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Topping DX7 Pro DAC and Headphone Amp Reviewed

MediumRare

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Can anybody explain what the sources would be to use the AES input?
 

NielsMayer

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Patrick1958

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You've got my attention. Why would I want to daisy chain multiple DACS?
I have a dac on my desktop next to computer, second dac(connected with long AES/EBU cable) in my audio/video rack other side of the room ;) (room measure 4.5 meter to 9.5 meter)
 

MediumRare

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I have a dac on my desktop next to computer, second dac(connected with long AES/EBU cable) in my audio/video rack other side of the room ;) (room measure 4.5 meter to 9.5 meter)
I still don't get it. Why not RCA out to your amp? Why go through a 2nd DAC?
 

iscorpio71

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Hello everyone,

I consider myself as a music lover.

Invested over the years on LPs & Cds. I'm currently using steaming services as my main source for convenience (Google play Music & amazon HD) both work great, Google's UI is way better.

Mostly use, of course iem's and headphones and my main rack is a Fiio X5 (original) used as an DAC and a Pico Power amp. I'm currently in the market for and upgrade and wanted to have any input in this regard. I'm very happy with this setup and want to know if there is a significant jump,very noticeable between this and the Topping or any other suggestion. But looking onto the Topping for convenience.

Thanks so much and enjoy the music !
regards,
IB
 

MediumRare

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Mostly use, of course iem's and headphones and my main rack is a Fiio X5 (original) used as an DAC and a Pico Power amp. I'm currently in the market for and upgrade and wanted to have any input in this regard. I'm very happy with this setup and want to know if there is a significant jump,very noticeable between this and the Topping or any other suggestion.

I can only assume your Fiio X5 would have measurements not far from this device Amir measured: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/.../review-and-measurements-of-fiio-k5-pro.9118/, so that's really something you could confirm or not. As the review states, it has good performance, but not SOTA.

The DX7 Pro measures significantly better on all metrics.

It will all come down to whether your iems and headphones are hard to drive or not. For $516 you'll have endgame performance for headphones and can drive your main amp (if you have one) with balanced line interconnects as well.

My experience was a significant improvement. Or at least I think so! ;)
 

Vovgan

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Keep us posted guys, interesting to know about your impressions. Let's see if this is a 'Chord killer' ;);)

>>> please see my latest, second take on Qutest vs Topping DX7 Pro in my next post below this one <<<

Ok so I finally received my Dx7 Pro yesterday and today spent about an hour comparing it to Chord Qutest.

Is it a 'Chord Qutest killer'? For me it surely is. I hoped that it will sound no worse than Qutest, but in fact, I like its sound even more. It's a very small difference indeed, but its sound is a little bit more open without treble becoming harsher. Voices are just this ted bit more alive. Qutest is a very very good DAC, but to my (untrained) ears certainly no better than DX7 pro. Doesn't seem that there is any magic behind those 50,000 "taps" that Rob Watts is advertising.

Headphone amp also seems to work well. I was listening to some podcasts yesterday evening and compared how voices sound via 3,5mm jack on my iMac and via Topping DX7 Pro. Although iMac's headphone jack sounds good, it does add some irritating edges to words which are absent via Topping. Well recorded dialogues are much more pleasant to listen to via Topping DX7 Pro.

The packaging and design craftsmanship are also superb.

So overall I'm very happy with this purchase and thanks to ASR for this review once again.

@veeceem
682A9147.jpg
 
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Veri

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Doesn't seem that there is any magic behind those 50,000 "taps" that Rob Watts is advertising.
[...]
So overall I'm very happy with this purchase and thanks to ASR for this review once again.

That's great to hear!
 

veeceem

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@Vovgan i'm still waiting for the NAD m22 v2 amp to arrive :) but listening with dx7 pro as dac+preamp with denon 1520ae already gives very good feeling already. I doubt there will be any difference. Both are SOTA
But dx7 pro has XLR out and its half the price :) so winner found :)
Btw, I just purchased Anthem STR preamp, this should make testing both as DAC easier cuz Qutest cant act as a preamp
 

Alou

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If you want to connect multiple dacs you need a usb/spdif bridge, most of them have a AES/Ebu OUT.
AES/EBU is a professional audio protocol running in 110 ohms cables,later AES 3 was developed with 75 ohms coax. It was designed mainly for the Television industry and then caught up in the professional studio world.It was never ment to be a consumer standard.These days its almost obsolete in TV studios since all signals are emebded via SDI (audio & video). Still in the pro audio world it is still used as digital connection.Topping obvisoulsy put the AES connection for pro devices such as recording audio cards etc
 

Bjoran

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FLAC-file in my NAS -> network 100 Mbit -> Primare I15 Prisma amp -> digital coax output -> Topping DX7 Pro -> 4.4 mm Pentaconn balanced headphone output -> Sennheiser HD660s -> my ears.
Dynamic, detailed, open and punchy sound, I am really impressed!
 

harleyguy07

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Does your dx7Pro play DSD? I tried to play some files in Audirvana and ... nothing. Topping shows 176.4 kHz but there is no sound.
I used files from https://www.oppodigital.com/hra/dsd-by-davidelias.aspx
Mine pays DSD fine all the way to 256, haven't found 512 DSD to try yet. I'm using foobar though. I had to download a add on for DSD. I'm guessing your settings on Audirvana most have something to do with it. I will say it sounds great with DSD though
 
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