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SMSL DP5 Music Streamer and DAC Review

Chromatischism

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Thanks very much.... everyone.

The fact is I got ridden of all WI-FI appliances and now use 4g or 5g wherever available and have all my music stored within a 1 TB micro SD card in my phone.
No more sorrow, no more pain.
Unless you need to access it on other devices?
 

F1308

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Unless you need to access it on other devices?

Today's storage capacity is overwhelming....Not an issue, for me, anymore. Only buying tablets and phones with outboard SD card storage. No SD, no deal. Most have USB OTG, with sticks also reaching 1 TB....around 40000 songs in FLAC.

They even have wireless access....

https://www.sandisk.com/goto/connect
 
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maverik_77

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Tks

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Roon is bloated as well,but it's the users choice,eye candy doesn't impress me,plus it hog resources on a very powerful computer.Roon would be the last software on my list.

Don't get why people wouldn't use JRiver instead.
 

Archsam

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The Matrix Element X software is 90-95% there. Really? Is that acceptable on a £2,800 device?

I wish there is a better alternative but I'm not aware of any current DAC / Wi-Fi streamer that performs this well and has perfect software at the moment, not even at £2,800.

I don't use Roon because I stream all my music from my NAS, and Wi-Fi streaming is a must due to layout of my living room prohibits me from running a cable from my router. And I am not keen to build a fan-less PC just for music (seems redundant when I can stream from my NAS).

I am not aware of too many options out there at the moment that can do all that, unless you pay a premium for Lumin or Auralic.
 

bluefuzz

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I Apologize if I offended some people
No one's offended. But you do seem to be implying that you need something like a computer science degree to stream music off a Raspberry Pi. Nothing could be further from the truth. Probably the majority of commercial 'branded' streamers are using some kind of embedded Linux running on an ARM chip essentially identical to a Raspberry Pi anyway. The only difference is there's a commercial entity behind the logo. But that doesn't guarantee software quality or ease of use - as exemplified in the review that begins this thread.
 

Glasvegas

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I wish there is a better alternative but I'm not aware of any current DAC / Wi-Fi streamer that performs this well and has perfect software at the moment, not even at £2,800.

I don't use Roon because I stream all my music from my NAS, and Wi-Fi streaming is a must due to layout of my living room prohibits me from running a cable from my router. And I am not keen to build a fan-less PC just for music (seems redundant when I can stream from my NAS).

I am not aware of too many options out there at the moment that can do all that, unless you pay a premium for Lumin or Auralic.

Are the Lumin or Auralic apps perfect? Even if they were would you hear any improvement in SQ over a device costing a few hundred pounds?

I agree, building a PC and paying for Roon seems way over the top, especially, if, like me, you only stream from Tidal. How difficult can it be to develop an app which works as well the native Tidal app?
 

Helicopter

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I am talking about commercial products, none, as far as I know, uses that, It IS Geeky to build your streamer with a PI. It might feel normal to the ASR crowd, but that just proves the point. is The source code available to be modified? general users wants to open an app, with the logo of the product they just bought as the Icon. a web based logitech branded UI wouldn't cut it. a web interface, it would have to be really transparent to appeal the general public. Am I missing something? I apologize if I ignored new developments to it, that's the perception I have but maybe it's not the case

I think you have layers of commercial with shrinking pies. Amazon, Google, Apple at the top, Sonos, Denon, Sony, Klipsch and some others in the next level down, having agreements with the other firms, and selling premium priced products that do not really compete in the same space, and will not integrate as well as the first tier. Then you have open source stuff like this at the bottom. It will be priced in the middle, it will be the least convenient, and the sound quality will vary, with the greatest upside by far, besting Denon, Sonos, if they do a good job.

The whole streaming and downloading thing with ownership, licensing, bitrates, and audibility is interesting.

I would not purchase a dowload or license to stream anything I can access by buying a modestly priced subscription.

I chose Amazon because I got sucked in by some inexpensive devices early on, already had Prime, and it seems like the best value in terms of library per dollar. They also got a great emotional connection by adding the 'computer' wake word, so I can feel like Commander Riker in Star Trek.

The Amazon hardware, software, and service are an incredible value. There are tremendous economies of scale here competing with Google and Apple to be in every house. The whole house voice controlled system cost less than each of many pieces of gear I have.

This is a huge market, but how does a company like SMSL get a real piece of it? What they are doing, going for the serious customer in that smallest and most esoteric segment makes sense.

With Amazon, you can get the full Ultra HD (192/24) through your own speakers with a computer, but there you lose integration with the whole house voice and phone app controlled system. Aux out from an echo device or an echo link are usually better alternatives.

