Review and Measurements of Topping DX3Pro DAC and Headphone Amp

[Stein]

My remote from Hificollege didn't come with a battery either, but it worked fine when I popped one in

 

[bleachershane]

The remotes have tiny little plastics on both sides of the circle in the compartment, probably to hold battery in place.
They can be broken very easily just by removing a battery.

Yep, the tiny and very fragile bits of plastic broke off on mine once I got the battery in correctly, the remote battery cover holds the battery in place now. Definitely bottom of the line build on the plastic remote.

 

[dkinric]

Back on Massdrop for $174.99, estimated ship Feb 8.
Mine has worked flawlessly since receiving over a month ago.

 

[parkerlewis]

Anyone having problems with the output stage being flaky or failed completely? My unit (from Massdrop) worked fine for three weeks, one day all the outputs were dead, and it took a couple of device resets (by turning the encoder knob counterclockwise while in standby mode) to bring it back, then it got flaky again with outputting only one channel or a big imbalance between the channels, reset again and it worked for a while, then quit again. I'm using the 1.04 firmware.

Yeah, I was one of the people who posted earlier in this thread and on Reddit about the output on my DX3 dying after 3 weeks of use. In my case it made loud popping noises in my headphones (worrying me about what kind of power is being supplied from the failed amp to my headphones) followed by a constant hissing sound but no output from my audio source.

Shipped my unit back to the eBay seller for a refund. Loved the DX3 but I would be hesitant to purchase another one unless there was an advertised hardware revision/fix for this amp/output issue now that there have been at least 5 or 6 independent reports of similar failures.

Decided to go with a JDS Atom / Khadas Tone Board for now, but I sure will miss the remote, display, and digital volume knob of the DX3.

 

[noel_fs]

Wow, try wtfplay guys, its tricky at first to use and fucking ugly but its completely amazing.

Like crystal clear right in your brain, thats how I would describe it. And in windows already impressed me.

 

[Rollingsound514]

Wow, try wtfplay guys, its tricky at first to use and fucking ugly but its completely amazing.

Like crystal clear right in your brain, thats how I would describe it. And in windows already impressed me.

IF you're pushing bitperfect to a DAC then what does it matter? Why not use something easier to use? I am asking because I honestly don't know why this exists.

 

[Yuno]

Definitely bottom of the line build on the plastic remote.

Yeah, just from smell alone you can tell this remote is not a high quality one. It does work though so it's fine. I would buy dx7 remote but this thing costs whooping $25, spending $25 for dac that retails around $180 doesn't sit well with me. $15-$20 would be much more acceptable, hope it will be on sale at some point.

In general, relative to my aune x1s, dx3 pro is overall lower quality. Finish is worse, unit is significantly lighter, packaging itself has much less premium feel.
Not that I care much because in the end aune is boxed and topping is in use, but you definitely can feel this is a budget unit.

 

[noel_fs]

IF you're pushing bitperfect to a DAC then what does it matter? Why not use something easier to use? I am asking because I honestly don't know why this exists.

That has logic but try it yourself and then come back and say that again. I booted it just out of curiosity, and in the first 2 seconds i already noticed a difference, in 2 minutes i was amazed tbh.

 

[andreasmaaan]

That has logic but try it yourself and then come back and say that again. I booted it just out of curiosity, and in the first 2 seconds i already noticed a difference, in 2 minutes i was amazed tbh.

Have you got a friend to blind test you to confirm that there really is a difference? I highly recommend doing that before recommending something like this which would be so easy to AB test.

 

[noel_fs]

Have you got a friend to blind test you to confirm that there really is a difference? I highly recommend doing that before recommending something like this which would be so easy to AB test.

Doesnt need any ab testing, test it you by yourself, pretty noticeable even tho its not like a big improvement or something crazy like that. Its just much more surrounding and sounds arent as sharp, everything is just a tiny bit more refined

 

[Shangri-La]

I wonder how the DX3 PRo compare to the Schiit Modi 3 in realworld listening. The DX3 PRo measures fine but I dont use headphone amp, which is its strength.

 

[pacman]

Mine bought from HiFI College on Ali for U$173 in Black Friday sales arrived wednesday. It won't came with the RC battery due to international shipping I guess.

I'm in loving since then, can't stop listening music. In comparision with the old FiiO E10, it's a huge upgrade, don't expected such improvements in all aspects - bass, middles, highs, spatials - all music sounds splendid with DX3Pro.

Only complain is about the unity's button, mine is so loose that comes out with little effort. It's literally loose and I'm wondering if it's normal. Maybe a piece of paper can help to fix, gonna attach a picture.

Oh, and the ear rape. Was aware of this "feature" but can't help falling into this while testing and cicling through the outputs with the speakers on max volume and it was brutal. Since then I'm stuck with the headphone blinking mode which outputs boths RCA and 3.5mm with volume control.

The clicking issue was mitigated with firmware 1.04 and the unity only clicks when changing sample rate, as expected.

Had a similar problem with noises that folks related; I use active speakers, and my PC is an old noisy mess: i5 from 2nd generation, BIOS instead of EFI, water pump, fan controller, SSD, video card and so on.

With the FiiO E10 there was a constant hissing; with the USB mouse tracking, there was another layer of noise; on heavy demanding tasks like loading games I can even hear the high pitched spikes caused by SSD activity. Of course all of these noises were only audible when there's nothing playing at all; but noise is noise and it was an horror show. The cable was a cheap one with a single 3.5mm on line out of FiiO, splitted on 2 RCAs. All the stuff are plugged on an ancient APC surge protection strip properly grounded.

