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Review and Measurements of Topping D10 DAC

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amirm

amirm

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Just wondering could topping make the D10 play MQA files through a firmware update?
I don't think so. You can use software decoding of most of MQA anyway using Tidal's own app or Roon player.
 

letsgoo

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Hello, I just got this DAC, but can't get it to play DSF and 384 Khz at all. When I do not install the topping driver, the WASAPI shows 384 Khz, but there is no sound from the DAC. When I choose 192 Khz, it's ok. And when I install the Topping driver, there is no more 384 Khz option. And even I followed the foobar instruction, there is only white noise and no music when I play dsf files.
I have totally no idea, what I should do to get 1. DSF files playable over DSD, 2. use the 384 Khz PCM Option.
I am using Windows 10.
 

letsgoo

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I'm not sure, but can You try driver for DX3 Pro
http://en.tpdz.net/wdzn_detail/newsId=86.html

Thank You. I installed the driver, but it deleted my DAC from Speaker list. I tried many things, so I tried to update the driver manually etc. But finally I had to install the D10 Setup file. After that, I don't know why, but DSD files are playing without noise! Nice! :) Thanks.

But the 384khz setting is not back. After installing Topping Driver, I can't choose 384Khz. I really would like to know how to activate it at all... (I know, that most of the common music files or sounds are in 44.1 Khz but there is a difference between this thing can do what for it was advertised. I would try even upscaled files.)
 

zenon

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Topping D10 amaze me after every mod.
After buffering AVCC (L&R) & powering VCCA by LDO, this is a completely different DAC.

SabreBoardAVCC.jpg

More low freq. bass, drums boost & punch, airness and presence (vitality), natural treble (cymbal)...
 

Roen

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Hello, I just got this DAC, but can't get it to play DSF and 384 Khz at all. When I do not install the topping driver, the WASAPI shows 384 Khz, but there is no sound from the DAC. When I choose 192 Khz, it's ok. And when I install the Topping driver, there is no more 384 Khz option. And even I followed the foobar instruction, there is only white noise and no music when I play dsf files.
I have totally no idea, what I should do to get 1. DSF files playable over DSD, 2. use the 384 Khz PCM Option.
I am using Windows 10.
What player?
 

letsgoo

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Well...
Uninstall D10 driver, reboot, install DX3 driver, reboot and try again.
Thanks. After uninstall all and reinstall all, now I can choose the 384 khz... but I still don't have any sound from the amp when I chosse above 192 Khz PCM. What should I do to test 384?
 

HAL9000

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Topping D10 amaze me after every mod.
After buffering AVCC (L&R) & powering VCCA by LDO, this is a completely different DAC.

View attachment 20410

More low freq. bass, drums boost & punch, airness and presence (vitality), natural treble (cymbal)...

Can you show where you exactly mod DAC in the picture.

How you powering VCCA ( 3v ) & Buffer ( 8v )

Thanks in advance:)
 

NTomokawa

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Out of curiosity, how do you know the performance improved rather than simply changing, or possible bias, as you have clearly put a lot of work into this.
This. I'm not bashing nor discounting the efforts; I'd just like to see measurements.
 

zenon

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Out of curiosity, how do you know the performance improved rather than simply changing, or possible bias, as you have clearly put a lot of work into this.

On an unrelated note, what are you doing with that spdif output?

This is self-explanatory picture.

Before&After.jpg
Eventually, Ill try to do measurements, after finishing all planning mods (spsu XMOS, etc.)
I'm not sure, how to measure human sense of quality, presence, airness and so on. For now, THD is the same or little bit lower (this is old measurements, before last mods).

"...what are you doing with that spdif..."
Don't want to make more holes, so SPDIF is just fine for psu 8V cable.
 
Last edited:

Sujay Rao

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This is a review of the recently released Topping D10 DAC. I purchased mine from massdrop for just $75 including shipping. I see it online from Aliexpress for $89. I must say, this is one of the most handsome budget DACs I have seen with a nice retro amber/orange 7-segment LED display:

View attachment 11515

Despite its very low price, the unit is solidly built out of thick aluminum and has good bit of heft to it. As a result, the cables connected to it stay put.

The only on the input is USB. Outputs are of course analog unbalanced RCA but also Toslink and S/PDIF coax:

View attachment 11516

Format support is excellent as indicated on the front panel and more detail at Topping website: http://www.tpdz.net/en/products/d10/index.htm

Unlike vast majority of audio hardware out there, Topping has full FCC/CE regulatory emissions certification together with that of "high-res audio" the certificate of which is included in the box! That certification is apparently done in Japan. The regulator emissions certification is useful for those of you who sweat traditions from your gear.

