Hard pass on a CD player with an exposed laser mech. If you want to use a transport just get either any 90's DVD player with a digital out, an Onkyo 7030, or a Yamaha CD S300/301. You mentioned having an internal DAC.. that would strictly speaking not be a CD transport.

The Tangent CD II is a great small space cd player. Only £150. No screen though, but looks far more expensive than it is.

Agree. People who buy CD players or transports nowadays will be audiophiles. They won't care for the other bells and whistles. On the other hand, people who care for bluetooth and network capbailities won't care about having a CD player built in. So who is this for? And at what price?

Agree 100% . Cd player with digital out is all I need . Allows me then to do whatever I want . I need neither bells nor whistles .

Totally agree 👍a cheaper CD transport version would be great

I’d buy with all of the above.

It simplifies circuit board design to have it near all the other input/outputs.

Their VMH line SMSL's Lexus range as to Toyota. SMSL VMV D2R Audio DAC is 1000 euro, SMSL VMV P2 Headphone Amplifier is 1000 euro. Do you remember how the Japanese took over the motorcycle industry, small, cheap,, and reliable now making the best superbikes in the world.. What is Harley Davidson doing now hanging on by its hairy biker fingernails?

@@patricaomas8750 Comparing Toyota, a Japanese brand known for exceptional quality, reliability and a lack of hype marketing, to SMSL is an absolute insult. Lexus is reasonable as an expensive brand because it's Toyota quality applied to a cool premium car.

@@ChrisStoneinator I apologise to the corporation. I hope I didn't hurt its feelings

@@patricaomas8750 never catch me going to bat for a corporation but not even they deserve that kinda treatment. Your comparison just doesn’t hold is my point.

Randy should review that one too, and do a comparison. There is also the Shanling ET3 which is a CD transport with no onboard DAC. I'm looking for a device in the ballpark of these and the Schiit Urd, but so far I don't think any of them are exactly what I'm hoping to find... but we're getting very close.

It's almost a year since i bought shanling CD player ec3. I can say that it is an excellent player, well made, solid as a brick when you hold it in your hand and most importantly, it sounds great. This one is also top loading and that is why the CD rotation is inaudible, without unwanted vibrations. It has a bunch of more or less useful things, you can manage it via the app if you want. At first I was skeptical because it is a Chinese brand, but it turned out to be the opposite.

@@gogo-fk1lu Thanks for the feedback on the Shanling.

I'd love to see a review comparison between this and the Pro-Ject RS, especially considering the cost difference (to those whinging about the price of the PL200, the Pro-Ject is ca. $2500). I've heard great things about the RS but can it *really* be worth that much more? I honestly have no idea - that's why I'd like to see a head to head with this device.

@@lisar3944 Pro-Ject has had a few "ultimate" CD drives. I have the RS, which was $1,100 USD in 2020. The current model is the CD Box RS2 T which is over $3,000.

There would have to be a volume control for the headphone amp so I would assume it would also work for the amp outs. It's probably the center knob. It also comes with a remote.

it's got a volume control

Let me know when it goes for $329.99 (or less) and then I will buy it.

key point about the shanling ec3: I was looking at it too and it was my top contender. Given the issue many players seem to have with gapless playback now, I asked the seller if it supported gapless playback, and they said it does not! The seller might be wrong but it's so common now, I suspect it's true. The et3 might be better but to be frank, any company that offers any cd player that can't handle gapless playback is out of bounds and loses my interest. It's unconscionable. I just got this unit and it does support gapless playback, thank goodness. I also considered the ProJect models but I really wanted to stay away from slot loaders for the extra mechanical risk - of course they have a top loading model, too, costing somewhere around 2k euros. As if!

In my opinion, a top loading design like this is superior because it eliminates a moving drawer mechanism which can wear out or break, and also produces a considerable amount of undesirable vibration and resonance. An added benefit is that the magnetic cap stabilizes the disc during playback, further eliminating vibration and drastically cutting down on the use of the correction system.

Yes, the drawer is the enemy of lower priced transports. Not much innovation in this right now.

@@HareDeLune indeed. When I got this one I gave it a bump test while in play - I started by opening and closing the drawer under the table top. My old player always skipped when I did this, no matter how gently. The pl200 didn't blink. Then I gave it a few sharp taps on the side with my finger. Nothing. I finally escalated to a full on open handed (though controlled) slap and still no skips, jumps or hiccups whatsoever. I quit there as it was enough for me and I don't like to abuse my equipment ;) Bottom line: the stabilization in this thing is impressive.

@@lisar3944 Thanks for the information.

so...I am in a similar camp, not because I want to put it on my desktop but because I live in a teeny tiny (325 sq ft tiny) apartment and have no room for traditionally sized components. The main problem with a lot of "modern" cd players is that they don't correctly handle gapless content. If that matters to you, you need to add that "feature" (which should be completely laughable, though sadly it's true) very high up on your wish list. Aside from that I think having a headphone amp built in is pretty unique to this player. I've never seen that on a cd player before. If you can live without the headphone amp, I can attest tha the TEAC PD-301 is very small and works ok. I had one for a few years and by now it's a little noisy when it spins, it's quite slow to start/load/do anything but it's ok. I don't really like the burr brown dac it uses but this is a matter of taste - many seem to love that dac as it's quite "warm". If you don't like the dac it has optical out to your own dac of choice. ProJect also makes a range of cd players at different price points that are wee little things, they have a good reputation too.

