Review and Measurements of Topping D90 4499DAC

[Spocko]

Topping D90 in the house! Just received it last night, haven't hooked it up yet but wanted to share my impressions regarding aesthetics, unboxing. VERY NICE PACKAGING, and worthy of the "premium" if $700 can be described as premium in audiophile circles LOL. The black box it comes in is impressive, and easily something you would expect if you picked this up off the shelf at an Apple Store. I guess I'm jaded, but I honestly viewed this DAC as a budget entry level system, for my simple stereo, but upon opening it, was pleasantly surprised by the premium feel of everything.

 

[KingFiercer]

It's the same packaging as D70, nice indeed. Looking forward to your listening impressions!

 

[slingshot]

Topping D90 in the house! Just received it last night, haven't hooked it up yet but wanted to share my impressions regarding aesthetics, unboxing. VERY NICE PACKAGING, and worthy of the "premium" if $700 can be described as premium in audiophile circles LOL. The black box it comes in is impressive, and easily something you would expect if you picked this up off the shelf at an Apple Store. I guess I'm jaded, but I honestly viewed this DAC as a budget entry level system, for my simple stereo, but upon opening it, was pleasantly surprised by the premium feel of everything.

I think you ordered them from Apos. Did you pay for Express shipping? Maybe that is why mine were delayed a week saving me $50.

 

[Spocko]

Free shipping, nothing extra

 

[Nybto]

I would be perfectly happy if it came just rolled up in bubble wrap (whats all this fuss about unboxing ?), did you get any sound out of it ?

 

[Rigel]

Hello Spocko ¿Could you tell us something about its sound or details that you find interesting? Thank´s

 

[Casey Leedom]

It would be so cool if this had a built in Ethernet Roon Endpoint implementation in it ...

Casey

 

[jcadduono]

It would be so cool if this had a built in Ethernet Roon Endpoint implementation in it ...

Casey

You just need to find a raspbpi enclosure that matches the D90 aesthetics

 

[Casey Leedom]

Well, there's also the desire to decrease the clutter of another small box and wall wart power supply ...

Casey

 

[yodog]

Topping D90 in the house! Just received it last night, haven't hooked it up yet but wanted to share my impressions regarding aesthetics, unboxing. VERY NICE PACKAGING, and worthy of the "premium" if $700 can be described as premium in audiophile circles LOL. The black box it comes in is impressive, and easily something you would expect if you picked this up off the shelf at an Apple Store. I guess I'm jaded, but I honestly viewed this DAC as a budget entry level system, for my simple stereo, but upon opening it, was pleasantly surprised by the premium feel of everything.

so how does it sound? And did you get it from Apos audio for the $699 retail price?

 

[Spocko]

so how does it sound? And did you get it from Apos audio for the $699 retail price?

Hi, sorry for the not yet posting my sound impressions! The holidays being what it is, I literally unboxed the D90, took some photos, and left with the family for the holidays - wife not so happy when I said,"But honey, I really have to post these photos before I start packing."
Quick update: as this is part of my experimental "high resolution" system, it's taking a bit longer than I expected to set everything up for a true listening session, and my setup is a little more complicated than normal:
Source: MiniDSP SHD Studio w/ Dirac Live
DAC: Topping D90
Amplifier: March Audio P502
Speakers: Revel M126Be

Just got back and literally will be spending this entire weekend getting the MiniDSP Volumio/Qobuz streaming working. I'll give you my impressions (without Dirac, room tuning will be another weekend lost tinkering, damn this hobby) sometime next week!

 

[slingshot]

Wow, it came today instead of tomorrow. Very nicely packaged.

I immediately installed it in lieu of the Pro-Ject Pro-Box S2 in my office system. For what it is worth, I have Curious USB cables, Dana Cables Diamond Reference interconnects and Tellurium II Silver speaker cables with a twenty year old Monitor Audio bookshelf speakers with no model name on it. The speakers are on my large desk about five feet from my ears. I have Roon software. I have two Arcam AVR 350s. I listened to one with both channels and I will listen to both later; each one playing one channel. I have Quad S-2 speakers with a ribbon tweeter on order which should be delivered tomorrow. I will send them back if they are not a significant sound improvement over the MAs. I just sent went back a pair Kef 50s due to the harshness of the treble.

One of my favorite songs is America’s The Tinman. At about 1:58 seconds into the song there is a lot of sibilance in the left channel speaker. I wondered if the D90 would ameliorate this. It did somewhat but not entirely. (By the way I had played the Tidal MQA version with the S2 to play this to determine the time when the sibilance occurred. The MQA version sounded much better than the regular version)

I then played some of my reference tracks.

Preliminary thoughts are that the D90 is a step up from the S2 which I think has amazing sound.

I did not hear any clicks when going from one sample rate to another.

 

[despoiler]

Wow, it came today instead of tomorrow. Very nicely packaged.

I immediately installed it in lieu of the Pro-Ject Pro-Box S2 in my office system. For what it is worth, I have Curious USB cables, Dana Cables Diamond Reference interconnects and Tellurium II Silver speaker cables with a twenty year old Monitor Audio bookshelf speakers with no model name on it. The speakers are on my large desk about five feet from my ears. I have Roon software. I have two Arcam AVR 350s. I listened to one with both channels and I will listen to both later; each one playing one channel. I have Quad S-2 speakers with a ribbon tweeter on order which should be delivered tomorrow. I will send them back if they are not a significant sound improvement over the MAs. I just sent went back a pair Kef 50s due to the harshness of the treble.

One of my favorite songs is America’s The Tinman. At about 1:58 seconds into the song there is a lot of sibilance in the left channel speaker. I wondered if the D90 would ameliorate this. It did somewhat but not entirely. (By the way I had played the Tidal MQA version with the S2 to play this to determine the time when the sibilance occurred. The MQA version sounded much better than the regular version)

I then played some of my reference tracks.

Preliminary thoughts are that the D90 is a step up from the S2 which I think has amazing sound.

I did not hear any clicks when going from one sample rate to another.

The Quad S-2 speakers are really good. They are transparent enough to reveal any junk in your front end. They are a touch finicky on placement so spend the time to get it right.

 

[Nybto]

Thanks for the impressions on the D90, I am interested, patiently waiting for Spocko aswell!
Thought I would checkout that sibilance issue, didn’t notice any, maybe that’s Qobuz for you, or the KTB DAC.. (using a Beyerdynamic T1.2 headphone through a Benchmark HPA4)

 

[WolfX-700]

Update:
Today I simply measured a "retail sample" --- sent from my friend

Here are the results:

J-Test：

 

[bys13]

Update:
Today I simply measured a "retail sample" --- sent from my friend

Here are the results:

View attachment 44103

View attachment 44104

J-Test：
View attachment 44105

The noise floor is aroud -140db and the spikes are aroud -130db? I don't see any improvements considering the noise floor of the "unfixed version" was around -165db and the spikes were even somewhat lower...Correct me if I'm wrong.

 

[bys13]

The noise floor is aroud -140db and the spikes are aroud -130db? I don't see any improvements considering the noise floor of the "unfixed version" was around -165db and the spikes were even somewhat lower...Correct me if I'm wrong.

I mean J-test.

 

[bequietjk]

Yeah that's what I'm thinkin'

That new J test is looking more like the Sarlacc pit from Star Wars

 

[WolfX-700]

I mean J-test.

Ah I forgot to switch the vertical axis (from dbV to dbrA).

 

[Snafu]

is there a reason why J-test is +10dB

thanks