The USB interface is class 2 compliant meaning no driver was necessary to use it in my Roon player using exclusive mode, WASAPI in Windows 10 Creators Edition. Auto-detected formats by Roon are:

View attachment 11517

I know most of you are anxious to see how it measures. So let's get into that. As usual, if you are not familiar with what these graphs are, refer to my tutorial on understanding audio measurements: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/understanding-audio-measurements.2351/

Measurements
Because this is a USB only DAC, I can only run a subset of my usual measurements. For this review, I compared the Topping D10 to my previously recommended Behringer UMC204HD. The Behringer is a good DAC but has anemic output which means it can't drive some amplifiers to full output. It also looks more like a pro piece of equipment and not an expensive one at that. The Topping D10 remedies all of these but let's see how it compares specifically, starting with jitter and noise:

View attachment 11526

The Behringer is in yellow and Topping D10 in red. As we see, the topping D10 has some jitter sidebands around our main tone of 12 kHz. So in that regard it is worse than Behringer. However, if you look at the amplitude of our tone, you see that the output of the Behringer is lower. Compensated, the signal to noise ratio of Behringer is worse than Topping D10 and the jitter spikes would be barely visible. Regardless, the jitter components are at a whopping -130 dB and lower which are absolutely not an audible concern.

As a bonus and to show how good these measurements are, I have also shown a preview of the measurements of the Schiit Fulla which retails for $99 (but has a headphone amp) in green. As you see, its signal to noise ratio is much worse.

If you want perfection here, then you would need to step up to Topping D50 ($250) which has the same noise floor but no jitter spikes to speak of.

Next let's look at linearity or how well the DAC produces the output voltages that we instruct it to, from digital domain:

View attachment 11519

Very respectable performance from both DACs. Even when we start to see deviations from perfect zero dB line, nothing goes wild all the way up to -120 dB (20 bits). The Topping D10 though pulls ahead a bit but sticking to zero line more perfectly than the Behringer. This is no doubt due to its higher output.

We can see a confirmation of that in a much clearer picture as we look at the ability of the DAC to reproduce a -90 dB sine wave (at the limit of 16 bit audio):

View attachment 11520

The picture speaks for itself. The Topping D10 produces excellent output that resembles a nice sine wave whereas the Behringer UMC204HD has too low of an output and a noisier one at that.

Let's look at harmonic distortion where the Behringer has been an excellent champion at:

View attachment 11521

Ah, we discover something interesting. The Behringer doesn't show a lot of harmonic distortion because its noise floor is much higher. The Behringer beats it by as much as 25 db. By doing so, its harmonic distortion is visible but they are all lower than what the Behringer produces (note: this noise is the combination of the DAC and my analyzer). Net, net the Topping D10 has far better performance even though its graph looks more "busy."

Edit: forgot to post the frequency response/channel matching:

View attachment 11576

Measured output voltage was 2.113 volts (RMS) on one channel and 2.108 on the other so very excellent (0.021 dB difference). Response is essentially ruler flat to 20 kHz.

Conclusions
The Topping D10 is a delightful audio DAC. It looks very "cute" and masculine at the same time. I cannot fathom how it can be built and shipped at such incredibly low prices. Combine that with proper manufacturing that includes regulatory certification and such and the value you get is just amazing.

Measured performance is excellent and just shy of its more expensive brothers like the Topping D50. With its much higher output vs Behringer UMC204HD (1.5 volt RMS vs 1.1 volt) it is suitable to drive any and all amplifiers.

For an entry level DAC without headphone output I cannot recommend the Topping D10 enough! Another job well done by Topping.

As always, questions, comments, corrections, jokes, etc. are all welcome!
----
If you like this review, please consider donating funds for these types of hardware purchase using Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).
9
 

Sujay Rao

New Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2018
Messages
3
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0
This is a review of the recently released Topping D10 DAC. I purchased mine from massdrop for just $75 including shipping. I see it online from Aliexpress for $89. I must say, this is one of the most handsome budget DACs I have seen with a nice retro amber/orange 7-segment LED display:

View attachment 11515

Despite its very low price, the unit is solidly built out of thick aluminum and has good bit of heft to it. As a result, the cables connected to it stay put.

The only on the input is USB. Outputs are of course analog unbalanced RCA but also Toslink and S/PDIF coax:

View attachment 11516

Format support is excellent as indicated on the front panel and more detail at Topping website: http://www.tpdz.net/en/products/d10/index.htm

Unlike vast majority of audio hardware out there, Topping has full FCC/CE regulatory emissions certification together with that of "high-res audio" the certificate of which is included in the box! That certification is apparently done in Japan. The regulator emissions certification is useful for those of you who sweat traditions from your gear.