It is really hard to get it right without doing seperates. I love the idea though. It is just so hard to get the software integrated to be useful and competitive. The Echo Link is OK, but it should support the full bitrate on the dugital output. Oh well, we will probably get there.

One product I would love to see is an L30 / Modi sized box or a Modius sized box with a digital input, EQ, maybe a selector so I can swap speaker and headphone settings, and a digital output. Ideally set the EQ with a wifi phone app that looks similar to Wavelet... or add those features to either the DAC or streamer. The DAC makes more sense to me though because Amazon etc. may be hard to beat on streamers.
 

Apesbrain

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anmpr1

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The big sticking point for Roon is the price. Seriously it is way out of any reasonable metric of value for money. It is more expensive than Microsoft Office. For what? Little more than stream endpoint management.
I was naive, thinking that with Roon you got downloads or streaming with your subscription. But it's a management tool only. Where is the 'pay as you go' value in that? You mention Office... Through work I was able to buy a copy of Office 2013 for five or ten dollars. It's probably worth that as a one time cost. And it's permanent (as long as it works). I don't like the subscription model. If I had to pay to use MS Office I'd be using Libre Office.

One thing about Roon... from their Website. Very modern meeting room. Dual Revox open reels and cassette decks. Mac electronics and JBL monitors. LOL

roon.jpg
 

sarumbear

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My only complaint is the lack of smooth starting of songs (sometimes it seems to start playing before buffering) and gapless playback. Other than that, there aren't any problems with it actually working.

Maybe you should re-read what you wrote. It is like saying, my car has no problems other than sometimes failing to start and not able to cruise on a motorway.
 

PeteL

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No one's offended. But you do seem to be implying that you need something like a computer science degree to stream music off a Raspberry Pi. Nothing could be further from the truth. Probably the majority of commercial 'branded' streamers are using some kind of embedded Linux running on an ARM chip essentially identical to a Raspberry Pi anyway. The only difference is there's a commercial entity behind the logo. But that doesn't guarantee software quality or ease of use - as exemplified in the review that begins this thread.
I was not implying any of that. I've used PI numerous times in all sort of applications, yes, it's a great option, yes anybody can do it. I'm saying that market wise, the classic customer, who has no interest in technology, who just want to listen to his files, and some streaming service, normally don't go for it. His wife don't feel it looks good in their fancy living room.
 

PeteL

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I think you have layers of commercial with shrinking pies. Amazon, Google, Apple at the top, Sonos, Denon, Sony, Klipsch and some others in the next level down, having agreements with the other firms, and selling premium priced products that do not really compete in the same space, and will not integrate as well as the first tier. Then you have open source stuff like this at the bottom. It will be priced in the middle, it will be the least convenient, and the sound quality will vary, with the greatest upside by far, besting Denon, Sonos, if they do a good job.

The whole streaming and downloading thing with ownership, licensing, bitrates, and audibility is interesting.

I would not purchase a dowload or license to stream anything I can access by buying a modestly priced subscription.

I chose Amazon because I got sucked in by some inexpensive devices early on, already had Prime, and it seems like the best value in terms of library per dollar. They also got a great emotional connection by adding the 'computer' wake word, so I can feel like Commander Riker in Star Trek.

The Amazon hardware, software, and service are an incredible value. There are tremendous economies of scale here competing with Google and Apple to be in every house. The whole house voice controlled system cost less than each of many pieces of gear I have.

This is a huge market, but how does a company like SMSL get a real piece of it? What they are doing, going for the serious customer in that smallest and most esoteric segment makes sense.

With Amazon, you can get the full Ultra HD (192/24) through your own speakers with a computer, but there you lose integration with the whole house voice and phone app controlled system. Aux out from an echo device or an echo link are usually better alternatives.

It is really hard to get it right without doing seperates. I love the idea though. It is just so hard to get the software integrated to be useful and competitive. The Echo Link is OK, but it should support the full bitrate on the dugital output. Oh well, we will probably get there.

One product I would love to see is an L30 / Modi sized box or a Modius sized box with a digital input, EQ, maybe a selector so I can swap speaker and headphone settings, and a digital output. Ideally set the EQ with a wifi phone app that looks similar to Wavelet... or add those features to either the DAC or streamer. The DAC makes more sense to me though because Amazon etc. may be hard to beat on streamers.
Amazon Music HD took a longer time to be available In Canada than elsewhere, I fact I didn't know we had access but I just checked and it looks like it is now. But with a mention "Quebec resident don't have access to the 3 month free trial... "Unfortunately that rules them out for me right now. I just use Tidal. Yes they can be criticized, it just works for me, don't feel a need to change, or to expand to multiple streaming service. I hear you about the home integration, I just for some reason didn't get used to talk to my machines, I'm still typing in a browser instead of asking Siri, but it's just me.
 
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