implementation, I don’t see one as better than the other. However, there is that characteristic AKM vs ESS sound that some of us can hear, and it really comes down to personal preference.

 

[RandomEar]

In terms of the technical implementation, I don’t see one as better than the other. However, there is that characteristic AKM vs ESS sound that some of us can hear, and it really comes down to personal preference.

Many people claim to hear or see things which don't exist. Comparable chips by AKM and ESS perform nearly identical and are both fully transparent (unless the implementation has been botched). People really just accept that engineers can design DACs in the gigahertz range for highly sofisticated stuff like WiFi and at the same time think those engineers fail at reproducing trivial signals around a couple of kilohertz? Pretty silly.

 

[Get a hearing test]

The ps200pro arrived and its smaller than i thought it would be. Very cute. Any improvement over khadas tone board v1? Yes off the bat its louder first of all at the same amp dial position. Is it because of better dynamics? Dont know why but i am using a different usb slot. The highs are higher and lows are punchier. Everything sounds very tight and nice. Wider sound stage. Seems like everything has more distinct place in space. Retrieving more detail for sure. It's so damn revealing i can hear new mastering faults in a recording now, like hiss in certain parts that wasnt resolved with ktb to this degree. Actually wasnt resolved at all cause i never heard it before. Guess thats the sinad difference... Overall it is a bigger upgrade than i thought it would be. Ill use ktb for the speakers and ps200pro for headphones i guess.

 

[RandomEar]

The ps200pro arrived and its smaller than i thought it would be. Very cute. Any improvement over khadas tone board v1? Yes off the bat its louder first of all at the same amp dial position. Is it because of better dynamics? Dont know why but i am using a different usb slot. The highs are higher and lows are punchier. Everything sounds very tight and nice. Wider sound stage. Seems like everything has more distinct place in space. Retrieving more detail for sure. It's so damn revealing i can hear new mastering faults in a recording now, like hiss in certain parts that wasnt resolved with ktb to this degree. Actually wasnt resolved at all cause i never heard it before. Guess thats the sinad difference... Overall it is a bigger upgrade than i thought it would be. Ill use ktb for the speakers and ps200pro for headphones i guess.

Congrats, you're listening at a higher SPL which makes everything sound better on average. The fact that you perceive more bass and treble is due to the equal-loudness contour, which supports that you (inadvertently) "turned it up a notch".

That increase in SPL is likely the only audible difference between the PS200 and your Khadas Tone Board, which measured perfectly fine in Amirs review.

 

[Watt768]

My Pro unit has arrived as well, and everything seems fine so far. The only thing that bothers me is that when the unit is turned off, the MQA and DSD LEDs stay lit in red. Why

In the meantime, I figured out that when using USB as the source, a long press switches the unit to MQA mode, so it’s actually not turned off. A short press cycles through the inputs.
In my case, I can power it off like this: one long press → MQA mode, one short press → USB mode, and as long as the DSD LED is not active, another long press puts the unit into the off state, alternatively, one short press switches to OPT mode, and one long press powers the unit off.
I guess I should have expected the Chinese logic where a single button controls about 4-5 different functions. On the SU-1 this was implemented very nicely, but here it somehow doesn’t work the same way.

 

[JeffGB]

I received my ps200pro yesterday. The DSD light confused me, at first. I finally broke down and read the manual . The manual says the DSD light is a sampling rate indicator. I tested different sampling rates in Windows and the colour did indeed change. Interesting. I have no idea what happens if you play a DSD file... Oh, I decided to finish reading the instructions and it turns white if you are playing DSD. Even the MQA light has 3 colours, but, who cares? I don't think I have ever had a single disk with MQA processing.

 

[Jimster480]

I received my ps200pro yesterday. The DSD light confused me, at first. I finally broke down and read the manual . The manual says the DSD light is a sampling rate indicator. I tested different sampling rates in Windows and the colour did indeed change. Interesting. I have no idea what happens if you play a DSD file... Oh, I decided to finish reading the instructions and it turns white if you are playing DSD. Even the MQA light has 3 colours, but, who cares? I don't think I have ever had a single disk with MQA processing.

MQA exists with some stuff on Tidal, that is about it.