Hans, thanks for the review. I purchased the SMSL DP5 a few months ago for $630 on Amazon. I don't stream music, I purchased the DP5 to play my FLAC files from an external Samsung T5 SSD which it does very well. I connect with an optical cable to my Outlaw RR2160 MkII receiver's DAC input. I have Emotiva 2+ speakers. It sounds excellent. I also tried connecting it using RCA cables to my receiver's analog input. The receiver's internal DAC which is a Burr Brown actually sounds a little more detailed to me than the DP5 DAC with the RCA cables. The main issue I've found is that this unit has a nice display and will show the artwork for your tracks but if the artwork is greater than 1000x1000 pixels in size it will not display it at all. I found this out the hard way as I had already ripped a couple hundred of my CDs to FLAC. Fortunately with the ripping tool that I use I was able to resize them and update their metadata. I'm glad I found this out early as I had a couple thousand more CDs to rip. About the display, it’s rectangular and clear. But because it enlarges the artwork to fill the screen, it only displays approximately the top 75 percent of the track's artwork so the bottom 25 percent of the artwork is cutoff. The current track information is superimposed over the bottom 3rd of the artwork. Since the track information is in white, if you have an album cover with a light background the track info is invisible. Not a deal breaker for me at the time but I would prefer to see the full artwork in a smaller square and the track info displayed on the left or right of it, or at least given the option to. Another disappointment is that it does not have the ability to read .m3u playlist files. Instead you have to save your playlist from within the unit which is cumbersome and takes some time to do. By the way, anytime you save new tracks to your external drive you must use the "update music" function in the unit to have it include those new tracks in order to play them. The problem with this is that if you have around 2000 albums it takes about 30 minutes to update. You cannot update just the new tracks. If you don't have the time to run the music update and want to play your new tracks immediately, you can kind of get around this by going to the file explorer in the unit and going through all the folders until you find the new tracks and play them from there. Depending on where your album is alphabetically, it can be a pain. The Hiby app that it works with won't find the tracks either if you don't use the update music function first. I have around 2500 CD albums in FLAC format. Using the remote control to find a particular album or track is a task and then some when you have that many titles. So I decided to try using the HiBy app to access the unit from my IPhone or IPad. Setting up this app to work with Bluetooth is a hassle. One of the main issues with it is that once you close the app, most of the time you lose your connection or pairing and have to manually reconnect again. I sit about 8 feet away from the unit and it tends to not automatically connect or sync with the unit most of the time unless the app is left open. The app has some nice search features so you can find your tunes and albums quickly but with some caveats. Although it will for example find 15 albums by the same artist in a search, it will only display 10 of them. Same with the tracks, if it finds lets say 13 tracks in an album it will only display the first 10 of them. That is weird as heck. I checked to see if there is some display setting for this and found none. Additionally when searching by album title, If you have more than one album with the same name even though it it by different artists it will combine the tracks from both albums together. So I'm listening to this album and when the track ends, instead of going to the next track on the album, it skips over to the other album with the same name by a different musician and plays the next track. In short, the app looks good and theoretically can make browsing for my music easier but it is buggy. I contacted Hiby about this and they responded that they would notify their developers. It would be better if these units had their own app that would work over a home network instead of some 3rd party app like Hiby that requires Bluetooth. The remote control is very cheaply made and you feel like you are going to break it having to press the button so many times. Honestly, I had nothing to compare this unit with. Most of the other units that seem to offer similar features were way out of my price range. Again I don't stream with this, it's just to playback FLAC files. Overall its a good unit for the price so I kept it. But a major firmware update and display update would make a world of difference. Would I buy it again? Nope, In fact I should of returned the unit within the free return period and save my money to possibly purchase a Sony or HiFi Rose RS201E which both cost 3 times as much but nicer units if you can afford them. Lastly, tech support for SMSL stinks too. Facebook and social media, really? Trying to describe to their support an issue or suggestion like what I have with the display is futile; they don't understand you. I certainly appreciate not having to browse through my physical CDs now to play music but I'm saving my money to buy a better unit.
Bought one recently and I use it entirely for airplay and bought it because of the artwork display screen. I’m quite disappointed with the artwork yes it shows the whole album art but on top by approx 1/8 of the screen its covered by the player info like the wifi icon airplay etc and half of the artwork is covered by the album info so can’t really appreciate the artwork. I hope they can make an option to turn it on or off in the next firmware.
