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Topping E30 DAC Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
USB noise should never be a problem unless you use a charger with ground plug
http://www.tpdz.net/newsinfo/379406.htmlFind that on Audiophonics :
https://www.audiophonics.fr/fr/dac-...usb-32bit768khz-dsd512-xmos-noir-p-14486.html
So would it means 500mA ? Andylu, can you post your link ? I can't find that pdf... I have an unused LT3045 at home and it would be cool if it's sufficientThanks
I agree with your opinion.Hello !
Thanks for your feedback. I am also 68 years old
:
I am an electronic engineer and first of all I look at the objective parameters and measure on my own. But often, the sound of a device with remarkable parameters is inferior to competitors.
I am often betrayed by the published figures. Therefore, a forum like ASR without lie or hiding is valuable.
I'm very critical of the audiophile's opinion of improving sound quality with cables, but only Aaudioquest's USB cable has to admit it. I bought two products, carbon and forest, but the sound quality is definitely better than a general USB cable. I can't theoretically understand why such changes occur in the digital signal world.
It seems that the human ear can sense unknown performance that cannot be measured with a measuring instrument. So audio is interesting. It is a really strange world.
However, I have to refrain from making such remarks from my technical beliefs.
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jannek
Active Member
I think the difference between USB power and a "proper" power supply can be seen best at the dashboards on page 1.
Yes, the measured noise with clean power is less and SINAD rises by 1-2 db (which is also told by topping support), but the USB noise is more than 120 dB below signal and I am sure below most peoples audibility.
Concerning USB cable sound: Do a blind test... As long as you know what you're listening to the impression is biased.
Yes, the measured noise with clean power is less and SINAD rises by 1-2 db (which is also told by topping support), but the USB noise is more than 120 dB below signal and I am sure below most peoples audibility.
Concerning USB cable sound: Do a blind test... As long as you know what you're listening to the impression is biased.
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UAN
Active Member
I also noticed the effect of the USB cable on the sound, the thicker and shorter the cable the better. I think that the reason is external interference. I have an NCore 400 amplifier, it emits interference and this is especially noticeable at the USB input.
jannek
Active Member
Maybe this discussion is located best somewhere else - a less fact based forum for example.
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GBMuntilprovenotherwise
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Can get it from hifigo here: https://bit.ly/33SRE3M and use HIFIGOE30 to get $5 off
Mine arrives tomorrow pretty hyped
Mine arrives tomorrow pretty hyped
Morpheus85
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Hello,
I am new and have been following the forum for a while. And I also found this thread on the E30.
I ordered the E30 directly from China to Germany. The little cute device arrived today. Workmanship is very good and of course the sound. I use a Fostex HP-A4 beforehand and you can clearly hear a difference to my new setup. sorry for my english
I am new and have been following the forum for a while. And I also found this thread on the E30.
I ordered the E30 directly from China to Germany. The little cute device arrived today. Workmanship is very good and of course the sound. I use a Fostex HP-A4 beforehand and you can clearly hear a difference to my new setup. sorry for my english
Attachments
OK, couldn't resist doing my part for the global economy and ordered one from Hifigo. This will be my third Topping DAC (D10 and DX3Pro v2 are the other ones), and will replace an originally $3500 Auralic Vega that is getting flaky (going from XLR to RCA, which seems to be perfectly adequate in my testing).
Hello,
I am new and have been following the forum for a while. And I also found this thread on the E30.
I ordered the E30 directly from China to Germany. The little cute device arrived today. Workmanship is very good and of course the sound. I use a Fostex HP-A4 beforehand and you can clearly hear a difference to my new setup. sorry for my english
Can you tell me if it turns on itself once ac Power returns when it was on before?
Morpheus85
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no is not working. E30 has a automatic standby function. no signal from USB or coax the E30 goes to standby. comes a signal from USB E30 wake up.
And when it wakes up, is it in the state as it was before?
poimandres
Active Member
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- Oct 2, 2018
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Mine arrived today as well. Haven’t opened the package yet, however kudos to Apos for upgrading shipping to express. More to come.
