SMSL VMV PL100 CD player £110

[DavidM1]

Right, but it’s only the official SMSL seller on those sites that says Unavailable. Plenty of other sellers still offer it, though the lead time is about a month out.

There is only one PL100 seller on Amazon.com.au and that is Shenzhen Audio AU Store.

 

[Bleib]

SMSL PL100 CS43131 MQA RCA Optical CD Player

Buy SMSL PL100 CS43131 MQA RCA Optical CD Player with Free shipping on HiFiGo, you can enjoy a year warranty and the best after-sales service.

hifigo.com

Here too

 

[drmevo]

Yes, there are certainly other online shops and sellers still offering it to buy, but I'm saying it appears all of the official SMSL online storefronts are listing it as Unavailable. Go here: https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/detail/id/904.html

And then click on any of the Purchase links to see what I mean.

Again, I may be reading too much into it, but why list it as Unavailable to buy at all when you could just say it's a few weeks out from shipping and still take orders like all of the other non-SMSL stores?

 

[Bleib]

It might have sold rather well, especially after cheapaudiomans video

 

[DavidM1]

Yes, there are certainly other online shops and sellers still offering it to buy, but I'm saying it appears all of the official SMSL online storefronts are listing it as Unavailable. Go here: https://www.smsl-audio.com/portal/product/detail/id/904.html

And then click on any of the Purchase links to see what I mean.

Again, I may be reading too much into it, but why list it as Unavailable to buy at all when you could just say it's a few weeks out from shipping and still take orders like all of the other non-SMSL stores?

You might be right. It’s odd that the site still promotes it as a new product while indicating no stock. The other curious thing is the limited launch. New Chinese products normally go to lots of “reviewers”.

 

[DavidM1]

My PL100 arrived today. The first CD I played was by my good friends in the percussion and guitar duo Dakura (stream it, it’s beautiful).

The second CD was Dark Side of the Moon. Naturally, I was listening for gaps but I didn’t hear any until the expected one before Money, which starts the second side. A couple of times I looked up to see if a new track number had started and found that it had several seconds before without me noticing.

This wasn’t a rigorous test, more of a casual observation. This was only one gapless CD.

I’m sending data to an external DAC via coax. I wonder if those getting gaps are using the internal DAC and RCA outputs?

 

[Emmodd]

My PL100 arrived today. The first CD I played was by my good friends in the percussion and guitar duo Dakura (stream it, it’s beautiful).

The second CD was Dark Side of the Moon. Naturally, I was listening for gaps but I didn’t hear any until the expected one before Money, which starts the second side. A couple of times I looked up to see if a new track number had started and found that it had several seconds before without me noticing.

This wasn’t a rigorous test, more of a casual observation. This was only one gapless CD.

I’m sending data to a DAC via coax. I wonder if those getting gaps are using the internal DAC and RCA outputs?

View attachment 424726

Just tried my version of DSOTM and can confirm completely gapless playback.

Beatles Love album is gapless on streaming and absolutely should be on CD but evidently hasn't been mastered that way bizarrely!

 

[DavidM1]

Just tried my version of DSOTM and can confirm completely gapless playback.

Were you using RCA or digital out?

 

[Emmodd]

Were you using RCA or digital out?

Coax out into external dac

 

[ScottMob816]

I was hoping to use the PL100 to be able to rip CDs to the internal storage on my Nucleus One, but I can't connect it to my PC. Probably the issue with the PC's USB power. Any suggestions?

 

[DavidM1]

I was hoping to use the PL100 to be able to rip CDs to the internal storage on my Nucleus One, but I can't connect it to my PC. Probably the issue with the PC's USB power. Any suggestions?

No, it’s just a CD player. USB is only to power it, not an output.

 

[drmevo]

My PL100 arrived today. The first CD I played was by my good friends in the percussion and guitar duo Dakura (stream it, it’s beautiful).

The second CD was Dark Side of the Moon. Naturally, I was listening for gaps but I didn’t hear any until the expected one before Money, which starts the second side. A couple of times I looked up to see if a new track number had started and found that it had several seconds before without me noticing.