Nice work Hans. It really is becoming quite amazing what you can get for relatively little money these day's. A very positive aspect of being an audiophile in the modern world. 😁👍🎧
good to have u back Hans ! can u please look in to the pretty new "IFI zen streamer " i think many of us here will want a real comparison to the new node, Pro ject strem box ultra and other streamers ... 🤞🤞🤞
Thank you for the nice review. Is the SMSL SD-9 just a streamer-only version of the DP5, or are there other differences? The SD-9 price point is $200 less and I can’t figure out which has the superior streamer, which is all I need it for…
Hi Hans i just discovered your you tube videos and they are very helpfull. I am watching your videos from Bogotá, Colombia South America. I am a little confuse having a Cambridge AXR 100 , eather to buy a Dac and use my mac with tidal or buy a bluesound that includes DAC and streamer at the same time.
Smsl make good products but I’ll stick to my bluesound node 2i for versatility and of coarse the blu OS app. But the smsl looks really good and well made. Thank you for the video Hans! 🔊😎
Welcome back Hans. Really glad you reviewed this little "overachiever". I bought it the week it became available and thought it sounded outstanding (for the price) in my dedicated reference 2-channel room. I just kept waiting for Roon certification which never happened. I ended up swapping it for a Matrix mini-i pro 3 and love the Roon integration and sound quality. I still think the DP5 is a worthy piece of gear for many who have no interest in Roon. It is also worth mentioning that the XLR output with the internal DAC can drive an amp directly using the built-in volume control and sound fantastic.
@@al201103 - I certainly did. Short answer: the "filter" options on the Matrix mini-i Pro 3 are definitely audible in my system. Funny thing is my DP5 is still in the box - for the money, I like it so much and would love to use it in another system if it ever becomes Roon capable (or I should just sell it). Also, the headphone portion of the Matrix is way superior to the SMSL (although I just bought a HiFiMan EF400 headphone amp/DAC that blows away everything I own including my BHK Signature preamp headphone out). Anyway, I run balanced XLR throughout my system and as I wrote earlier, the DP5 sounded great DIRECT via XLR to my power amp (BHK-250) which is rare.
In general, do these external DACs output simultaneously to both the XLR and RCA outputs? So could use XLR to go to the mains amplifier and then RCA to the plate amp of the subwoofer? It's never clear to me which DACs support this or not.
Hi Hans, glad to see you back and healthy again, I'm a digital geezer who's still using an Allo DigiOne Sig with upgraded PSU for the simple reason that I can run piCore player with LMS and control it with the Orange Squeeze app on my phone. I've been happy with this setup for years and, for now, have little intention of changing unless... Question: can I run LMS on the Dp5 MQA?
Hi Hans. I have updated the firmware 1.5 of the smsl dp5 device. The problem is that with this new version the device is not disconnected, and the hard disk continues to work. The red light that indicates that it is off does not appear. Please, can you help me? Thank you
Note, the SMSL DP5 has two major flaws. The first is that it applies 10% crosstalk to its analog outputs. This is written into the firmware and can not be switched off. Second, while it can accept a 4TB HDD, it will only index 30,000 tracks - approximately 1TB worth of music.
Hello Hans, very good your tutorial, which allows me to ask you a question. I want to buy it as I have a lot of music in Flac.Dsf, Dsf, Iso etc on external hard drives, but I have heard comments that it takes about half an hour to read a hard drive of approx. 3 tera bytes (25,000 files). Is that real ? I would be grateful if you could answer me so that I can decide to buy it. Thank you very much in advance.
Dear Hans , welcome back. Could you please comment on the mqa situation or maybe you can upload a new video. They said mqa is not lossless and some people say it is not good.
I have the same question but i read that the i2s protocol is different and they only work with smsl products?! I Have the Holo Spring Dac 1 and the i2s is a type 3 and different from the DP5. Would this be correct?
Thank you for this opportunity to contact you. Do you think that you may have a personal interest and the finances available, to obtain for an in depth evaluation over a series of videos, a Smyth Research A16 Real 3D Audio Headphone Processor? Other UA-cam "Audio Enthusiasts" have not had interest in this product for various reasons. For most it is the monetary cost associated with the complexity of setting up the unit in its most basic of configurations, compared to a personal enjoyment ratio. Thank you in advance in what ever way that you can reply!
You don't know what you're bargaining for. The reconstruction filter in QMA enabled devices is often rather better than in the non-MQA version. Also if you don't play MQA files.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel What do you mean better? I just thought that a non MQA version could be cheaper. I am not against MQA. I just don't have any MQA files. Also no difference in sound quality between the D90 MQA and Non MQA version. Anyway, its always good to have a choice. If I don't listen to MQA files, I'd like to have the option for a cheaper non MQA DAC. Like the SMSL SU-9n
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel better compared to what? I tried a MQA enabled DAC namely the Topping D90 and it didn't't sound in anyway better compared to my chord Mojo with poly which is similar price.