Actually it's very common to have at least one digital out on a cd player, and dare I say most (?) have both coax + optical out just like the PL200. In fact I don't think I've ever seen a player that didn't have any digital outs. Additionally, it's not common to have loads of digital in's on a cd player as it's primary use is to play cds. Consider that this thing costs less than a really good dac, what is built in here is not top notch, it's just there so you *can* play cds without an external dac (that is what makes it a cd player, as opposed to a cd transport). Many people use cd players as transports only (via the digital outs) as so many standalone dacs can easily beat what's built into any player at this price point. In other words, there is nothing inscrutable about this device - it's completely normal for a cd *player* to be designed this way.

Glad you enjoyed it

What is so strange about the Urd? I would use the words “innovative” over “strange”.

Sorry!

And with the Sony you're assured of getting parts that haven't been bought in from dodgy sellers at the Shenzhen market. No such luck here. These are fine when they're $50. Not ten times that.

it does have a remote. Just forgot to mention it. I had fun making this video but it wasn't really "scripted out"

I have the EC mini here on my desk. I tested with balanced out, and it can somewhat play my hifiman he6se v2 if I floor it, which is impressive. Didn't think the portable part was important too me since it normally rests in my living room, but now I also love that part.

​@terjes64 I am so tempted by it but am struggling to find a use case (an excuse case). I have an upgraded Jay's Audio transport, an old Oppo and an old Pioneer dv 757 so a surfeit of disc spinners. But there is something about that little device that draws me...

@jimfarrell4635 I believe in you, you can find an excuse! Sometimes it helps selling something that honestly doesn't give you any joy anymore, first.

the et3 has some serious shortfalls that don't show up on that shiny spec list. to whit: the i2s pin configuration is not compatible with topping dacs and possibly others (this is always a risk with i2s but worth pointing out). You'd have to source a special hdmi cable with "translated" pin arrangement to get it to work. The usb out has to be physically unplugged if you want to use any other output. DSD upsampling is only available over i2s - which if you have a topping (or other "incompatible" dac) means there is effectively no dsd upsampling. They claimed pcm->dsd64 over coax/optical/aes in the spec but turns out they software wasn't implemented correctly (according to Shanling themselves) so...sol if you care about that. Oh but you can use it as a streamer! Why I would want a streamer built into my physical media oriented cd transport is beyond me, but if that floats your boat, yes that is a plus. I'm admittedly annoyed after my experience with the et3 - can you tell? :D It's ok but I like the pl200's UX better, and it doesn't promise any extras that don't actually work. I don't like the dac and have no use for the headphone out but I anticipated that before I got it, so my expectations were reasonably set and met with the pl200.

lol. yes. I shot two videos yesterday. love Jeff G. the CD player is pretty cool. confuses me a little bit but cool none the less

Never again buying a CD player that won't play gapless. What use is a CD player that can't play classical music?! How is that by any stretch 'audiophile' to have an orchestra fuck up and put beats of rest into the middle of the Rite of Spring?! Bonkers...

it has a remote. The dac is indeed pretty awful (to my ears at least/compared to my topping) so having the extra inputs would be pointless imo ;) I think the bluetooth and onboard dac are only useful if you primarily use this standalone for headphone listening only.

Thank you so much for supporting the channel!

I may have it somewhere here. I have a few boxes to open

@@cheapaudioman Must be like Christmas all year round at your house :) A

you can find the manual online without much effort. to answer your question, yes you can use the remote to skip to a specific track on the PL200.

Not interested in wearing out the remote hitting the forward eight time to get to a track. I'm talking about a button with a number. You press it and it goes directly yo your track. Big deal with me. Maybe not others. @@lisar3944

those are outputs.

Shanling does it this way, but ime their lids don't feel very durable, insofar as the "puck" is fully plastic and it rattles around when you lift and place the lid. If *anything* goes wrong with that plastic puck the player won't work. Same if you drop or otherwise break the (glass) lid. The player is effectively inoperable. What I like about the PL200 design is that you don't need the big lid at all, as it will play with the puck only, and the puck feels much more durable than the shanling equivalent. Even if you lost the PL200's puck or crushed it underfoot, or your dog ate it, and you net needed to replace it, I suspect a variety of other pucks would do the job. Not so with the shanling lid :/

Lots of premium players use a puck system these days. The plate on top absolutely does not spin if that's what your thinking (that would be loud, screechy, wear down the metal and be super dangerous). The puck has a pretty small moment of inertia around the principal axis of the spindle's rotation because of its small radius; none of the mass is too far from the axis. Wouldn't be surprised if it's not adding that much more MoI than the CD itself honestly. And the spindle tends to be a much more reliable part of a drive mech than the laser rack & pinion (and the laser itself), and for that matter, the drawer/slot loading systems on other drives. My main concern would be trying to put the top plate on without touching the spinning puck/disc, I probably wouldn't even try.