S.M.S.L. Dp5 MQA network player and DAC

The S.M.S.L. Dp5 is a remarkable combination of a network player and a DAC. For as a network player it is rather well equipped with digital outputs - including even I²S - as where as a DAC the input is limited to USB B to connect a computer to. Plus, of course, the signal from the network player it is maried to.

Contents of this video

00:00 - Intro
00:32 - Start of program
01:59 - The front
02:59 - The rear
03:56 - The inside
04:51 - In use
05:58 - Sound quality
08:21 - The wrap

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[mr.b]

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.

[FireTriode]

Good synopsis, as always Hans. Great to see you back, hope you're doing well. 👍

[szallitolevel]

Good day, Hans! I am so glad to hear "Enjoy the music!" again! Wishing you good Health and Joy of life! Karoly from Hungary

[isaacsykes]

Welcome Back Kind Sir!! Great seeing you back and better than ever.

[TorToroPorco]

Great to see you again and in good health!

[bill]

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.

[shanestephenson]

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. 😁👍🎧

[josenebrus]

Good to see you posting again Hans 👌 great review as always 💯 have a great weekend gentleman 😀

[riccitone]

Excellent and comprehensive review, as always. Was wondering about this one! So great to have you back 🙏🏼

[maorsahar]

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 ... 🤞🤞🤞

[korbindallas]

Very nice to have you back Hans. Great review as always. Cheers!

[ceaget]

Welcome back, Hans! Hope all is well with you. Take care.

[xyzDonaldxyz]

Holy smokes you're back, Hans. Wonderful!

[JingoLoBa]

Sounding upbeat and healthy again Hans, congratulations mate!

[jamesdwright]

Great to have you back Hans. Glad the op went well.

[mddawson]

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.

[mkemp]

Looking well Hans. Nice review thanks..

[josemarsem]

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

[djaje]

Gelukkig ben je weer terug en dat het goed met je gaat.

[aceofspades]

Hans welcome back! I've been refreshing yt daily awaiting for your return!