SMSL C200 ES9038Q2M HiFi DAC Headphone Amplifier, DSD512 32Bit/768kHz, USB/Optical/Coaxial/Bluetooth 5.1 to 4.4mm/6.35mm/RCA/TRS Digital Analog Converter for Phone/PC/PS5

Great performer and doesn't have the issue of a faint pop when changing bit rates. Volume wheel is smooth, but uses the 1/4" RCA instead of XLR, and the same power on the 6.35mm and 4.4mm headphone jacks. On the Hifiman HE5xx I can only go to 75% volume in low gain mode before it's too loud. In high gain it can handle probably 90-95 percent of headphones on the market. If you equalize with a big preamp reduction to avoid distortion, you'll be glad high gain mode has got some power on it.It runs barely warm, and in DAC output mode it's not even warm since the amplifier part gets turned off. The sound is fantastic if you have clean and quiet USB ports, or run it on optical for a silent noise floor. The 3 prong power cord helps eliminate ground loop issues. 6 ft is the limit on USB cables, a long 10 foot one caused playback issues, but the Amazon Basics 6ft is flawless. This is worth keeping, since it's such a great DAC if you decide later to add an "Ampzilla" for more power later. Also a combo for a DAC is a great backup plan in case an amplifier fails. I have a DL200 also and the form factor on it is much better for fitting an amplifier on top of it, but it has a faint pop when changing bit rates.Audiosciencereview did full measurements on it, and it might not look as elegant as a Topping DX5, but it competes on price, especially if it's on sale. Filters 1 and 6 have the best performance (1 is default best for 44.1khz music). Gamers who run in 48khz mode will probably prefer filter 6. Also the USB mode is great, since mode 1 works with consoles and doesn't need drivers in Windows, just limited to 24 bit 9600khz rates. If you have a phone with LDAC the Bluetooth is really impressive. It's compact and runs cool, but if your plans are for a full sized amplifier later, the DL200 is much better for stacking on top of it.

This unit is fantastic for my purposes. Needed a tiny and simple, but quality dac/amp in my living room with balanced outs for my active monitors, RCA to a sub (yes, RCA is active while using the XLR outs), USB from PC, toslink for audio from my Switch (using HDMI to my TV as a thru). Nearly every feature is in use without issue.Everything is essentially flawless except for the remote that requires nearly direct line-of-sight for the C200 to receive commands. And I mean DIRECT. Remote signal will stop being received as soon as you hit roughly 35° to the left or right. Otherwise, the remote is great. The optional feature for LCD shutoff shortly after control changes is an essential feature that I'm glad the C200 has, especially for use near a TV.Nothing needs to be said about the ES9038Q2M and its implementation in this unit. Read the ASR measurements and review of this unit if you need to. Nowadays, you can discard any criticism you hear about nearly all ESS chips. I don't have much use for the headphone amp on this, but HEX v2, HD-6xx and Verite Open sounded perfect in these. The latter two were not underpowered by a longshot.Lastly, I want to commend the speed of the sample rate switching and general lack of failure amidst frequently changing parameters. Most DAC's and studio audio interfaces I've owned have had some sort of issues that required power cycling the unit to fix. I have yet to encounter a single one on the C200, and I've been using it daily for 5 months. No failures going between DS and ASIO. Almost no delay in foobar when changing from a 44.1 kHz track to one in 192.I am so happy with this unit aside from the poor remote response. Almost subtracted a star for the remote, but the quality and reliability of this thing manage to outshine that completely. This is my first SMSL product and I can see why everyone loves this company.

The SMSL C200 sounds much better than my previous source which was the headphone output on a PreSonus STUDIO 24C. I rate the DAC as "pretty decent". My reference DAC is the one integrated into the NuPrime IDA-16. Of course the IDA-16 is a loudspeaker amp, not a headphone amp. To evaluate the C200's DAC, I took the line out on the back and sent it to the line in on the IDA-16 and compared the two DACs. I could immediately perceive the difference while listening to 24/96 music through Qobuz. So unsurprisingly this device doesn't fair well in a direct comparison to audiophile components costing ten times as much.I took C200's output and ran it through my friends ancient lower midrange tube amp (Audiotailor Jade) and Beyerdynamic T1 headphones. The sound was sublime. Upon plugging the Beyerdynamics into the C200 directly, I found that the integrated amp was a bit disappointing in comparison.I compared the DAC of the C200 to my friends older Schiit Magni (micro USB connector instead of USB-C on the current model) and the C200 was superior. I was surprised that I could hear the difference, but to me it was obvious. The C200 sounded more dynamic and/or had greater clarity. I mean it's hard to say precisely why one source sounds better than another. My friend could hear it too.Through my own audio-technica M50 headphones, I am satisfied with the sound I'm getting.I sometimes use the C200 to listen to TV in which case I can no longer reach the volume knob from my seat. That's why I specifically wanted the remote and why I chose this unit. I'm not aware of any other similar device that has a remote.Some more notes:My C200 required some break-in time. That alarms me slightly as I would have thought that an all digital device would not need that. Specifically, when I would stop playing sounds through my computer for a while, it would stop working. I don't mean that it would turn itself off. It would just stop working and I would have to turn it off and on again to reinitialize it. After about a week this stopped happening and has never happened again. Update, March 4-2025: It still goes silent and must be rebooted from time to time. It does not happen frequently enough to be a significant nuisance.Usability: You have to press the volume knob to enter the menu that lets you switch output from headphone to line out, select high gain or low gain, select source, etcetera. To get out of the menu and go back to being a volume controller you have to press and hold, but if you hold too long, it turns off. This is kind of annoying. You can also just wait for the menu to auto-exit due to inactivity, but you're stuck without volume control until this happens, unless you use volume on the remote which will also exit the control menu. Using the remote is an easier way to switch sources.