If DAC's like Topping D10 measure so well, what do the better DACs offer?

[FeddyLost]

AP is real life

OK, it's almost perfect, well engineered real life that typical owner of D10 will never get. And AP test results is the best case scenario.
Usually in such price bracket people tend to have cheap laptop as one and only digital media center and I'd expect results like in provided link.
I have long personal story of ground loops with various audibility, so there's no warranty that in real life any galvanically connected DAC will be as good as AP tests show.

 

[JohnYang1997]

OK, it's almost perfect, well engineered real life that typical owner of D10 will never get. And AP test results is the best case scenario.
Usually in such price bracket people tend to have cheap laptop as one and only digital media center and I'd expect results like in provided link.
I have long personal story of ground loops with various audibility, so there's no warranty that in real life any galvanically connected DAC will be as good as AP tests show.

We can measure ground loop. We have measured different variety of connection and evaluated it. Also AP is AP. It is also connect to a computer. In this case it's also a cheap PC with poor everything in it. AP is not engineered to give best case result but a truthful one. Again, we did measure ground loop conditions.

 

[JohnYang1997]

What's wrong with using AP? What's exactly the difference? You obviously have not used AP and don't even know what AP is. DACs are still connected to the computer and outputing outputs. Only thing is that AP measures its output. What's so not real life this is?

 

[FeddyLost]

What's so not real life this is?

That most cheap DACs with USB power might give unpredictably different SQ results depending on USB port quality.
So, I'd generally avoid such converters as class unless I need them to be USB powered.
Because I don't know any standards about USB power quality and to get SQ measured here, owner will have to investiate and solve another problem. Or maybe owner will be just disappointed with SQ depending on his source noise.

 

[JohnYang1997]

That most cheap DACs with USB power might give unpredictably different SQ results depending on USB port quality.
So, I'd generally avoid such converters as class unless I need them to be USB powered.
Because I don't know any standards about USB power quality and to get SQ measured here, owner will have to investiate and solve another problem. Or maybe owner will be just disappointed with SQ depending on his source noise.

With AP you can still be using the worst USB source. Amir also talks about how dirty his usb supply is. Ground loop is a universal issue. Most people do not get ground loop. But significant portion of people still gets ground loop issue. This is related to USB power but not determined by it. Ground loop issue will still be there just behave differently. And it can be solved. Also it's usually caused by the amplifier it is connected to not the dac itself. With ground isolated amplifiers like Atom or L30, there's very minimal chance that you are getting ground loop issue.
To solve it completely, either use isolation or balanced connection.

 

[mnemonix]

So I'm going to go with late 1992 for the first commercially available dial-up access to the Internet.

Indeed, Demon Internet was one of the first public dial-up providers in the UK and started in 1992. Having used the internet at University prior to this I scrounged a free account from them to get back online after I left.

The "internet" itself has arguably been around since the late 1960s. The WWW, which people seem to confuse with the internet, since 1989, so 31 years then.

 

[Robin L]

Indeed, Demon Internet was one of the first public dial-up providers in the UK and started in 1992. Having used the internet at University prior to this I scrounged a free account from them to get back online after I left.

The "internet" itself has arguably been around since the late 1960s. The WWW, which people seem to confuse with the internet, since 1989, so 31 years then.

"Inherent Vice" [the book, not the movie] gets into the back story of Darpanet, the first, original, Internet, created around the late 1960s with just a few government nodes in the country.

 

[Dzhaughn]

What do a $300 pair of sneakers have over a $40 pair. I guarantee its not the speed at which the wearer can run.

So why assume there must be a difference in SQ between cheap DAC and expensive DAC?

Sneaker testing is coming soon to ASR, with the recent acquisition Cripple Near Feet Scanner.

 

[raistlin65]

Sort of relevant to this discussion, just heard another, person on Reddit today that say the Tempotec Sonata HD Pro dongle won't do because it's a dongle.