How is the software?? A streamer without being able to stream is a useless piece of hardware. How can I access Amazon music and others in lossless??? This is what we need to know man!!
Welcome back Hans, we missed you.
I missed myself too😄
Hans, thanks for the review.
I purchased the SMSL DP5 a few months ago for $630 on Amazon. I don't stream music, I purchased the DP5 to play my FLAC files from an external Samsung T5 SSD which it does very well. I connect with an optical cable to my Outlaw RR2160 MkII receiver's DAC input. I have Emotiva 2+ speakers. It sounds excellent. I also tried connecting it using RCA cables to my receiver's analog input. The receiver's internal DAC which is a Burr Brown actually sounds a little more detailed to me than the DP5 DAC with the RCA cables.
The main issue I've found is that this unit has a nice display and will show the artwork for your tracks but if the artwork is greater than 1000x1000 pixels in size it will not display it at all. I found this out the hard way as I had already ripped a couple hundred of my CDs to FLAC. Fortunately with the ripping tool that I use I was able to resize them and update their metadata. I'm glad I found this out early as I had a couple thousand more CDs to rip. About the display, it’s rectangular and clear. But because it enlarges the artwork to fill the screen, it only displays approximately the top 75 percent of the track's artwork so the bottom 25 percent of the artwork is cutoff. The current track information is superimposed over the bottom 3rd of the artwork. Since the track information is in white, if you have an album cover with a light background the track info is invisible. Not a deal breaker for me at the time but I would prefer to see the full artwork in a smaller square and the track info displayed on the left or right of it, or at least given the option to.
Another disappointment is that it does not have the ability to read .m3u playlist files. Instead you have to save your playlist from within the unit which is cumbersome and takes some time to do.
By the way, anytime you save new tracks to your external drive you must use the "update music" function in the unit to have it include those new tracks in order to play them. The problem with this is that if you have around 2000 albums it takes about 30 minutes to update. You cannot update just the new tracks. If you don't have the time to run the music update and want to play your new tracks immediately, you can kind of get around this by going to the file explorer in the unit and going through all the folders until you find the new tracks and play them from there. Depending on where your album is alphabetically, it can be a pain. The Hiby app that it works with won't find the tracks either if you don't use the update music function first.
I have around 2500 CD albums in FLAC format. Using the remote control to find a particular album or track is a task and then some when you have that many titles. So I decided to try using the HiBy app to access the unit from my IPhone or IPad. Setting up this app to work with Bluetooth is a hassle. One of the main issues with it is that once you close the app, most of the time you lose your connection or pairing and have to manually reconnect again. I sit about 8 feet away from the unit and it tends to not automatically connect or sync with the unit most of the time unless the app is left open. The app has some nice search features so you can find your tunes and albums quickly but with some caveats. Although it will for example find 15 albums by the same artist in a search, it will only display 10 of them. Same with the tracks, if it finds lets say 13 tracks in an album it will only display the first 10 of them. That is weird as heck. I checked to see if there is some display setting for this and found none. Additionally when searching by album title, If you have more than one album with the same name even though it it by different artists it will combine the tracks from both albums together. So I'm listening to this album and when the track ends, instead of going to the next track on the album, it skips over to the other album with the same name by a different musician and plays the next track. In short, the app looks good and theoretically can make browsing for my music easier but it is buggy. I contacted Hiby about this and they responded that they would notify their developers. It would be better if these units had their own app that would work over a home network instead of some 3rd party app like Hiby that requires Bluetooth.
The remote control is very cheaply made and you feel like you are going to break it having to press the button so many times.
Honestly, I had nothing to compare this unit with. Most of the other units that seem to offer similar features were way out of my price range. Again I don't stream with this, it's just to playback FLAC files. Overall its a good unit for the price so I kept it. But a major firmware update and display update would make a world of difference. Would I buy it again? Nope, In fact I should of returned the unit within the free return period and save my money to possibly purchase a Sony or HiFi Rose RS201E which both cost 3 times as much but nicer units if you can afford them.
Lastly, tech support for SMSL stinks too. Facebook and social media, really? Trying to describe to their support an issue or suggestion like what I have with the display is futile; they don't understand you. I certainly appreciate not having to browse through my physical CDs now to play music but I'm saving my money to buy a better unit.
