On Head-Fi.
Ah I see his post:
"Hello everyone.
I have a question in regards to the front outputs in the smsl SP200.
I know that there are no preamps or outs on the back but Amir in his article for the review of this product had remarked that we could use the front outputs as a pass-through or sort of like a pre-amp.
If I do this with the 4-pin XLR or SE audio output, will this in any way degrade or cause distortion to the signal coming from the SP200 to an external AMP (which drives some stereo monitors)?
Or would you recommend to use a splitter from the DAC output and feed both the SP200 and the external amp? (I was avoiding this as I see that splitters will cause distortion to happen).
thank you in advance!"
interesting to use the front outputs as a make shift preamp lol.
You guys do share a plan, sort ofâŚ
Yeah but his plan makes sense lol
Does it really though? I would recommend buying a 2nd amp.
Splitter from DAC is a reasonable solution, you can split a line level signal with no real loss.
Agreed. I do it myself. The two people referenced want to split the output from the Headphone outs.
Very topical 
Have you tried limiting and controlling the volume from the SU8 with volume âhighâ on the SP200?
these amps arent cheap lol. spend another 290$? with tax the sp200 is really a 300$ amp. i could get a decent pair of headphones. The sp200 is a powerful amp. Ive tried headphones direct to the amp and through a splitter and i can detect no discernible difference. The splitter i bought costs 10$
Iâve never tried using a splitter, and I personally would never own two of the same amp to compare headphones either ha.
Even if the splitter did slightly degrade the audio quality, Iâm pretty sure that it would be fine, seeing as youâre just using it for the purpose of comparing the sound signature of two headphones right?
Oh that wont work.
Lol no i didnt think of that. Iâll give it a try. I heard someone in a amp review say he used a volume attenuator so i thought that would work cause its after the amp on the signal chain.
When you tested through the splitter, did you also have headphones connected to the other end of the splitter? Or was it just open?
Not a second THX amp. I was thinking a cheaper second amp, if necessary. My experience with splitting is DAC to amps. I canât imagine doing it out of headphone outputs, but I am no electronics expert.
Splitting at the output changes the load on the amp, and adding another resistor in the form of a volume pot does the same. You can end up changing the sound.
In addition you canât easily match volume for 2 headphones via splitter because they have different impedances and theyâre effectively wired in parallel.
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Yeah, 2 headphones connected. i once saw a guy on youtube. he was using some equipment to test connections. he connected rca cables together in 6foot to 10foot to 25 foot lengths over and over. just kept connecting them more and more. he would test after every connection and no problem. i think he was over 100 feet by the time he started detecting distortion. He was using interconnects too. I know its not exactly the same but I think we worry too much about this stuff.
Yeah I see what you mean. I think if youâre just comparing the two I donât see why itâd be too much of an issue. Iâd imagine if the signal is degraded then itâs be equally degraded on each headphone right? So the comparison would still be fair at least. I can see what the others are saying too, but it doesnât sound like youâre doing it to keep both of them always connected. Especially even youâre keeping in mind that obviously neither will technically be performing at their peak. For comparisons sake, I think itâd work good enough! And youâre using the separate volume control on the lower ohm headphone to match?
Iâve tried comparing headphones using the ole unplug one and plug the other method and that sucks! Ha. Too much delay in between.
That loading issue is actually present in the DV funny enough, since the Headphone Out and Pre-Amp Out are in parallel with each other, with a high resistance resistor on the Pre-Amp section. Pretty quick discussion on this on SBAF + some mod ideas:(https://www.superbestaudiofriends.org/index.php?threads/darkvoice-and-crack-mods.5621/)
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I think i know the video⌠Wasnât that for digital SPDIF, though? Thatâs very different from analog.
No it was RCA audio cables