Just got my E30 and decided that I'm going to return it and keep the D50s that I had ordered just days before. Ultimately it's my neurosis that is going to cost me $130 extra this time.
Here's my impressions on build quality, design, UX, and use. As this was a buying decision between the D50s and E30 for me (both in hand) many of the remarks are going to be comparative.
Packaging: The E30 packaging is one step up from bare bones utilitarian. With the exception of the foam it looks like this is shared across a range of products. To me this is a positive as fancy packaging is genuinely expensive and steals from money that could have been put into the device. As a comparison the D50s packaging appears to be bespoke to the sku and has a bit more high end attributes, my educated guess is that the E30 packaging cost Topping ~$3 and the D50s ~$10. Winner: E30 for putting the money in the right place
Accessories: Came with identical accessories to the D50s with the exception of the bluetooth antenna. Winner: tie
Build quality: The E30 is sturdy and price point appropriate. Rather light weight compared to the D50s but outside of the enclosure and display you can see that they share a lot of components (all connectors are identical, even the little stick on feet are exactly the same). It's heavy enough that it should stay put once setup but could skid around if you're futzing with the wires. The D50s is an aluminum brick and isn't going anywhere. Winner: D50s if you're not considering price, E30 if you're considering price.
Design (subjective thoughts of a hardware product manager): I understand the utility and economics of the "extruded sleeved" enclosure but rarely am a fan when used in higher end products. In this case it's fully acceptable as Topping clearly has prioritized performance and price as their top two features. The D50s as a comparison clearly prioritizes performance and design as the top two features with its' machined enclosure. That said, I'm honestly not a fan of the dinky oled on the D50s and would have killed for a rotary encoder over the joystick. The screen on the E30 is a favorite of mine. It's large enough and bright enough to read from across the room, the orange is wonderfully retro and easy on the eyes. Winner: E30
UX: Simply put I prefer the bare bones interface on the E30. Sure it's nice to be able to make changes on the D50s without finding the remote but generally you configure these things once and let them be. Some nice to haves that the D50s demonstrates is actively displaying the bitdepth/sample rate at the same time as the volume. For some reason the E30 defaults to volume, maybe if it was in "dac" mode.. The additional pixels are an advantage for the D50s here, switching inputs on the E30 yields "err" if there's no signal, which is a little derpy in my opinion, whereas the D50s shows the input name clearly. Both require a decoder ring to figure out which filter is being selected so no points either way on that. Winner: D50s by a small margin
In Use: From a feature perspective the only real difference is that the D50s has bluetooth. Which, in my opinion has one disastrous flaw , it leaves the device discoverable and able to connect at all times opposed to only when the input is selected, a huge oversight that yielded so much frustration that I told my phone to forget the device. I use Spotify on my phone to control music via Spotify Connect (RPi node), the volume rocker on the phone controls volume via Spotify Connect. When my phone connects via bluetooth phone volume control is then devoted to the bluetooth device, thus I lose the ability to control Spotify volume. Simply infuriating.
If the differences stopped there the D50s would be out and the E30 would be the winner.
I ran each of the devices through my standard 10 reference tracks for an audition. I'll steer well clear of any subjective audio claims to avoid the wrath of the ASR gods but there is one absolutely measurable difference. The E30 pops between tracks, the D50s does not. I'm only using the USB input so I can't speak to the others and I won't use the others so it's not relevant to me. Beharps true gapless playback would remedy it. You can repro this on the E30 by muting / unmuting with the remote. pop pop pop each time you hit the button. Dead silence on the D50s. The E30 pop is quiet but still quite audible. I was running a Allo Boss dac before, that had monstrous pops between tracks that actually sent me down this dac road. If I only had the E30 I would likely have stopped there but with the D50s in hand I can't un-know that silence is an option. Winner: D50s
I really wanted the E30 to win for me. Essentially half the cost with ostensibly the same audible performance seems like a no-brainer. Unfortunately that pop between tracks can never be un-heard and I know myself well enough that those little pops will accumulate to a value well above $130 in the lifetime this device will have in my system.