This wasn’t a rigorous test, more of a casual observation. This was only one gapless CD.

I’m sending data to an external DAC via coax. I wonder if those getting gaps are using the internal DAC and RCA outputs?

View attachment 424726

Interesting! The plot thickens. I did think it strange there were just about as many folks claiming it is indeed capable of gapless as there are those claiming it isn't. My use case would be as a transport, so as long as it works over the digital outputs then I would be back in the buyer camp.

 

[DavidM1]

I did think it strange there were just about as many folks claiming it is indeed capable of gapless as there are those claiming it isn't.

I plan to use it only as a transport but with a spirit of enquiry I plugged in headphones and went back to Dark Side of the Moon.

It turns out that if using the internal DAC to a headphone out there is a very slight gap between tracks. More of a hiccup than a gap but a slight separation in any tones that should have been continuous. Unfortunate, but there it is.

So, I thought I’d double check the coax to external DAC result. At first I thought I detected a gap there as well so to clear any cache I ejected the CD and played another briefly then restarted DSOTM. No gaps and I paid particular attention to the transition between tracks 2 and 3 where there is a continuous sound playing. Definitely gapless there.

As far as I can tell the PL100 is gapless as a transport but has a tiny gap apparent between tracks when using the internal DAC and headphone out.

Is the result with my copy of Dark Side of the Moon typical of all gapless CDs? I don’t know but I would think it likely.

 

[johny_2000]

How about the noise level when the disc is spinning?

 

[DavidM1]

How about the noise level when the disc is spinning?

Very quiet. I can’t hear it from my listening position so it seems much like streaming. I could hear the spin when I put my ear down to it.

 

[Tell]

Has anyone tried doing something about that ugly front yet?

 

[Bleib]

I plan to use it only as a transport but in a sense of enquiry I plugged in headphones and went back to Dark Side of the Moon.

It turns out that if using the internal DAC to a headphone out there is a very slight gap between tracks. More of a hiccup than a gap but a slight separation in any tones that should have been continuous. Unfortunate, but there it is.

So, I thought I’d double check the coax to external DAC result. At first I thought I detected a gap there as well so to clear any cache I ejected the CD and played another briefly then restarted DSOTM. No gaps and I paid particular attention to the transition between tracks 2 and 3 where there is a continuous sound playing. Definitely gapless there.

As far as I can tell the PL100 is gapless as a transport but has a tiny gap apparent between tracks when using the internal DAC and headphone out.

Is the result with my copy of Dark Side of the Moon typical of all gapless CDs? I don’t know but I would think it likely.

View attachment 424972

Ok. So it might be that the dac chip goes quickly to sleep which creates the gap. With an external DAC this is avoided..

 

[DavidM1]

Has anyone tried doing something about that ugly front yet?

Just a thought on that… In pictures the eye is drawn to the circles but in reality it mainly looks like a mid-grey panel with a bit of variation. It’s too small to notice the graphic from across the room. Perhaps you would on a desk.

A lighter coloured faceplate would be better but in the end it’s just another box and it looks fine.

 

[Tell]

Just a thought on that… In pictures the eye is drawn to the circles but in reality it mainly looks like a mid-grey panel with a bit of variation. It’s too small to notice the graphic from across the room. Perhaps you would on a desk.

A lighter coloured faceplate would be better but in the end it’s just another box and it looks fine.

Even if it would be plain grey it's still butt ugly. I mean there's nothing that looks good about that whole thing except it's size, so if there would be a way to relatively easy change the front panel I'd might consider buying one of these.

 

[Bleib]

Even if it would be plain grey it's still butt ugly. I mean there's nothing that looks good about that whole thing except it's size, so if there would be a way to relatively easy change the front panel I'd might consider buying one of these.

The front should be like brushed aluminum or something, it would look so much better. The extra design on the front makes it look a bit of a toy, but once its in my hands I thought the build quality otherwise feels great. It's sturdy. The display could look a bit nicer, but it's better than nothing. There's a Danish alternative that costs almost twice as much, Tangent CD II that offers nothing