HIDISZ/Tempotec should stick it in a $5 case that people can stack with their amps so it looks like a desktop DAC, and charge $20 more for. They don't even have to put the volume buttons on it.

Meanwhile, the same kind of people consider buying Schiit crappy multibit upgrades just because it's an upgrade. lol

 

[Sgt. Ear Ache]

With a dac that measures like the D10, I'd prefer to buy a new (and probably improved) one for $100 every year for the next decade than buy a $1000 one today.

 

[Robbo99999]

In 1993, I was hired in the IT department of a nationally-known real estate firm here in Dallas. One of my first assignments was to research the Internet to determine if it was really a "thing" and if there were any viable business purpose to invest in it.

You said "no", didn't you?

Aww....I'm still waiting for his answer!

 

[192kbps]

With AP you can still be using the worst USB source. Amir also talks about how dirty his usb supply is. Ground loop is a universal issue. Most people do not get ground loop. But significant portion of people still gets ground loop issue. This is related to USB power but not determined by it. Ground loop issue will still be there just behave differently. And it can be solved. Also it's usually caused by the amplifier it is connected to not the dac itself. With ground isolated amplifiers like Atom or L30, there's very minimal chance that you are getting ground loop issue.
To solve it completely, either use isolation or balanced connection.

My dx3pro can hear noise. Should I buy isolation or linear power?

 

[JohnYang1997]

My dx3pro can hear noise. Should I buy isolation or linear power?

isolation

 

[192kbps]

isolation

Does isolation affect data transmission？

 

[AnalogSteph]

Yes, you will definitely have to keep an eye on which data rates the isolator is capable of, some may only support USB 1.1 speeds. DC output current not necessarily is >=500 mA either.

 

[ChickenChaser]

@raistlin65's comment leads me to ask, is there any dongle that rivals the performance of the D10 for even cheaper?

 

[raistlin65]

@raistlin65's comment leads me to ask, is there any dongle that rivals the performance of the D10 for even cheaper?

You mean cheaper than the HIDISZ S8/Tempotec Sonata HD Pro? I don't know. But the S8 is certainly in the same performance range as the Topping D10S

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...dizs-s8-usb-c-headphone-adapter-review.10823/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...topping-d10s-usb-dac-and-bridge-review.14859/

 

[pidesd]

More expensive dacs often have better parts, are better tuned, have been tested to sound pleasing, better distotaion spectra, have seperate quality power supplies for each stage. Not everything that counts can be measured!

edit: that said, i just bought the topping d10s and it sound good for the money....but it just begs to be modded (feeding the 5V usb bus with a good PSU first)

 

[threni]

are better tuned, have been tested to sound pleasing....Not everything that counts can be measured!...topping d10s ... just begs to be modded.

Welcome to ASR!

 

[pidesd]

thanks Threni.

I'm not sure how much the d10s can be modded without putting the board into a bigger box.

To me, the easiest and worthwhile mods would be:

-Changing the 5V USB supply with something like sigma11 or Salas shunt regulator. There are also smaller IC regs like lt3045, tps7a, adm7150,etc or even lm317. First thing i would do and not UBER complicated, if you have «desire», and possibly great rewards.
-Replacing the SMPS thats feeds all the clocks to a respectable linear or shunt reg, at least.
-Replacing the 3 big ALU 470 uF caps (with nichicon KZ (They have leads though) i would personnally) (to be tried at the minimum but you may not like the results)
-replacing buffer/filter op-amp with a better op-amp or discrete circuit, to taste.

Bonus 1: you COULD want to change the +- 5.6V SMPS that feeds all the dac output stage opamps.... these opamps have good Supply rejection though so it would be interesting to try.

Bonus 2: Ditch the 3.3v tiny reg dac feeds the dac chip with something better (though i'm not sure what is this reg exactly).

Disclaimer: you may damage your unit or not like the results, which also depends on how well it is implemented.