Here's my impressions on build quality, design, UX, and use. As this was a buying decision between the D50s and E30 for me (both in hand) many of the remarks are going to be comparative.
Packaging: The E30 packaging is one step up from bare bones utilitarian. With the exception of the foam it looks like this is shared across a range of products. To me this is a positive as fancy packaging is genuinely expensive and steals from money that could have been put into the device. As a comparison the D50s packaging appears to be bespoke to the sku and has a bit more high end attributes, my educated guess is that the E30 packaging cost Topping ~$3 and the D50s ~$10. Winner: E30 for putting the money in the right place
Accessories: Came with identical accessories to the D50s with the exception of the bluetooth antenna. Winner: tie
Build quality: The E30 is sturdy and price point appropriate. Rather light weight compared to the D50s but outside of the enclosure and display you can see that they share a lot of components (all connectors are identical, even the little stick on feet are exactly the same). It's heavy enough that it should stay put once setup but could skid around if you're futzing with the wires. The D50s is an aluminum brick and isn't going anywhere. Winner: D50s if you're not considering price, E30 if you're considering price.
Design (subjective thoughts of a hardware product manager): I understand the utility and economics of the "extruded sleeved" enclosure but rarely am a fan when used in higher end products. In this case it's fully acceptable as Topping clearly has prioritized performance and price as their top two features. The D50s as a comparison clearly prioritizes performance and design as the top two features with its' machined enclosure. That said, I'm honestly not a fan of the dinky oled on the D50s and would have killed for a rotary encoder over the joystick. The screen on the E30 is a favorite of mine. It's large enough and bright enough to read from across the room, the orange is wonderfully retro and easy on the eyes. Winner: E30
UX: Simply put I prefer the bare bones interface on the E30. Sure it's nice to be able to make changes on the D50s without finding the remote but generally you configure these things once and let them be. Some nice to haves that the D50s demonstrates is actively displaying the bitdepth/sample rate at the same time as the volume. For some reason the E30 defaults to volume, maybe if it was in "dac" mode.. The additional pixels are an advantage for the D50s here, switching inputs on the E30 yields "err" if there's no signal, which is a little derpy in my opinion, whereas the D50s shows the input name clearly. Both require a decoder ring to figure out which filter is being selected so no points either way on that. Winner: D50s by a small margin
In Use: From a feature perspective the only real difference is that the D50s has bluetooth. Which, in my opinion has one disastrous flaw , it leaves the device discoverable and able to connect at all times opposed to only when the input is selected, a huge oversight that yielded so much frustration that I told my phone to forget the device. I use Spotify on my phone to control music via Spotify Connect (RPi node), the volume rocker on the phone controls volume via Spotify Connect. When my phone connects via bluetooth phone volume control is then devoted to the bluetooth device, thus I lose the ability to control Spotify volume. Simply infuriating.
If the differences stopped there the D50s would be out and the E30 would be the winner.
I ran each of the devices through my standard 10 reference tracks for an audition. I'll steer well clear of any subjective audio claims to avoid the wrath of the ASR gods but there is one absolutely measurable difference. The E30 pops between tracks, the D50s does not. I'm only using the USB input so I can't speak to the others and I won't use the others so it's not relevant to me. Beharps true gapless playback would remedy it. You can repro this on the E30 by muting / unmuting with the remote. pop pop pop each time you hit the button. Dead silence on the D50s. The E30 pop is quiet but still quite audible. I was running a Allo Boss dac before, that had monstrous pops between tracks that actually sent me down this dac road. If I only had the E30 I would likely have stopped there but with the D50s in hand I can't un-know that silence is an option. Winner: D50s
I really wanted the E30 to win for me. Essentially half the cost with ostensibly the same audible performance seems like a no-brainer. Unfortunately that pop between tracks can never be un-heard and I know myself well enough that those little pops will accumulate to a value well above $130 in the lifetime this device will have in my system.
Is this with PCM material? Can anyone confirm?
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