Bought one recently and I use it entirely for airplay and bought it because of the artwork display screen. I’m quite disappointed with the artwork yes it shows the whole album art but on top by approx 1/8 of the screen its covered by the player info like the wifi icon airplay etc and half of the artwork is covered by the album info so can’t really appreciate the artwork. I hope they can make an option to turn it on or off in the next firmware.
Good day, Hans! I am so glad to hear "Enjoy the music!" again! Wishing you good Health and Joy of life! Karoly from Hungary
🙏🏻
Great to see you back....
You too
Good synopsis, as always Hans. Great to see you back, hope you're doing well. 👍
🙏🏻
Excellent and comprehensive review, as always. Was wondering about this one! So great to have you back 🙏🏼
Glad to be back😀
Nice work Hans.
It really is becoming quite amazing what you can get for relatively little money these day's. A very positive aspect of being an audiophile in the modern world. 😁👍🎧
Absolutely
Very nice to have you back Hans. Great review as always. Cheers!
Many thanks!
Good to see you posting again Hans 👌 great review as always 💯 have a great weekend gentleman 😀
Same to you
Great to see you again and in good health!
Isn't it great?
Great to have you back Hans. Glad the op went well.
🙏🏻
Good to have you back again!
🙏🏻
Holy smokes you're back, Hans. Wonderful!
Thanks to the medical team!
Sounding upbeat and healthy again Hans, congratulations mate!
🙏🏻
Welcome Back Kind Sir!! Great seeing you back and better than ever.
🙏🏻
So nice to have you back again Hans and no shakes! You must be thrilled with the results. It shows. Take care of yourself mate.
totally jitter free😁
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel too funny!
nice to have you back . Cheers!
🙏🏻
Great job on the video Hans
Many thanks!
Gelukkig ben je weer terug en dat het goed met je gaat.
Thanks
Looking well Hans. Nice review thanks..
Glad you enjoyed it
Welcome back, Hans! Hope all is well with you. Take care.
Thanks!
Hans welcome back! I've been refreshing yt daily awaiting for your return!
Good to hear!
Good you‘re back
I think so too
Welcome back!!!
🙏🏻
Good to see you, Hans.
Glad to be back
Thanks buddy all the best Hans
Thank you too
Welcome back Hans.
🙏🏽
Good Job! Thank you.
Thank you too!
good to have u back Hans !
can u please look in to the pretty new "IFI zen streamer "
i think many of us here will want a real comparison to the new node, Pro ject strem box ultra and other streamers ... 🤞🤞🤞
I'll check it out (No promise)
welcome back
Thanks
Welcome back Hans.
If possible, try the Gold Note DS10 with the external power supply. I would love to hear your impressions.
I'll check it out (no promise)
Thank You
You're welcome
Blij je weer in goede vorm te zien !
🙏🏻
Thank you for the nice review. Is the SMSL SD-9 just a streamer-only version of the DP5, or are there other differences? The SD-9 price point is $200 less and I can’t figure out which has the superior streamer, which is all I need it for…
I don’t know
Hi Hans i just discovered your you tube videos and they are very helpfull. I am watching your videos from Bogotá, Colombia South America. I am a little confuse having a Cambridge AXR 100 , eather to buy a Dac and use my mac with tidal or buy a bluesound that includes DAC and streamer at the same time.
A dedicated streamer is always better than a computer
Smsl make good products but I’ll stick to my bluesound node 2i for versatility and of coarse the blu OS app. But the smsl looks really good and well made. Thank you for the video Hans! 🔊😎
I understand.
Welcome back Hans. Really glad you reviewed this little "overachiever". I bought it the week it became available and thought it sounded outstanding (for the price) in my dedicated reference 2-channel room. I just kept waiting for Roon certification which never happened. I ended up swapping it for a Matrix mini-i pro 3 and love the Roon integration and sound quality. I still think the DP5 is a worthy piece of gear for many who have no interest in Roon. It is also worth mentioning that the XLR output with the internal DAC can drive an amp directly using the built-in volume control and sound fantastic.
Thanks for sharing
Did you feel there was much difference in terms of sound quality between the SMSL and the Matrix?
@@al201103 - I certainly did. Short answer: the "filter" options on the Matrix mini-i Pro 3 are definitely audible in my system. Funny thing is my DP5 is still in the box - for the money, I like it so much and would love to use it in another system if it ever becomes Roon capable (or I should just sell it). Also, the headphone portion of the Matrix is way superior to the SMSL (although I just bought a HiFiMan EF400 headphone amp/DAC that blows away everything I own including my BHK Signature preamp headphone out). Anyway, I run balanced XLR throughout my system and as I wrote earlier, the DP5 sounded great DIRECT via XLR to my power amp (BHK-250) which is rare.
