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Review and Measurements of Topping D50 DAC

dc655321

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Chromecast -> TV would be HDMI and not USB, but the question is what do you want to do exactly in the first place?
The KEFs also have a TOSLink input so you could go from the TV to them directly.


My mistake. You're right on both accounts. Thanks!
 

dc655321

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What's your source material, and how does it get to the Chromecast?

Source material would be from Spotify or Google Music, or local-to-phone FLAC via BubbleUPnP.
"Casting" involves the "caster" (phone) instructing the Chromecast dongle to stream from a source to a sink. The dongle maintains the stream, but the "caster" provides the control interface.

Or am I horribly misunderstanding your question...?
 
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Source material would be from Spotify or Google Music, or local-to-phone FLAC via BubbleUPnP.
"Casting" involves the "caster" (phone) instructing the Chromecast dongle to stream from a source to a sink. The dongle maintains the stream, but the "caster" provides the control interface.

Or am I horribly misunderstanding your question...?
So why do you want to connect it to your TV in the first place? Do you want to re-use the loudspeakers also for TV watching? If it is "just" for listening to Spotify, google music I would go with a solution like a Sonos system.
 

sejarzo

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Source material would be from Spotify or Google Music, or local-to-phone FLAC via BubbleUPnP.
"Casting" involves the "caster" (phone) instructing the Chromecast dongle to stream from a source to a sink. The dongle maintains the stream, but the "caster" provides the control interface.

Or am I horribly misunderstanding your question...?

No, not at all, we cast to a TV on a regular basis, but only movies/YouTube. That one has a soundbar that's fine for casual viewing but not something that's great for music. I was simply wondering why you would need a top quality or high-res DAC in that chain and also was unsure of the resolution of the source material.

I'm not very familiar with BubbleUPnP. My FLAC library is over 250 GB so it's not quite practical to maintain it on a phone. I have only read a little about max resolution/bit rate for Spotify or Google but the comments I read suggest that neither justifies a high quality DAC, because you're essentially dealing with MP3 quality at best.

I took a quick look at the LS50 and LS50 wireless specs and either seems to have a very capable DAC built in already. I don't believe you would ever hear the difference by inserting a D50 in that chain.
 

sejarzo

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I'd bet that what Amir predicted in post #26 in this thread will hold...no meaningful audio benefit in using any fancy PSU with this DAC. My E-MU 0404 USB from 12+ years ago was very quiet using a switching power supply.
 

dc655321

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Do you want to re-use the loudspeakers also for TV watching? If it is "just" for listening to Spotify, google music I would go with a solution like a Sonos system.

Yes, re-use speakers for TV watching.
I have a Sonos system, but I'm not entirely satisfied with it. It's quite decent, but I think I can do better.

At any rate, this was just a thought experiment...
 

dc655321

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No, not at all, we cast to a TV on a regular basis, but only movies/YouTube. That one has a soundbar that's fine for casual viewing but not something that's great for music. I was simply wondering why you would need a top quality or high-res DAC in that chain and also was unsure of the resolution of the source material.

I'm not very familiar with BubbleUPnP. My FLAC library is over 250 GB so it's not quite practical to maintain it on a phone. I have only read a little about max resolution/bit rate for Spotify or Google but the comments I read suggest that neither justifies a high quality DAC, because you're essentially dealing with MP3 quality at best.

I took a quick look at the LS50 and LS50 wireless specs and either seems to have a very capable DAC built in already. I don't believe you would ever hear the difference by inserting a D50 in that chain.


Yes, you're right of course. The D50 would be superfluous.
RTFM, as they say (by "they" I mean other coder geeks :) ).

BTW -- I also plug a USB thumbdrive into my router at home. The drive contains mostly FLAC rips of CDs.
A UPnP server can access that drive on the router and play via Chromecast.
 

Leit

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-15% off from D50 on Aliexpress during 28th-30th of March. Some sort of Anniversary Sale. Seems even more compelling now.
 

almostwo

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-15% off from D50 on Aliexpress during 28th-30th of March. Some sort of Anniversary Sale. Seems even more compelling now.

Ufff I wish know this yesterday,

I Just Order the D30 with A30.

