December 2020

Great Audiophile Gift Ideas For The 2020 Holiday Season
Enjoy the Music.com celebrates our 15th annual gift ideas to give your audiophile!

S.M.S.L SP-200 THX AAA-888 Headphone Amplifier

  For the longest time, getting your hands on a headphone amplifier featuring THX technology was a headache. There were previously only three headphone amplifiers that included THX's groundbreaking technology, the most popular of the three had notoriously inconsistent availability, leaving many adopters with long wait times. But now, THX technology is readily available for the price of $266, thanks to S.M.S.L with their new SP-200 THX AAA-888 headphone amplifier. You might be confused, "Isn't THX the theater company with the loud crescendo that plays before the start of some movies?" Yes, but THX also develops audio great technologies in the present day. An excerpt from the product listing briefly explains what THX can do in this field with their technology.

"The THX patented AAATM 888 is a linear bipolar amplifier circuit with feedback error correction. It eliminates the distortion mechanism of traditional amplifier circuits, reducing harmonics, intermodulation, and cross-distortion by as much as 40dB. This creates a realistic fatigue-free listening experience."

The SP-200 has seemingly futuristic specs with distortion measured at a whopping 0.000078%. The SP-200 also has the power to flow through the low distortion circuits delivering that clean power rated at 6000 mW per channel into 16 Ohm. The SP-200 also features balanced inputs and outputs. The SP-200 has no problem powering difficult to drive headphones to an ear bleeding but clear level. The SP-200 was able to drive my moderately difficult to drive T50 mods to a painfully clear level with ease. But how does it sound? Truly neutral with powerful details that burst into every single pair of headphones that you through at it.

After spending some time with the SP-200, I can highly recommend the S.M.S.L SP-200 THX AAA-888 headphone amplifier as the perfect gift for any audiophile. A headphone amplifier of this caliber should be priced starting in the $1000s, but the SP-200 is sitting here in the gift guide at a price of $289. Funny enough, the SP-200 is was a gift to me for my birthday! And I love it. Outstanding price to performance that needs to be put under the tree. Great sound for a great price always makes a good gift for any audiophile. You can buy the S.M.S.L SP-200 THX AAA-888 headamp from Amazon at this link.

Recommended by Enjoy the Music.com's Frank Garofalo.

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