 Some network players have a DAC built-in. And some DACs have a network player built-in, if you catch my drift. Kerry Audio built a network player and a DAC of equal quality and they share the same casing. The DMS 700 is a successor of the DMS 600 that I never reviewed. Actually, the DMS 700 is the first Kerry Audio product I reviewed. And, as said, it is a network player and DAC in one and is available in white and black. To use it you need amplifier and loudspeakers of course. The DMS 700 is connected to the amp over either RCA or XLR Interconnects for analog connections. Since there is an input selector and a volume control, it can also be connected to a power amplifier or active speakers instead of an integrated amplifier. It also has digital outputs so if your amp has a built-in DAC that you prefer, you can connect that over either Toslink optical connection or a 75 ohm RCA connection. When you insert an SD card or USB drive holding music, you can already play music. But if you want to play music from streaming services or internet radio, you need to connect it to your router over either a network cable or Wi-Fi. If you have a computer or nas-holding music connected to the network, you can play music from that soon. The DMS 700 can be operated from the infrared remote control using the display on the front, the Kerry Audio app on either smartphone or tablet or from a DNA or UP&PAV controller or Rune. For a Rune a subscription is needed. Furthermore you can play music from your computer or smart device using Apple AirPlay or Bluetooth. APT-X is supported which means Bluetooth up to 48 kHz 24-bit resolution lossy compressed. You can also connect the digital output of your CD player, TV, DVD, Blu-ray or game console to the DMS 700. It's a rather versatile beast. The DMS 700 is a rather big box measuring 438 x 410 x 95 mm and weighs 10.7 kHz. On the front we see the standby button, a fantastic quality LCD screen, the infrared sensor, the SD card slot and the first of three USB connectors for storage media. On the rear we see the IEC mains inlet, two Wi-Fi antennas, one Bluetooth antenna, a Toslink optical input, two SPDIF inputs on RCA and an AES-EBU input on XLR. There is no USB input to connect a computer directly to, you connect a computer over the network. There is a 12 volt trigger input to have the DMS 700 switched on by another device. There is no trigger output. An infrared sensor input lets you use an external infrared sensor for instance when there is no line of sight to the DMS 700. Below that we see a mini USB socket that should only be used by service personnel. Then the Ethernet port and the second and third USB sockets for connecting storage media to. The digital outputs are on RCA and Toslink where the Toslink output is limited to 192 kHz PCM and DSD64 over the OP and the RCA output goes up to 384 kHz 24 bit PCM and DSD128. Remain the balanced outputs on XLR and the single ended outputs on RCA. Maximum output voltage was measured at 6.6 volts, balanced and 3.3 volt single ended. The inside shows three separate compartments, the first holding the power supply, the second digital interfacing and video and the third mainly the digital to analog conversion and analog output stage. Directly after the mains input we find a fuse and network filtering, followed up by a large transformer that offers 5 low DC voltages to rectifying and stabilizing electronics. Directly behind the digital inputs we see an interfacing circuit board that sends the signals directly to the larger board below it. What happens there remains largely a secret since most of it is shielded off to avoid interference. What we can see are two high end Crystek clock oscillators, the FN-Link module that does the dual band Wi-Fi 802.11ac and Bluetooth 4.2 and the video processor by Rockchip that drives the display. Directly behind the front on the right we see a small board for the interfacing of the SD card slot and the front USB socket. Directly behind it we see a local voltage regulation for the audio electronics, built with class components like the ELNA electrolytic capacitors. Further to the back is where the ASAIA-Case 4499EQ dual DAC sits. This is a special DAC chip that has the current to voltage conversion integrated. ASAIA-Case speaks of a 4 channel switch resistor DAC but in the block diagram of the chip I see a Delta Sigma processor so it's not a normal ladder converter. Something I have to dive into sometime. Anyhow, it's a very well respected DAC chip that behaves extremely linear, even at minus 140 dBs there only is a deviation of plus 3 dBs and the noise measurements were very low. And as we know the DAC chip alone doesn't define the quality. Keri Audio uses an FPGA with proprietary code for filtering and upsampling. The analog audio electronics is found here and is built fully balanced using high quality components. As said, the DMS700 can be fully controlled by using the infrared remote control and the display on the front. When the music then is stored on a USB drive or SD card it can function fully autonomously, so without a computer or network. You then do need a computer to copy the audio files to the USB drive or SD card of course but that could be taken care of by a computer-savvy relative. When the DMS700 is connected to the network you can copy music from the computer to the SD card or USB drive and vice versa over the network. Playing music