:(
 

bhigh

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Anyone have any thoughts on the following configuration (obvious short-comings, show-stoppers, general malaise, etc)?

Google Chromecast ---> USB ---> LG OLED TV (or similar) ---> TOSLink ---> Topping D50 (or similar) --> analog outs ---> KEF LS50 wireless (or similar)

Basically, a Chromecast frontend, passed digitally into a TV, then optically to DAC for distribution to active speakers.

The Chromecast Audio has optical SPDIF out via Mini TOSLINK. Plug that directly into your DAC.

If you have a video Chromecast already, you can use an HDMI audio extractor that has SPDIF, like this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00KBHX072
 

Emil H Gottfried

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Been following this forum for a while and have been waiting for this review. While this looks like something I could pair with my Burson Soloist, it's unfortunate that it doesn't come with a quality power supply. I'd prefer not to plug it into my noisy USB ports of my PC either.

FWIW, I added the Ipower to my SMSL M8 and was quite astonished at the improvement over the stock wall wort. I'm not clear how the USB power supplied from a laptop produces a cleaner measured signal given the amount of switching noise one would expect to be present but in the case of a stock wall wort and the M8, the Ipower produces a very noticeable improvement in high frequency cleanliness and air analogous to a major upgrade.
 

sejarzo

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Yes, you're right of course. The D50 would be superfluous.
RTFM, as they say (by "they" I mean other coder geeks :) )....

I was also confused as to why you needed/wanted to use a wireless monitor, until I found that the powered version of the LS50 is called the LS50 wireless because it also has that capability. A comment on another audio forum had led me to believe that the LS50 was also a powered monitor, rather than being "just a regular monitor."
 

SchwarzeWolke

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What about the ubiquituos cellphone charger? I have a bunch at my home and thought about using one these might be some sort sustainability.
 

sejarzo

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FWIW, I added the Ipower to my SMSL M8 and was quite astonished at the improvement over the stock wall wort. I'm not clear how the USB power supplied from a laptop produces a cleaner measured signal given the amount of switching noise one would expect to be present but in the case of a stock wall wort and the M8, the Ipower produces a very noticeable improvement in high frequency cleanliness and air analogous to a major upgrade.

Perhaps there is a problem with that stock wall wart, which I'd assume is an inexpensive switching supply. I'd have to think that the typical cheap wall wart that was intended to power something like a NiMH battery charger could be 100% functional in most any application while being far noisier than a typical USB port....until someone ends up with one that's partially defective and pumping out a lot of noise?

I was rather active on head-fi around 10 years ago, and many DIY builders of small headamps often used a little linear rectifier/regulation board/kit (called the TREAD, offered by a guy who went by "tangentsoft"...who no longer sells them.) The TREAD was normally installed in the same chassis as the headamp, supplied by a 12 to 24 VAC wall wart, thus keeping the transformer well away from the amp itself. Seems to me that might not be a bad way to go for a DAC if people are concerned about USB power issues.
 

lotse888

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What about the ubiquituos cellphone charger? I have a bunch at my home and thought about using one these might be some sort sustainability.
My brother ran the D50 off a 5 V Samsung cell phone charger briefly a few days ago and he said he did not find it noisy (using headphone via a HP amp). I plan to run the D50 off a large cell phone power bank and see how it works (still waiting for mine).

Regards,
 

Veri

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FWIW, I added the Ipower to my SMSL M8 and was quite astonished at the improvement over the stock wall wort. I'm not clear how the USB power supplied from a laptop produces a cleaner measured signal given the amount of switching noise one would expect to be present but in the case of a stock wall wort and the M8, the Ipower produces a very noticeable improvement in high frequency cleanliness and air analogous to a major upgrade.
Note that amir had some bad measurements when trying out the ifi Power. I almost bought it before reading this. What's weird that another forum tested the IPower to have low ripple and good power out, huh. https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...asurements-of-sonore-microrendu-streamer.577/
 

DonH56

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Its 151 ish in the sale could of saved £30 quid dam my inpatients

"Inpatients" are the people with whom my wife deals with that have been admitted to the hospital.
"Impatience" is when you are driving yourself crazy and must have it right now.
I suspect there is a correlation between the two, at least for certain impatient inpatients... :)

How's it sound?
 
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