Bough some decent RCA shielded cables to use with the DX3Pro and, for my surprise, all the noises went away. Even at maximum volume, the Rokits are dead silent now, wich is great. One can presume the USB filtering stage of DX3 is very good; I even considered going optical if the hiss persisted or, at the worst case scenario, buy a DAC with XLR ballanced outputs; it turned that decent cables and USB performance of DX3Pro solved the entire problem.

Never expected such deep bass coming from these 5" small things, it sounds like an upgrade. The oldies Grado SR80 and Senn HD 558 are very pleased with the amp stage; the Metallica's distorted guitars never sounded so aggressive on Grado; listening the 2000 "Riding with the king" album of B. B. King & Eric Clapton on Rokits is like having the two fellas siting in front of me playing their violons and Strato and Lucille and singing gracefully. I'm having goosebumps all the time, wether on Rokits, HD 558 or SR80, it's like rediscovering all the old music wich I'm very used to listen through decades.

I'm very glad to Amir in his efforts to demistify consumer grade audio and bring us those great reviews. It was really usefull, thank you all.

Sorry for long post. TL;DR: even with some QC issues, this DAC rocks.

 

[Rollingsound514]

I wonder how the DX3 PRo compare to the Schiit Modi 3 in realworld listening. The DX3 PRo measures fine but I dont use headphone amp, which is its strength.

I was running the new Schiit stack for a few weeks. To my ears they're about the same, I like the way the DX3 pro sounded better, but I wasn't A-B'ing the setups so who knows. Both setups test pretty darn well (way better than Schiit stuff of previous generation), the amp in the new stack is a bit more powerful than the built in amp of the DX3 Pro but I personally didn't need more than what the DX3 pro was putting out in low gain for a pair of 6XXs.... you may need more power... If you're willing to deal with Schiit the Modi 3 is good, but maybe pair it with the JDS Labs Atom instead of the Magni 3.

All said and done you're not going to get any night and day difference from any of the aforementioned gear, it's all in the same league really.

The ONLY thing I don't like about the DX3 are the reports of units failing which makes me uneasy, that being said Schiit's QC hasn't exactly been exemplary over the years either.

 

[TomSawyer]

My dx3 pro arrived today, and to say the least it is a great upgrade from my Micca OriGen G2. I won't attempt to comment on the details of the sound as others have done much better than I could... but will say to my ears it is absolutely sublime. My setup is fairly humble with HD58X's, m40x's and a set of Peachtree M25's on the desk, but I am truly amazed at how much better each of those sound now.

One question not directly related to the dx3: has anyone else encountered garbled output when using event mode (WASAPI or DSD)? Foobar2000 v1.4. I actually had this happen with the OriGen, hooked up USB as well, but oddly the Peachtree M25 built in DAC is crystal clear in both event and push mode. It does this only when playing high res audio files.

Anyway, beyond that and not switching off RCA output when I hook up the headphones, I'm very happy with the dx3. Have read through (mostly) all of this very long thread and I really appreciate the effort everyone has gone to to share their experience and tips.

 

[Veri]

I just lost the headphone out on my DX3 Pro ..... one big pop.......right channel is completely gone and hissing. Had my HE-560's cruising along at about -10dB.

Done a handful of resets, nothing is working. Switching back and forth between DAC and headphones results in a big pop. I immediately switched over to a crap pair of headphones for testing the 3.5mm out. HE-560 was not destroyed thank heavens. The RCA outs are working for now. I had high hopes for this combo amp/dac unit but will contact Topsale to see about a refund. Back to my trusty D30 which has been a rock. This is the first piece of electronics in recent memory that didn't make it past 2 days

God sorry to see several you so shit out of luck. I'm guessing Topping is producing these at a ridiculous rate and are doing a rather simple/fast Q/A check. If I ever sell mine I'll include a note "Q/A TESTED BY MYSELF– zero problems with device"

some others in the thread had their device work again after long power-off and subsequent reset I think? @Toku

 

[Toku]

Is the 3.5 mm plug fully inserted enough to the back?

I just lost the headphone out on my DX3 Pro ..... one big pop.......right channel is completely gone and hissing. Had my HE-560's cruising along at about -10dB.

Done a handful of resets, nothing is working. Switching back and forth between DAC and headphones results in a big pop. I immediately switched over to a crap pair of headphones for testing the 3.5mm out. HE-560 was not destroyed thank heavens. The RCA outs are working for now. I had high hopes for this combo amp/dac unit but will contact Topsale to see about a refund. Back to my trusty D30 which has been a rock. This is the first piece of electronics in recent memory that didn't make it past 2 days

Is the 3.5 mm plug fully inserted enough to the back?

 

[la2ygoo]

hi,@amirm.
using 300 or 33 ohm load , will the Frequency response change?

 

[Veri]

using 300 or 33 ohm load , will the Frequency response change?

Considering the low output impedance, the answer should be "no".

 

[noel_fs]

Aoshida responded saying that they were gonna ask Topping for a new controller to send me. I told them that the controller is transmiting signals and brought the desynced IR codes.. Lets see..

 

[ngs428]

I just lost the headphone out on my DX3 Pro ..... one big pop.......right channel is completely gone and hissing. Had my HE-560's cruising along at about -10dB.

Done a handful of resets, nothing is working. Switching back and forth between DAC and headphones results in a big pop. I immediately switched over to a crap pair of headphones for testing the 3.5mm out. HE-560 was not destroyed thank heavens. The RCA outs are working for now. I had high hopes for this combo amp/dac unit but will contact Topsale to see about a refund. Back to my trusty D30 which has been a rock. This is the first piece of electronics in recent memory that didn't make it past 2 days

Have we been looking at serial numbers to see if there is a certain batch with this issue? Also, would it possibly be recently produced models which came with firmware 1.04? Curious if it can be narrowed down.

I will start: serial 1808594207, black, did not come with 1.04, no issues yet.