from a shared volume on a computer or NAS is easy too using the SMB protocol often called SAMBA. Just select the share you want to use. No need to fill out a window using slashes, backslashes, columns and names that for the non-computer literate make no sense. Only entering username and password on the remote control is less handy. It uses a T3 like system as was used on cell phones 15 years ago. Press the 2 key three times for the B and so on. Using the app on a smartphone or tablet makes this easier of course. Alternatively you can use a DNA or UP&PAV server program on the computer. Windows Media Player has one on board and just stepped through the menus. Or if you have a Roon subscription, use that. When the DMS700 is in standby mode and you select music to play from the Roon app, it is switched out of standby to play while the volume can be set by the Roon app too. That is particularly handy when the DMS700 functions as a digital preamp as well and is connected to a power amp directly. When playing files from the SD card, USB drive or over the network from a computer or NAS, PCM files up to 768 kHz, 32 bit and DSD up to DSD 512 are supported in about any regular file format. MQA is also supported. The Toslink input is limited to 192 kHz 24 bit and DSD 64, while both speed of inputs and the AES-EBU input go to 384 kHz 24 bit. Airplay is limited to 48 kHz 24 bit but since the DMS700 can be updated perhaps that can change. The built in sample rate converter can convert up to 768 kHz PCM or DSD 256. After installing the DMS700 I first did a factory reset to experience what buyers experience after buying and installing the unit. The carry audio app is very easy to operate. When you first start it up, it seeks the DMS700 on the network, the next time you can go to your DMS700 directly. It then shows a starting screen. If you then select stream and select your file source, say USB and SD, it then shows the present drives, in this case the SD card. Let's select artist, then blues company, I think I made it up and tap play all. The music starts playing while the cover art is shown. The low end of the screen shows the file type, sampling frequency, bit depth and how the sampling rate converter is set. Tap on SRC and you can select the wanted up sampling frequency in either PCM or DSD. The app not only looks good, I find it also rather intuitive, certainly for the day to day functions. The app has no landscape mode, which is no problem on a phone but less convenient on a tablet since that is mostly used in landscape mode forced by the covers on the market. The DMS700 was tested using the Air Acoustics AX520 and the AudioPhysics Scorpio loudspeakers connected over AudioQuest Robinhood Zero loudspeaker cables. The DMS700 was connected over Grimm Audio SQM XLR cables to the amp and over network acoustics ENO streaming system to the SOtM network switch. If you want to know more about my reference setup, see the link in the top right corner at the end of this video or in the comments below this video in YouTube. I got a demo unit from the Dutch distributor ERCT on loan and it had sufficient playing hours to sound good immediately. It has an easy flow, a natural, emerging and pleasant sound image. In its class it has almost no sound properties that are extra good nor extra poor. It is rather well balanced. I only would have loved the sibilance reproduction just that last small step closer to perfect and the low end with a slightly more texture. But whatever you play on the DMS700, Baroque, Beethoven, Ben Webster, Bob Dylan or the Black Eyed Peas, it just makes music. And that is with the sample rate converter switched off. For the result of it varied strongly amongst tracks and I couldn't find any logic in it. And I also didn't care too much for with the sample rate converter off I was more than satisfied. Let me start with something that not too many high end manufacturers do well. The operational side for a device, especially a network player. It doesn't need a computer or network. Just use the very comprehensive infrared remote control. For the more computer literate the use of an app on smartphone or tablet might be more appropriate. And the NLA, UP&P and Rune aficionados are covered too. Also the ease to connect it to a shared volume on a PC or NAS is something other high end manufacturers could learn from. I would value the network player part easily at 2000 euros and the DAC part at 7000. And that adds up to 100 euros above the MSRP. But then only when the comparable DAC and network player are simple devices without the fine user interface and sometimes even without infrared remote control. Which brings us at the end of this video. As usual there will be a new video next Friday at 5 pm central european time. If you don't want to miss that, subscribe to this channel or follow me on the social media so you will be informed when new videos are out. Help me reach even more people by giving this video a thumb up or link to this video on the social media. It is much appreciated. Many thanks to those viewers that support this channel financially. It keeps me independent and lets me improve the channel further. If that makes you feel like supporting my work too, the links are in the comments below this video on YouTube. I am Hans Beekhuyzen, thank you for watching and see you in the next show or on theHBproject.com. And whatever you do, enjoy the music.