Congrats for the review and also for the playlist, so full of wonders.

Thank you very much!

Thanks for doing this I am considering one

Thank you.
What amplifier and headphones do you have?

Beyerdynamic DT 990 Sennheiser 650 and ordering a pair of Sundara headphones.
Headphone amp is a Drop THX AAA 789. I mostly listen to speakers but wanted to try something different

I also have the 789 and the combination should be great especially with the 650.
Just don't except it to be very full bodied.
You are going to have excellent clarity, layering, detail and precision.

Appreciate the input Ichos.

i purchased this from aoshida to replace an smsl su-8 and could not be happier. i use both tidal and qobuz. i have been leaning towards qobuz but this unit really opens up mqa and now i'm leaning towards tidal. ears dont lie!!

@cb5150
Listening right now with the HO200 evaluating the Deva Pro.
Great combo for the money and more!

Good review but I'm confused about the scaling comment. How is it not able to scale with higher end gear? Also, wouldn't that necessitate using the I2S/AES inputs for best results? Maybe I missed it but I didn't see any mention that those inputs were tested in the review.

@wushuliu
Thank you, I don't see why you are confused.
In my opinion the DAC cannot compete with higher end gear and isn't able to provide the level of the sound that is needed for accommodating higher tier amplifiers and headphones.
It is certainly good and more for the price but for example it cannot touch the timbre and technicalities in presentation of - let's say as example - the Schiit Gugnir multibit.
For example when I used it for my 2 channel set-up with Audiophysic Step 35 and Kinki EX-M1, it pretty fell apart.
Regarding the inputs I have tested all except the AES and couldn't tell any difference.
All inputs are handed by the same chipset and my transport is providing signal of equal quality from all the outputs.
I am currently switching between I2S and USB and I get the same sonic results.

Honestly I wouldn't hesitate in buying it unless I owned quite upstream gear but then it I did I would buy something more expensive even from SMSL.

Mind you that I don't belong in the camp "all DACs sound the same as long as they measure good".

Ok, that's helpful. I was confused because you didn't mention any of that context in the review. Now that you've done so, you're assessment is clearer. Thanks.

I2S does not support MQA?

I2S and Bluetooth interfaces doesn't support MQA.
All others do.

Full MQA decoding from all outputs! Now that's something!

From all digital inputs except bluetooth and I2S.
This is a good selling point for some people but not for me since I don't care about MQA.

Me too. But it's a very nice feature for some people.

I’ve noticed two occasions when turning on the DO200 resulted in an issue:
One time the right channel had no sound .. I had to unplug the ac cord and then right channel started work again.
The last issue, the music was all muffled … again needed to reboot the DO200

Currently only using the I2S as input from a SMSL SD-9