Topping E30 DAC Review

[Robbo99999]

What would be the alternative to this one when I need a balanced output? The e30 seems to have only unbalanced, right?

Good question, I'll let someone else answer that. You're talking about features, and that's important and that's where the differences reside. (Yes, E30 is unbalanced output).

 

[odyo]

What would be the alternative to this one when I need a balanced output? The e30 seems to have only unbalanced, right?

Seems like most balanced dacs have lots of bloatware (features) and do not measure as well as E30. I'd say Modius is the best one.

 

[dir]

No way Jose, I refute that both objectively & subjectively (owning this DAC). If I'm gonna put my own subjective opinions over, the E30 sounds better than both the Asus Xonar U7 and the SoundblasterX G6, both of which measured well with the latter measuring very well if you operated it at -2dBFS. You might not expect the E30 to sound better than the G6 based on the measurements, but the G6 was buggy so I think it created it's own strange idiosyncrasies, some days it would run better than others (and would require options to be toggled/reset), it was just as buggy as hell. Yeah, so I think people can buy the E30 with confidence based on the measurements in this review. It's not fair nor accurate for you to describe the E30 as "mediocre" and "like entry level tv-box" - that's just INCORRECT & WRONG.

I has much wider experiense from vintage digital machines to the modern DAC's, so my refereeing is very rude and fast now. Of course, I use a selector and align all sources to the output voltage. And I can say that sources with good or bad measurements can sound great both. But it could be the other way around. We all hope for a miracle, but usually those devices that are more expensive it sounds better

 

[olavrb]

What would be the alternative to this one when I need a balanced output? The e30 seems to have only unbalanced, right?

Yep, E30 only has balanced/ SE.
Schiit Modius is the "balanced alternative", I'd say.

 

[samsa]

What would be the alternative to this one when I need a balanced output? The e30 seems to have only unbalanced, right?

Sonconz LA-QXD1, Schiit Modius, SMSL M300 MkII are three obvious choices.

 

[Robbo99999]

I has much wider experiense from vintage digital machines to the modern DAC's, so my refereeing is very rude and fast now. Of course, I use a selector and align all sources to the output voltage. And I can say that sources with good or bad measurements can sound great both. But it could be the other way around. We all hope for a miracle, but usually those devices that are more expensive it sounds better

Naaa, sorry, can't go along with that. Expensive definitely does not mean better - that is literally the whole reason for this site, to bust audio myths and to stop saps buying expensive audio gear that sounds like sh*t........sorry but I think you're a troll or someone who has not spent enough time reading the reviews & threads on this site, I can't discuss this anymore with you. (Have a good look round on this site and inform yourself some more).

 

[samsa]

I has much wider experiense from vintage digital machines to the modern DAC's, so my refereeing is very rude and fast now. Of course, I use a selector and align all sources to the output voltage. And I can say that sources with good or bad measurements can sound great both. But it could be the other way around. We all hope for a miracle, but usually those devices that are more expensive it sounds better

Without a DBT, your subjective impressions are worth every penny we paid to receive them. (Same goes for the rest of the trolls who have descended on this thread.)

 

[BDWoody]

And I can say that sources with good or bad measurements can sound great both

So, what measures bad and sounds great?

 

[Fregly]

I wanted to use this with a cd player as transport. Does the E30 need to be connected through usb to computer to work? One of my previous dacs would not function with coax unless usb was in use.

 

[yejun]

I wanted to use this with a cd player as transport. Does the E30 need to be connected through usb to computer to work? One of my previous dacs would not function with coax unless usb was in use.

You only need a USB power adapter. E30 has separate USB data and power.

 

[AndyLu]

I wanted to use this with a cd player as transport. Does the E30 need to be connected through usb to computer to work? One of my previous dacs would not function with coax unless usb was in use.

You need to provide the E30 with power. You can do that with an external power supply or via an USB output from a computer. As long as it has power it will operate on all inputs. I suspect that your previous DAC needed to be powered through USB, that is why it only would function with USB connected.

 

[dir]

Without a DBT, your subjective impressions are worth every penny we paid to receive them. (Same goes for the rest of the trolls who have descended on this thread.)

well I'm not just another troll, believe me. On the contrary, I am an attentive reader of this site and I myself take measurements of audio equipment. But in this case, I feel that I am trapped and seduced by abstract figures that contradict my musical experience.

 

[Robbo99999]

well I'm not just another troll, believe me. On the contrary, I am an attentive reader of this site and I myself take measurements of audio equipment. But in this case, I feel that I am trapped and seduced by abstract figures that contradict my musical experience.

Well that's a very philosophical if not flawed way of looking at the whole thing. I still think you need to educate yourself some more by reading more reviews & more threads on this site. You sound like you're a victim to subjectivity/marketing/& price based on your comments so far (in your other posts)....instead I think you'd be better suited to relying on the measurements on this site & the science side of things. I have paid attention to these qualities on this site and to me it's paid off in my own measurements (roomEQ), buying choice, as well as my subjective experience. I'd say keep reading on this site.

I couldn't take you seriously when you said in your earlier post that more expensive was better, so I think you have a lot to learn.....even though you say a few encouraging things in this post I quote.

