Introducing the PL100 CD Player - Now Available on Apos Audio

[sygnus21]

The SMSL PL100 is gapless BUT... it will only play gapless if you let the album play on without having to skip or scan tracking. ie. forwarding to a section between tracks to test if it is. For some reason, it disables it when tracking button is pushed. Probably a software thing.

I'm a little lost here. So let me pose this...

Let's take Pink Floyd's The Wall, a gapless CD. If the CD Is played from track 1 - 3, gapless, and I skip to track 6, then from 6 to the end of the CD it should still play gapless.

So are you saying if i skip to track 6, from 6 on out, it doesn’t play gapless??? If so, that is indeed very odd behavior.

 

[JollyGreen]

I wish people would stop spreading misinformation that almost led me to not buy this CD transport for my stereo which has been perfect for my use case. THIS CD PLAYER IS GAPLESS, you just can’t skip tracks. ISNT THAT THE FEATURE YOU’RE CLAMBERING FOR ANYWAY?!? It is 100% gapless when listening to the whole CD as intended. And its built well and it’s a hundred friggin bucks.

 

[mobilefidelity]

I'm a little lost here. So let me pose this...

Let's take Pink Floyd's The Wall, a gapless CD. If the CD Is played from track 1 - 3, gapless, and I skip to track 6, then from 6 to the end of the CD it should still play gapless.

So are you saying if i skip to track 6, from 6 on out, it doesn’t play gapless??? If so, that is indeed very odd behavior.

I wish I could explain or demonstrate it more succinctly than this video:

 

[sygnus21]

I wish I could explain or demonstrate it more succinctly than this video:

I got it now. And he's right .... "Gapless but"; and yes, that is odd

 

[mobilefidelity]

I got it now. And he's right .... "Gapless but"; and yes, that is odd

Unlike older CD players, most of these new units require firmware updates and are software-based in their implementation. Maybe in the future they can program it better.

 

[sygnus21]

Unlike older CD players, most of these new units require firmware updates and are software-based in their implementation. Maybe in the future they can program it better.

My Teac VRDS-701 CD player (released in 2023) needed no such firmware update. It played gapless right out the box.

As to your point, I simply think the behavior found on the PL100 stems from a poor design (or programing). Even my cheap external Asus USB CD drive plays back gapless; even when skipping tracks.

Here disc one of the Wall is playing back gapless. As you can see in JRiver, the disc is being played from the CD player - right column shows disc title\track#.cda. And even skipping tracks there, the rest still plays back gapless.

Seems SMSL's issue may be hardware (lens/laser tracking) choice. But that's just one of any number of guesses as to why it does what it does.

Anyway, I won't be getting one as I already have a rip process and also don't require another CD player, so non-issue for me. At the end of the day as long as people know what they're getting into than it may not be an issue.

 

[mobilefidelity]

My Teac VRDS-701 CD player (released in 2023) needed no such firmware update. It played gapless right out the box.

As to your point, I simply think the behavior found on the PL100 stems from a poor design (or programing). Even my cheap external Asus USB CD drive plays back gapless; even when skipping tracks.

​

Here disc one of the Wall is playing back gapless. As you can see in JRiver, the disc is being played from the CD player - right column shows disc title\track#.cda. And even skipping tracks there, the rest still plays back gapless.

Seems SMSL's issue may be hardware (lens/laser tracking) choice. But that's just one of any number of guesses as to why it does what it does.

Anyway, I won't be getting one as I already have a rip process and also don't require another CD player, so non-issue for me. At the end of the day as long as people know what they're getting into than it may not be an issue.

This thing from the 90's has served me gaplessly.

 

[sygnus21]

To be clear, I don't use that portable Asuse as my CD player. I just use it data files in case I need a drive for my laptop.

For CD plays, that's what the Teac is for

 

[TinearedOne]

Well, I did a bunch of research into the PL100, only to find out that the PL150 is coming - and is much better looking with some new features that will probably make it worth a few extra dollars.

 

[sygnus21]

Well, I did a bunch of research into the PL100, only to find out that the PL150 is coming - and is much better looking with some new features that will probably make it worth a few extra dollars.

I wouldn't go within 10 miles of it if it doesn't support gapless playback. There is absolutely zero reason in 2025 for CD players to not support gapless playback. Even with cheap models. And yeah, skipping tracks should also not disable gapless playback. That's just weird.

 

[TinearedOne]

I wouldn't go within 10 miles of it if it doesn't support gapless playback. There is absolutely zero reason in 2025 for CD players to not support gapless playback. Even with cheap models. And yeah, skipping tracks should also not disable gapless playback. That's just weird.

Well, the press release for the PL 150 specifically says it supports gapless playback, so I guess we'll see...

 

[sygnus21]

Well, the press release for the PL 150 specifically says it supports gapless playback, so I guess we'll see...

Yeah, they tried pushing that narrative with this post....

Hi there,
Thanks for the good question. We shared this with the engineers and they mentioned that every CD player will have a certain "gap" which cannot be completely absent but as per SMSL, PL100 basically does not make people feel that there is a gap.
We hope this helps.

We know their word games turned out to be "the CD player only plays gapless if you didn't skip tracks" as demonstrated in > post #33.

With that I wouldn't believe anything until I actually heard the unit perform with a gapless CD playing.... and after skipping tracks