The USB interface is class 2 compliant meaning no driver was necessary to use it in my Roon player using exclusive mode, WASAPI in Windows 10 Creators Edition. Auto-detected formats by Roon are:

View attachment 11517

I know most of you are anxious to see how it measures. So let's get into that. As usual, if you are not familiar with what these graphs are, refer to my tutorial on understanding audio measurements: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/understanding-audio-measurements.2351/

Measurements
Because this is a USB only DAC, I can only run a subset of my usual measurements. For this review, I compared the Topping D10 to my previously recommended Behringer UMC204HD. The Behringer is a good DAC but has anemic output which means it can't drive some amplifiers to full output. It also looks more like a pro piece of equipment and not an expensive one at that. The Topping D10 remedies all of these but let's see how it compares specifically, starting with jitter and noise:

View attachment 11526

The Behringer is in yellow and Topping D10 in red. As we see, the topping D10 has some jitter sidebands around our main tone of 12 kHz. So in that regard it is worse than Behringer. However, if you look at the amplitude of our tone, you see that the output of the Behringer is lower. Compensated, the signal to noise ratio of Behringer is worse than Topping D10 and the jitter spikes would be barely visible. Regardless, the jitter components are at a whopping -130 dB and lower which are absolutely not an audible concern.

As a bonus and to show how good these measurements are, I have also shown a preview of the measurements of the Schiit Fulla which retails for $99 (but has a headphone amp) in green. As you see, its signal to noise ratio is much worse.

If you want perfection here, then you would need to step up to Topping D50 ($250) which has the same noise floor but no jitter spikes to speak of.

Next let's look at linearity or how well the DAC produces the output voltages that we instruct it to, from digital domain:

View attachment 11519

Very respectable performance from both DACs. Even when we start to see deviations from perfect zero dB line, nothing goes wild all the way up to -120 dB (20 bits). The Topping D10 though pulls ahead a bit but sticking to zero line more perfectly than the Behringer. This is no doubt due to its higher output.

We can see a confirmation of that in a much clearer picture as we look at the ability of the DAC to reproduce a -90 dB sine wave (at the limit of 16 bit audio):

View attachment 11520

The picture speaks for itself. The Topping D10 produces excellent output that resembles a nice sine wave whereas the Behringer UMC204HD has too low of an output and a noisier one at that.

Let's look at harmonic distortion where the Behringer has been an excellent champion at:

View attachment 11521

Ah, we discover something interesting. The Behringer doesn't show a lot of harmonic distortion because its noise floor is much higher. The Behringer beats it by as much as 25 db. By doing so, its harmonic distortion is visible but they are all lower than what the Behringer produces (note: this noise is the combination of the DAC and my analyzer). Net, net the Topping D10 has far better performance even though its graph looks more "busy."

Edit: forgot to post the frequency response/channel matching:

View attachment 11576

Measured output voltage was 2.113 volts (RMS) on one channel and 2.108 on the other so very excellent (0.021 dB difference). Response is essentially ruler flat to 20 kHz.

Conclusions
The Topping D10 is a delightful audio DAC. It looks very "cute" and masculine at the same time. I cannot fathom how it can be built and shipped at such incredibly low prices. Combine that with proper manufacturing that includes regulatory certification and such and the value you get is just amazing.

Measured performance is excellent and just shy of its more expensive brothers like the Topping D50. With its much higher output vs Behringer UMC204HD (1.5 volt RMS vs 1.1 volt) it is suitable to drive any and all amplifiers.

For an entry level DAC without headphone output I cannot recommend the Topping D10 enough! Another job well done by Topping.

As always, questions, comments, corrections, jokes, etc. are all welcome!
----
If you like this review, please consider donating funds for these types of hardware purchase using Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).
 

Sujay Rao

New Member
Joined
Dec 19, 2018
Messages
3
Likes
0
This is a review of the recently released Topping D10 DAC. I purchased mine from massdrop for just $75 including shipping. I see it online from Aliexpress for $89. I must say, this is one of the most handsome budget DACs I have seen with a nice retro amber/orange 7-segment LED display:

View attachment 11515

Despite its very low price, the unit is solidly built out of thick aluminum and has good bit of heft to it. As a result, the cables connected to it stay put.

The only on the input is USB. Outputs are of course analog unbalanced RCA but also Toslink and S/PDIF coax:

View attachment 11516

Format support is excellent as indicated on the front panel and more detail at Topping website: http://www.tpdz.net/en/products/d10/index.htm

Unlike vast majority of audio hardware out there, Topping has full FCC/CE regulatory emissions certification together with that of "high-res audio" the certificate of which is included in the box! That certification is apparently done in Japan. The regulator emissions certification is useful for those of you who sweat traditions from your gear.

