Oriolust DPS-L2 Unboxing: A Retro Design With Modern Tech!!

With the advancement in technologies, our music players that previously used to be just like a traditional cassette Walkman have now transformed into Hi-Tech devices similar to our smartphones. I am talking about flagship Hi-res players such as iBasso DX300, FiiO M15, and the likes of them. They might bring us all the advanced features such as a big display, touch screen user interface, High-tech audio signal decoding chips, and so on. But what they lack is the nostalgia factor, the retro feel. Today I am gonna check out one with all the retro and traditional feel, one that will take us back to our school days when we used to carry cassette Walkman players, meet the all-new Oriolus DPS-L2. Today I am gonna share unboxing and initial impressions of this beauty of a device. So before wasting any more time, let’s begin.

Oriolus DPS-L2:-

Oriolus, for those who don’t know, is a professional HiFi audio equipment brand based in Tokyo, Japan. They are mostly known for their high-tier IEM sets that provide benchmark performance with excellent build. The DPS-L2 is their tribute to the retro design of traditional Walkman players combining with the latest and advanced audio technologies. The most interesting part with the DPS-L2 is the build and design, it is made entirely like a Walkman device with all the mechanical switches. It leads the Oriolus’s product range with a price tag of 2199$, you can check out more details on it here.

Unboxing & Accessories:-

Oriolus DPS-L2 comes in very simple and elegant packaging. It has a minimalistic design with a transparent image of the player printed on the front. Inside we have our DPS-L2 Music player, one USB charging cable, quick start guide, and warranty card. The package is quite minimalistic packing only the absolutely necessary items inside a small package. You can also look at my unboxing video on the HiFiGo channel from the link below.

Package Contents:-

>One DPS-L2 music player.

>One USB charging cable.

>User guide.

>Warranty card.

Design & Build Quality:-

One look at the Oriolus DPS-L2 and I am back to my nostalgic school days when I used to own a cassette Walkman player. The DPS-L2 is such a brilliantly made device with all mechanical buttons. It has a cover on the front that opens with a tape player mechanism, there’s a small display underneath the cover along with some buttons to operate the device. On the top, we have some mechanical switches such as the power button, media buttons, dual-channel volume control, and a USB Type-C port. It’s really good to see we can manage the volume for both the left and right channels separately with the DPS-L2. On the right side, we have the MicroSD card slot and on the left, we have two 3.5mm headphone output ports, one balanced 4.4mm headphone port, and a hotline button. Both these 3.5mm headphone output ports can output at the same time to two different IEMs allowing one to share the music.

This Hot Line switch allows to temporarily mute the output for the time it is being pressed. We also have a two-way gain switch at the bottom of the DPS-L2. In terms of Design & Build quality the DPS-L2 is one of its kind with its retro Tape Player look and mechanical switches.

Mechanical Operation:-

The device is completely mechanically operated. Like when we press the play switch to start the music it keeps pressed until we press the stop switch, like those retro music players. The independent volume keys let us adjust the volume independently for both channels. It is a unique experience to listen to music on this beautifully built device with the complete mechanical operation.

Retro Cassette Display:-

The display here is different from the regular DAP displays. It demonstrates a cassette movement along with the name and other details of the audio file. The Cassette’s movement speed gets affected when one fast-forwards or rewinds the music in the appropriate directions.

Retro Only In Looks, Powerful In Driving Earphones With Modern Sound(Sound Initial Impressions):-

The DPS-L2 is a power hub. It has so much power that to drive the DUNU EST112 here I never had to go above 1 volume out of the 10 volume levels. I am pretty sure it will power the demanding earphones with ease. Also, there is no noticeable background hiss with EST112(it is quite a sensitive pair). For Kinera Nanna(60 ohms) about 3 volume was more than enough to drive it with proper dynamics at adequate volume. I also tried the iBasso SR2 headphones and they were also powered pretty easily at around 5 volume only. Based on this experience I am pretty sure

DPS-L2 might give an impact of an average-sounding device through its retro looks but Oriolus has equipped it with all advanced glitters and features of modern audio players. It has a high-detailed sound output, paired to the EST112 from DUNU it produces a very open and refined sound output. There is no noticeable background hiss or noise, all we get is highly detailed sound output with rich tonality. Vocals have a natural, rich tonality to them that makes the output emotional and dramatic. The lower end gets the juice to provide deep impactful punches, and treble frequencies have wide extensions. I don’t find the DPS-L2 to have any kind of harshness in the output rather it sounded smooth and natural. In terms of output power, the DPS-L2 is superbly powerful providing more than enough juice to power IEMs on the go. With such power connected earphones scale well and present a wide-open acoustic presentation. I guess that is what we expect from a flagship device too.

The Oriolus DPS-L2 is a collector’s device. It combines the best of the previous generation(looks and working mechanical switches) with advanced chips and technology for modernized powerful and clean output. It is actually a limited edition device with only 999 units made available worldwide, so in case you want to experience world-class performance with classic design, you know what to get now. Check out more about the Oriolus DPS-L2 here.