Topping D30Pro Review (Balanced DAC)

[Saponetto]

Sorry of boring you, i'd like to share few words about the D30 Pro.

If I should tell a friend how good the D30 Pro is, I should avoid any technical detail about its 4-DAC architecture and its noise floor level, and just tell him a few words: "It warms your heart because it's built with music inside".

D30 Pro is a no-frills DAC, maybe looks a little overpriced for just getting a volume knob and two XLRs on the back plate, but it does its best to satisfy my ears during late evening near field/headphone jazz-progressive-vocals listening.

Smooth and captivating sound, maybe not the last word for astounding dynamic, but it really gives me plenty of the good emotions I'm looking for.

Happy listening, everybody!

 

[raif71]

D30 Pro doesn't play nice with every CD player, so I'd look elsewhere. Probably D10b?

When you mentioned D30Pro doesn't play nice with CD player, I'm assuming you mean connecting CD Player spdif (coax/optical) to D30 Pro, right? If so, at the D10b, there is no spdif in (only coax/optical out) so the CD player cannot connect to it. D10b has only usb in for digital connection.

 

[Toku]

Sorry of boring you, i'd like to share few words about the D30 Pro.

If I should tell a friend how good the D30 Pro is, I should avoid any technical detail about its 4-DAC architecture and its noise floor level, and just tell him a few words: "It warms your heart because it's built with music inside".

D30 Pro is a no-frills DAC, maybe looks a little overpriced for just getting a volume knob and two XLRs on the back plate, but it does its best to satisfy my ears during late evening near field/headphone jazz-progressive-vocals listening.

Smooth and captivating sound, maybe not the last word for astounding dynamic, but it really gives me plenty of the good emotions I'm looking for.

Happy listening, everybody!

Can your D30 Pro play PCM 384kHz files correctly?
With the D30 Pro I purchased, when I play PCM 384kHz, the sound is played with a lot of noise while the sound is finely interrupted.

 

[Blaze_NY]

I am on 5.20 driver, playback uses ASIO2 interface, file cache set to 1048576KB (1GB), didn't see the delay.

I'll give your settings a shot, i used to also run asio2 but noticed i was unable to run dsd 256 with it enabled. Do you seem to face that problem?

 

[Saponetto]

@Toku :
My D30 Pro works fine with PCM 384KHz, almost a month of use and never had any stutter or noise.
Do you detect this unpleasant trouble only with PCM via USB?

 

[stoyania]

If I'm using the XLR outputs to a power amp, I will be able to run an RCA line for an active Monolith Subwoofer (XLR + RCA). Am I right here?

is anyone using the RCA outputs as a source for a powered subwoofer? any issues with the remote volume control?

 

[aandres_gm]

When you mentioned D30Pro doesn't play nice with CD player, I'm assuming you mean connecting CD Player spdif (coax/optical) to D30 Pro, right? If so, at the D10b, there is no spdif in (only coax/optical out) so the CD player cannot connect to it. D10b has only usb in for digital connection.

Derp. You're absolutely right. D30 Pro may encounter issues with cd players, but D10 is USB only

 

[thetrystero]

I think it is correct to say that most quality DACs these days are "better" than any power-amplifier. The Hypex amps are really good amps however, and I would not say D30 Pro is overkill. D30 Pro is a solid build and very neat. But you will probably not hear any difference if you buy a good but less expensive DAC.
I have my D30 Pro connected to a SONY TV with a 12 meter SPDIF optical Toslink cable without any problem. The peoblem in my case is only related to one of my CD players, and others have reported the same problem. So if you connect it to a CD player it may work, or it may not work. You can´t know beforehand.

Can someone else with a Samsung TV chime in on whether they're experiencing any of these jitter rejection issues? My local dealer messaged his rep over at Topping and apparently, they told him there could be issues with Samsung TVs (?) I found this odd but anyway I'd like to a second opinion on this as this will be a DAC for my living room so I'll be using it for both TV and music.

 

[Lupin]

It's not my normal use case but out of curiosity after reading some much about the CS8416 incompatibility issues I connected the D30Pro to my (now ancient) Pioneer 50" Kuro plasma TV.

It has been working fine the entire time we've been watching TV/Netflix (about 2.5 hours). Only other device with S/PDIF I have at home are the computers which will most likely work fine to as nobody reported issues with S/PDIF when connected to computers as far as i know.

Was a fun experiment but tonight I'll move the D30Pro back to my computer and let my Pioneer receiver do it's thing again.

 

[thetrystero]

If it's the issue with COAX or TOSLINK and CD player, sorry no.

@JohnYang1997 does this mean that there's no hope at all for the jitter rejection issue with cd players and some TVs? or do you mean the firmware update for that issue will come in a later update? is it fixable at all?

 

[JohnYang1997]

@JohnYang1997 does this mean that there's no hope at all for the jitter rejection issue with cd players and some TVs? or do you mean the firmware update for that issue will come in a later update? is it fixable at all?

Sorry no. It's not fixable unless hardware change. If one encounters the issue with incompatibility the only suggestion is to returning the product. Although there has been shown to work with many upstream devices. The chance of encountering the incompatibility makes me not recommending the device if someone is not willing to risk trying.

 

[thetrystero]

Sorry no. It's not fixable unless hardware change. If one encounters the issue with incompatibility the only suggestion is to returning the product. Although there has been shown to work with many upstream devices. The chance of encountering the incompatibility makes me not recommending the device if someone is not willing to risk trying.

bit the bullet and got the d30 pro yesterday. happy to report audio over toslink works with my samsung tv!

 

[Sray]

I'll give your settings a shot, i used to also run asio2 but noticed i was unable to run dsd 256 with it enabled. Do you seem to face that problem?

Same here, report an error of unsupported sample rate 7xxxxxx. Settings work with other dac(spring 2), so, should be topping driver issue? @JohnYang1997 Anyone reported this to you? DSD256 native mode on windows won't work. But okay with Volumio (OVER LINUX uAC 2.0 driver). So, should be software issue?

 

[RunWithOne]

Kann mir bitte jemand die Anleitung zusenden. Der Download von Topping funktioniert bei mir nicht.

 

[thetrystero]

Kann mir bitte jemand die Anleitung zusenden. Der Download von Topping funktioniert bei mir nicht.

Für die Firmware?

 

[RunWithOne]

Meine Firmware ist aktuell, der Treiber ist installiert. Aber der Download der Bedienungsanleitung funktioniert nicht.

 

[Blaze_NY]

Same here, report an error of unsupported sample rate 7xxxxxx. Settings work with other dac(spring 2), so, should be topping driver issue? @JohnYang1997 Anyone reported this to you? DSD256 native mode on windows won't work. But okay with Volumio (OVER LINUX uAC 2.0 driver). So, should be software issue?

Yup my problem exactly, native dsd only works for me over asio dsdtranscode on foobar

 

[JohnYang1997]

Does it work if you follow the instructions in the driver folder?

 

[Naturlig]

What kind of PSU sits in the D30 Pro? Have not seen any inside picture?

 

[Lupin]

What kind of PSU sits in the D30 Pro? Have not seen any inside picture?