SMSL VMV P2 Headphone Amp Review

[oleg87]

at the end of the day you don't hear measurements. if it makes you happier then be it. the gold standard of scientific method is randomized controlled trial which in medicine tests against a placebo and not its competitor because we get better evidence with a placebo wrt biases in judgement and not the efficacy of a drug. randomization reduces bias and effectively produces a rigorous tool to examine cause-effect relationship and this by no means means one study can indicate causation.

simply put we need more science here and not skepticism about unlearned topics to examine preference based on staging, imaging and distortion and not just tonality so we can complete our understanding.

human perception in hearing still varies beyond the psychoacoustics research that we did so far that outlines the commonalities. ( ex: musicians hear differently to non-musicians) End of the day i hardly think some of those reviewers are lying. albeit most of their claims are not scientific and simply opinion and thats exactly where we are in the dark.

There’s far less need for “more science” here than there is for golden-eared audiophiles to stop deluding themselves. When it is *overwhelmingly* more likely that some impression they get is attributable to bias and bogus comparison methodology than our incomplete understanding of psychoacoustics or the engineering principles involved, there’s no reason to take such ideas seriously without some very compelling evidence.

 

[Art of sound]

Of course you do. Measurements show you what the device outputs. If that doesn't do it, then you are going by something other than the "sound."

can you explain on what it means to have different measuring DAC's taking 10 DAC's from similar price point in the same model year. Any specific measurement would do like a distortion metric above threshold of hearing that all those 10 DAC's passed have similar sonic performance?. sean olive measured a correlation between preference and distortion but dubbed it as HALO effect. I don't have access to AES and only google scholar. id like to see research that can be validated so i am genuinely interested to see things progress here so it makes it easier to rule out invalid opinions going forth.

 

[Art of sound]

There’s far less need for “more science” here than there is for golden-eared audiophiles to stop deluding themselves. When it is *overwhelmingly* more likely that some impression they get is attributable to bias and bogus comparison methodology than our incomplete understanding of psychoacoustics or the engineering principles involved, there’s no reason to take such ideas seriously without some very compelling evidence.

sure. i'm not considering opinions with the same merit but i am not dismissing all of them also to keep an open mind. NYT opinion article is not the same as investigative journalism. But then again i'm not without reasoning skills to know when comapnies are colluding with the government in a cancel culture even after the twitter files are out. I didn't need richard thaler to tell me that behavioral economics shows people are predictably irrational, i've seen the hypocrisy and some of these biases in measurement and prediction around me anecdotally all my life so that comes natural to me and so do a bunch of these biases even i can't escape from and that makes me human.

 

[ManuCV]

Yawn, yet another chifi that will probably fail within or shortly after warranty.

My SMSL SP200 has been working flawlessly for the last 3 years.
Yawn, yet another insubstantiated comment from someone who probably has not used a single SMSL device.

 

[asrUser]

Yawn, yet another insubstantiated comment from someone who probably has not used a single SMSL device.

You're wrong. I got a SMSL device which failed. You might be lucky, I am not. Or it could be some models are better designed and manufactured than others of the same brand.

 

[amirm]

You're wrong. I got a SMSL device which failed. You might be lucky, I am not. Or it could be some models are better designed and manufactured than others of the same brand.

I repaired stereos while going to college. Every brand of audio products would come in for repair and this included top brands in audio. I could repair some with no diagnostic due to sane parts failing. So the fact that some gear has failed for you is not unusual.

 

[D2013]

You're wrong. I got a SMSL device which failed. You might be lucky, I am not. Or it could be some models are better designed and manufactured than others of the same brand.

Product failure is a far more complicated than company A designs & builds better products than company B. Electronic devises are some of the most problematic products to deal with because they have a large number of components that can cause a complete devise failure.

Even if Company A runs extensive QA tests on every single product that roles off the assembly line, customers are still going to have failure rates that look something like this.

Topic: Electronic/Electrical Reliability

 

[AdamG]

OK that’s enough about product longevity and failures. Back on topic. This is a Review Thread. Keep the conversation rooted in the product review and the test results.