 

[dir]

So, what measures bad and sounds great?

for example, the first genereations of Philips CD-players with 14 bit TDA1540 DAC: CD100, 101,200,202,300,303
measurements is not "really bad" but its nothing special for modern age
Anyway they plays 16bit content much-much better than E30

 

[dir]

Well that's a very philosophical if not flawed way of looking at the whole thing. I still think you need to educate yourself some more by reading more reviews & more threads on this site. You sound like you're a victim to subjectivity/marketing/& price based on your comments so far....instead I think you'd be better suited to relying on the measurements on this site & the science side of things. I have paid attention to these qualities on this site and to me it's paid off in my own measurements (roomEQ), buying choice, as well as my subjective experience. I'd say keep reading on this site.

I couldn't take you seriously when you said more expensive was better, so I think you have a lot to learn.....even though you say a few encouraging things in this post I quote.

With your Sounblaster card you tend to make too bold generalizations about the victims. Who said? As long as it looks like you tend to blame any audio equipment that dared to put a price tag that you don't like. I am not interested in your crusade against marketings, but I like idea of building a mathematical model of hearing. So far, scientists have managed to mathematically build only one cell, which takes a supercomputer with a capacity of 10 Petaflops

 

[Robbo99999]

With your Sounblaster card you tend to make too bold generalizations about the victims. Who said? As long as it looks like you tend to blame any audio equipment that dared to put a price tag that you don't like. I am not interested in your crusade against marketings, but I like idea of building a mathematical model of hearing. So far, scientists have managed to mathematically build only one cell, which takes a supercomputer with a capacity of 10 Petaflops

Yeah, I see your point you made about my subjective opinions of my Soundblaster vs my E30, but I did that purely because that is my experience and is contrary to your own negative experience of the E30.....I wouldn't have offered a subjective opinion if you hadn't have made frankly ridiculous criticisms of the E30.....so I was balancing that out....but yes my subjective opinions do not carry much more weight than yours, although your previous ridiculous claims that the E30 was merely "mediocre" and no better sound quality than a "TV" was laughable and also untrue as proven by the measurements on this site - so your post did require a reaction & a counter and by virtue of that my observations likely do carry more weight/validity because I'm not making ridiculous assertions like you were.

 

[samsa]

... but I like idea of building a mathematical model of hearing. So far, scientists have managed to mathematically build only one cell, which takes a supercomputer with a capacity of 10 Petaflops

Now we know you're talking nonsense. Thanks for the confirmation.

 

[dir]

Now we know you're talking nonsense. Thanks for the confirmation.

You just need to understand that measuring the voltage with a voltmeter when a sinusoid is applied, and this is exactly what is being done - the same benefit as measuring the mass and dimensions. This can be done easily, you can even use very expensive devices and get a lot of decimal digits, but the sense is about ZERO.
For example, a sine wave of -90 dB is not an audio signal, which means that it does not reflect the behavior of the system under study when playing music. For substantially nonlinear systems, the principle of superposition is not satisfied. That is, the response of the system to a complex signal is not equal to the sum of the reactions to the components of this signal. That is, one harmonic per sinus. Two sines - already 10 times more modulation products. 100 sines 1000 times more modulation products. The condition that the response to 1 sinus will be the same as to a musical signal is not fulfilled.
I am not opposed to measurements to identify technical defects. Indeed, the measurements of some AV receivers here show that someone in the development department needs to be more attentive to their work. But buying audio based ONLY on a measurement sheet in a box is the same marketing story as the signature of Peter Qvortrup. That is all I wanted to say.

 

[whatdoido]

A quick Q about the usb interface: what bits per sample are supported? 16, 24, 32?

On Linux (raspberry pi and fedora) when i try to play a ripped CD track, 44.1k 16bit wav, using ‘aplay -Dhw:1 foo.wav’, it complains that only S32_LE format is supported.

sure enough use sox to generate and send 32bit 44.1k or 48k wav and audio is happy.

is this my misunderstanding, a kernel driver issue or does the E30 only support 32bps on the USB interface?

this is a 2006xxxx unit

 

[Robbo99999]

You just need to understand that measuring the voltage with a voltmeter when a sinusoid is applied, and this is exactly what is being done - the same benefit as measuring the mass and dimensions. This can be done easily, you can even use very expensive devices and get a lot of decimal digits, but the sense is about ZERO.
For example, a sine wave of -90 dB is not an audio signal, which means that it does not reflect the behavior of the system under study when playing music. For substantially nonlinear systems, the principle of superposition is not satisfied. That is, the response of the system to a complex signal is not equal to the sum of the reactions to the components of this signal. That is, one harmonic per sinus. Two sines - already 10 times more modulation products. 100 sines 1000 times more modulation products. The condition that the response to 1 sinus will be the same as to a musical signal is not fulfilled.
I am not opposed to measurements to identify technical defects. Indeed, the measurements of some AV receivers here show that someone in the development department needs to be more attentive to their work. But buying audio based ONLY on a measurement sheet in a box is the same marketing story as the signature of Peter Quotrup. That is all I wanted to say.

That has nothing to do with your random statement about petaflop computing power you made previously or anything I can discern. Your posts aren't hanging together, so that is certainly one of your problems....I'm sure I can't take your "pseudo science" seriously when you can't even manage to tie the logic of your posts together. Looks like a troll trying to baffle & move goal posts, you really need to stop posting rubbish & start reading some more on here, but I don't think I can respond to you anymore, yet I will see what you write.....forgive me if I don't reply to you further.