SMSL SP200 vs TempoTec Sonata HD PRO

And no, the little Apple adapter has twenty times less power that what you'd need to get the most out of them, because loudness is not what makes them good, not even remotely. And if there are people that say that "if it's loud it's good", that's not true, since I can easly get my Dt880 600ohm loud on my SMSL SP200 amp, but it's gonna distort the sound, making it crap in comparison to my AUDIO GD NFB28, that can easly drive them.

Recently tried these with the Hifiman Sundara. When used with low impedance, low sensitivity headphones, be sure to connect a cable adapter first so that the Sonata HD Pro's impedance auto sensing doesn't think it's an easy to drive headphone and use low gain. I used this one: https://.amazon

I figured I'd pick up the SP200 and an su8, and the amp side of things would be identical (i mean they're both thx amps, obviously they'd sound the same, right?) well I was wrong, very wrong, I noticed immediately upon connecting them that the SMSL sounded significantly inferior to the 788. At first I attributed this to dacs, as you can't bypass the 788's dac, so I was using it as a combo, vs the su8 into sp200. But after 3 days, and using the 788 as just a dac with the RCA out into the SP200, I can confirm this SMSL sp200 does indeed sound worse. I picked up the 887 as it released at the same time I was testing the SP200, and it was nearly identical in sound to the 788

Disappointed that using it with my phone didn't work, but it's now the permanent laptop DAC., and probably can't be beat for price to performance ratio. For this use, it's a bargain.