Please and thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

 

[Benesyed]

I feel like people are misunderstanding the point of the voting system here. Just because better value exists elsewhere doesn’t mean that the product is “Fine” or “Not Terrible”. I don’t think that there has ever been a better power capability measurement for a HP amp. And to all the people saying “I‘d rather get this other product.”, seriously? If this doesn’t fit into “Great” for a HP amp then I don’t know what does.

I never look at the votes. I just treat that as a social thing, like likes on Facebook. It isn't anything substantive.

 

[fin]

OK that’s enough about product longevity and failures. Back on topic. This is a Review Thread. Keep the conversation rooted in the product review and the test results.

Please and thank you for your cooperation and understanding.

You know in many other review threads the discussion is not always on topic. Afterall it's still useful information for people to know about the potential failure rate of a product they are considering buying even though it's only based on some random previous personal experiences. Otherwise, this thread is just going to be yet another "stop the SINAD war" thread, of which we already have dozens.

 

[AdamG]

You know in many other review threads the discussion is not always on topic. Afterall it's still useful information for people to know about the potential failure rate of a product they are considering buying even though it's only based on some random previous personal experiences. Otherwise, this thread is just going to be yet another "stop the SINAD war" thread, of which we already have dozens.

We don’t disagree with your point. And we are not stopping this conversation. You or any other member are free to start a new thread with links to this review thread to further discuss and Debate this longevity issue. But this is not the place for that discussion when it begins to derail the Review Thread.

 

[Fidji]

I think we have arrived to the point, where the statement:

"measures the same or very similar to any other chinese DAC, well above audibility thresholds. Beware - really loud on high gain" and corresponding panther.

would be enough as a review

 

[D2013]

I think we have arrived to the point, where the statement:

"measures the same or very similar to any other chinese DAC, well above audibility thresholds. Beware - really loud on high gain" and corresponding panther.

would be enough as a review

Why is the nation of origin of relivence?

 

[oceansize]

I think we have arrived to the point, where the statement:

"measures the same or very similar to any other chinese DAC, well above audibility thresholds. Beware - really loud on high gain" and corresponding panther.

would be enough as a review

It's a headphone amplifier, not a DAC...

 

[Fidji]

Why is the nation of origin of relivence?

Chinese electronics measured by Amir seems to follow similar engineering approach - resulting in very similar measured performance, unlike US or EU samples, where you sometimes get real outlier. So 'chinese audio" stands for interchangeable product in terms of performance for me. And as there is an agreement on this forum, that there is no audible difference between two "blue" rated pieces of gear, I do not distinguish between the brands or models.

e.g. I needed to buy 2 DACS's for my multi-channel setup - and I took the first one from the offer [think it was Gustard X smth]. checked ASR, had 120dB SINAD, recommended "yes". and did not spend a minute deliberating, whether I should choose Topping or SMSL instead.

BTW - specifically to Gustard - I needed to replace it, as it had 2 flaws, despite being on top of SINAD list at that time - when changing the clock rate, there was loud click and it sometimes offloaded the static to the amps, which is something that was not mentioned in ASR review.

It's a headphone amplifier, not a DAC...

Right, my bad. Comment about electronics being interchagable commodity still stands.

 

[Jimster480]

No R2R volume control? Why?
This really makes no sense given the market today.

 

[Crosstalk]

View attachment 344890

And the best thing? Even if a bunch of opamps fail, the unit will keep working. Inbuilt spare parts.

But I would expect the unit will run rather warm. Opamps get hot, and 99 of them will produce quite a lot of residual heat.

But then finding which one is faulty would be a problem. Also, why 99? not 100? Do every op amp work in stereo?

 

[r3uba6HBHa2Ye7F]

does this use relays for volume control? thanks

 

[Jimster480]

does this use relays for volume control? thanks

No it has a POT

 

[Kimbrough Xu]

Too expensive, I am surious at what level would I use a heaphone amplifier at such price.