The USB interface is class 2 compliant meaning no driver was necessary to use it in my Roon player using exclusive mode, WASAPI in Windows 10 Creators Edition. Auto-detected formats by Roon are:

View attachment 11517

I know most of you are anxious to see how it measures. So let's get into that. As usual, if you are not familiar with what these graphs are, refer to my tutorial on understanding audio measurements: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/understanding-audio-measurements.2351/

Measurements
Because this is a USB only DAC, I can only run a subset of my usual measurements. For this review, I compared the Topping D10 to my previously recommended Behringer UMC204HD. The Behringer is a good DAC but has anemic output which means it can't drive some amplifiers to full output. It also looks more like a pro piece of equipment and not an expensive one at that. The Topping D10 remedies all of these but let's see how it compares specifically, starting with jitter and noise:

View attachment 11526

The Behringer is in yellow and Topping D10 in red. As we see, the topping D10 has some jitter sidebands around our main tone of 12 kHz. So in that regard it is worse than Behringer. However, if you look at the amplitude of our tone, you see that the output of the Behringer is lower. Compensated, the signal to noise ratio of Behringer is worse than Topping D10 and the jitter spikes would be barely visible. Regardless, the jitter components are at a whopping -130 dB and lower which are absolutely not an audible concern.

As a bonus and to show how good these measurements are, I have also shown a preview of the measurements of the Schiit Fulla which retails for $99 (but has a headphone amp) in green. As you see, its signal to noise ratio is much worse.

If you want perfection here, then you would need to step up to Topping D50 ($250) which has the same noise floor but no jitter spikes to speak of.

Next let's look at linearity or how well the DAC produces the output voltages that we instruct it to, from digital domain:

View attachment 11519

Very respectable performance from both DACs. Even when we start to see deviations from perfect zero dB line, nothing goes wild all the way up to -120 dB (20 bits). The Topping D10 though pulls ahead a bit but sticking to zero line more perfectly than the Behringer. This is no doubt due to its higher output.

We can see a confirmation of that in a much clearer picture as we look at the ability of the DAC to reproduce a -90 dB sine wave (at the limit of 16 bit audio):

View attachment 11520

The picture speaks for itself. The Topping D10 produces excellent output that resembles a nice sine wave whereas the Behringer UMC204HD has too low of an output and a noisier one at that.

Let's look at harmonic distortion where the Behringer has been an excellent champion at:

View attachment 11521

Ah, we discover something interesting. The Behringer doesn't show a lot of harmonic distortion because its noise floor is much higher. The Behringer beats it by as much as 25 db. By doing so, its harmonic distortion is visible but they are all lower than what the Behringer produces (note: this noise is the combination of the DAC and my analyzer). Net, net the Topping D10 has far better performance even though its graph looks more "busy."

Edit: forgot to post the frequency response/channel matching:

View attachment 11576

Measured output voltage was 2.113 volts (RMS) on one channel and 2.108 on the other so very excellent (0.021 dB difference). Response is essentially ruler flat to 20 kHz.

Conclusions
The Topping D10 is a delightful audio DAC. It looks very "cute" and masculine at the same time. I cannot fathom how it can be built and shipped at such incredibly low prices. Combine that with proper manufacturing that includes regulatory certification and such and the value you get is just amazing.

Measured performance is excellent and just shy of its more expensive brothers like the Topping D50. With its much higher output vs Behringer UMC204HD (1.5 volt RMS vs 1.1 volt) it is suitable to drive any and all amplifiers.

For an entry level DAC without headphone output I cannot recommend the Topping D10 enough! Another job well done by Topping.

As always, questions, comments, corrections, jokes, etc. are all welcome!
----
If you like this review, please consider donating funds for these types of hardware purchase using Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview), or upgrading your membership here though Paypal (https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054).
Thanks for the very usable review. I have a Yaqin tube amp (https://www.shenzhenaudio.com/yaqin...-tube-push-pull-integrated-amplifier.html?p=1) for which I’m looking for a DAC. Most DACs are too weak to drive it without an intervening preamp. The topping is in my price slab. Do you think it will drive it? Any suggestions on alternatives?
 

bravomail

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1. u do not want to feed 384KHz to DAC. Most DACs, even advertised to support, will not produce a good sound.
2. Modern DACs like AK4490 already internally upscale signal (D10 likely too), so your manipulation is of no use
3. If, afterr 1 and 2 u still want to feed 384 - get upscaling plugin (dbPowerAmp) for Foobar and set scaling frequency manually.

Thanks. After uninstall all and reinstall all, now I can choose the 384 khz... but I still don't have any sound from the amp when I chosse above 192 Khz PCM. What should I do to test 384?
 
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