Just a disclaimer before you read; I have for sale an SPL Auditor because I recently upgraded to an SPL Phonitor X so in some ways it might look like I'm blowing my own horn in order to push a sale. Still, I aim to offer an unbiased opinion to anyone who will have it because my experience with the Auditor has made me a keen believer in the company's offerings.
TL;DR, I think that the Phonitor One series are a different animal than the
Pro-fi series because the latter are all built around the company's proprietary Voltair 120V technology op-amps instead of the off-the-shelf Burr-Brown OPA 2134 that the Phonitor One is based on. I don't expect the Phonitor One to be in the same league with the Pro-fi series and even against legacy products such as the Auditor / 1st gen Phonitor. If anything, the Phonitor One draws its power from a noisy switching power supply whereas all the Pro-fi models are based on a very carefully implemented internal linear power supply, with Noratel transformers etc. For a comparison between Voltair op-amps and regular op-amps
see here. SPL's proprietary op-amps give products like the Phonitor 2, X, XE, E, SE, along with legacy products such as my own Auditor, an incredible capacity for voltage peaks and its renowned dead-silent noise floor, both of which are the reason for the company's fatigue free reference signature.
Hi, I'm just thinking of getting a phonitor one d and would like to ask if they are any good? I was gonna buy an smsl su-8 and smsl sp200 but I thought a combination of a dac and amp like the phonitor one d would be nice as less clutter on the desk. Does anybody have experience on the phonitors? I am planning to connect them to a pair of Adam T5V's and my headphone Hifiman HE-400 (I might get an LCD-X in the future as well). Would like to hear some of you guys opinions on this. Thank a lot.
I haven't auditioned the Phonitor One D but I expect it to be rather underpowered for planars such as the LCD-X at 2x400mW@47Ω / maybe good enough for the HE-400 (push-pull configuration sounds promising if well-implemented). The included DAC seems rather interesting for an entry-level all-in-one given that it's based on the tried and tested AKM4490 but I don't expect it to compete with a decent standalone DAC that costs €400-500 or above. Preamplifier stage looks quiet enough and should probably offer great convenience to control the volume on your ADAM monitors. Generally it looks like a very decent offering for someone looking for a gateway product into the hobby and I'd generally consider it hands-down against other obscure chi-fi fads.
*Btw, at the price of the SMSL set, it might serve your needs better if you managed to score a used Questyle CMA600i at around €600 (see "Sold",
here).
Looking at an older Auditor and wonder if this would be a better choice for my HD 600s and planar magnetics...
Again, apologies for blowing my own horn but the Auditor is an excellent match with high impedance dynamics as it outputs its best with mid to high impedance HPs (1.7W @ 600Ω!). I can also personally attest to its synergy with the HD600 as it's exactly the system I've been using until now, only to upgrade to the beast that's the
Phonitor X. Been through several amps and amp/DACs in the past including a Schiit stack, a Feliks Audio Elise OTL with lots of premium tunes and a Lehmann Black Cube Linear, and I promise you nothing touches the Auditor for its reference neutral sound signature and effortlessness. Just FYI, the Auditor shares the exact same circuit with the original Phonitor minus the crossfeed section (see
here).
IMO, I expect any amplifier out of SPL's Pro-fi line to easily serve well as a reference point in the audio chain, as I found my Auditor to be especially revealing of the synergy with other components (albeit, oddly enough, gently forgiving because of its effortless rendering).
That said, the Auditor might be somewhat underpowered for low-impedance planars. This is mostly due to its rather high impedance SE output at 9Ω which, combined with its rather low-ish 360mW@32Ω, might be insufficient to match cans such as HiFiMan's offerings (notoriously current-hungry, therefore the lower the source's output impedance the better).
Hope that helps,
Angelos.