In general, do these external DACs output simultaneously to both the XLR and RCA outputs? So could use XLR to go to the mains amplifier and then RCA to the plate amp of the subwoofer? It's never clear to me which DACs support this or not.
Yes they do but often the digital outputs don't have volume control.
Hi Hans, glad to see you back and healthy again,
I'm a digital geezer who's still using an Allo DigiOne Sig with upgraded PSU for the simple reason that I can run piCore player with LMS and control it with the Orange Squeeze app on my phone. I've been happy with this setup for years and, for now, have little intention of changing unless...
Question: can I run LMS on the Dp5 MQA?
Sorry, no.
Hi Hans.
I have updated the firmware 1.5 of the smsl dp5 device. The problem is that with this new version the device is not disconnected, and the hard disk continues to work. The red light that indicates that it is off does not appear. Please, can you help me?
Thank you
Sorry but support is the task of the reseller or manufacturer. I simply don’t have the time.
It seems that this product is in the price range of the Bluesound Node (2 or 2i). What do you think ? IMO the Node is damn good ! 👌🏾
agreed
Note, the SMSL DP5 has two major flaws. The first is that it applies 10% crosstalk to its analog outputs. This is written into the firmware and can not be switched off. Second, while it can accept a 4TB HDD, it will only index 30,000 tracks - approximately 1TB worth of music.
Thanks for sharing
You are n amazing person mate.., back on your feet and bring your focus again…🙏🙏🙏🙏
Thanks to the medical team.
Hello Hans, very good your tutorial, which allows me to ask you a question. I want to buy it as I have a lot of music in Flac.Dsf, Dsf, Iso etc on external hard drives, but I have heard comments that it takes about half an hour to read a hard drive of approx. 3 tera bytes (25,000 files). Is that real ? I would be grateful if you could answer me so that I can decide to buy it. Thank you very much in advance.
Only the first time
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Thanks Hans !!
Dear Hans , welcome back. Could you please comment on the mqa situation or maybe you can upload a new video. They said mqa is not lossless and some people say it is not good.
Everythink i can tel is in. the MQA playlist: ua-cam.com/video/r_wxRGiBoJg/v-deo.html
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel it is before the mqa announcement, they have announced that is Not lossless they have changed their statement.
Semantics
Would it work if I connect the DP5 via I2S to R2R dac?
Yes, of course
I have the same question but i read that the i2s protocol is different and they only work with smsl products?! I Have the Holo Spring Dac 1 and the i2s is a type 3 and different from the DP5. Would this be correct?
Thank you for this opportunity to contact you. Do you think that you may have a personal interest and the finances available, to obtain for an in depth evaluation over a series of videos, a Smyth Research A16 Real 3D Audio Headphone Processor? Other UA-cam "Audio Enthusiasts" have not had interest in this product for various reasons. For most it is the monetary cost associated with the complexity of setting up the unit in its most basic of configurations, compared to a personal enjoyment ratio. Thank you in advance in what ever way that you can reply!
I don't do headphones
interesting if they come with a cheaper non MQA version.
You don't know what you're bargaining for. The reconstruction filter in QMA enabled devices is often rather better than in the non-MQA version. Also if you don't play MQA files.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel What do you mean better? I just thought that a non MQA version could be cheaper. I am not against MQA. I just don't have any MQA files. Also no difference in sound quality between the D90 MQA and Non MQA version. Anyway, its always good to have a choice. If I don't listen to MQA files, I'd like to have the option for a cheaper non MQA DAC. Like the SMSL SU-9n
It sounds better. Please go for sound quality, not for dogma’s.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel better compared to what? I tried a MQA enabled DAC namely the Topping D90 and it didn't't sound in anyway better compared to my chord Mojo with poly which is similar price.
That’s comparing apples and oranges. I mean the same design with and without MQA
Sadly, no roon.
There are many renderers for Roon around, take your pick: ua-cam.com/play/PLMbsmejHnP8EPgrFq93y7cJR8dDnvNOqW.html
How is the software?? A streamer without being able to stream is a useless piece of hardware. How can I access Amazon music and others in lossless??? This is what we need to know man!!
As I said in the video you can use any DLNA app. I used Glider, which is great.
@@TheHansBeekhuyzenChannel Ah sorry, I must have missed that. Thanks!!