High failure rate with Topping products?

[Tom Prowda]

About 18 months ago I purchased a Topping DX-7s DAC/headphone amp that I've been using in my audio system. I've been greatly pleased with the performance....until 2 months ago when the unit started to distort heavily on both my USB and coax digital sources. Communication with Topping has been challenging, sometimes taking up to a week to respond to any inquiries. There is no US service for these units so after me badgering them several times, they very reluctantly gave me a shipping address in China, which I have to pay shipping both ways, in addition to a wait of several months to get it checked out and repaired.

I've started to hear and see rumblings that Topping has a high failure rate and I'm wondering if this is true. If so, it's very disappointing, as their products get such great ratings for very high performance and sound quality at very affordable prices, and I've been VERY highly satisfied with the performance, up to now.

I'm searching for an alternative to use while I wait for them to fix my unit, and to have as a backup incase of any future problems. The headphone amp part is not much concern to me, but I do need any replacement to have both USB and coax digital inputs, as I have a DVD player I use as a transport for playing the huge CD collection I still have.

Any advice is much appreciated, thanks in advance!

Tom Prowda

 

[Doodski]

Do you have a price range in mind? Where have you read about Topping having a high rate of failures?

 

[Doodski]

There is the Schiit Modi for $99 USD.
The Schiit Modius for $199 USD.
The JDS Labs El DAC II for$299 USD.
The Topping selection is pretty good too. If you want another Topping that is.

 

[Jimbob54]

About 18 months ago I purchased a Topping DX-7s DAC/headphone amp that I've been using in my audio system. I've been greatly pleased with the performance....until 2 months ago when the unit started to distort heavily on both my USB and coax digital sources. Communication with Topping has been challenging, sometimes taking up to a week to respond to any inquiries. There is no US service for these units so after me badgering them several times, they very reluctantly gave me a shipping address in China, which I have to pay shipping both ways, in addition to a wait of several months to get it checked out and repaired.

I've started to hear and see rumblings that Topping has a high failure rate and I'm wondering if this is true. If so, it's very disappointing, as their products get such great ratings for very high performance and sound quality at very affordable prices, and I've been VERY highly satisfied with the performance, up to now.

I'm searching for an alternative to use while I wait for them to fix my unit, and to have as a backup incase of any future problems. The headphone amp part is not much concern to me, but I do need any replacement to have both USB and coax digital inputs, as I have a DVD player I use as a transport for playing the huge CD collection I still have.

Any advice is much appreciated, thanks in advance!

Tom Prowda

Im not sure how one begins to assess failure rates of a manufacturer/ model when the sales figures are (to the best of my knowledge) an unknown quantity. Number of reports of failures across the internet on their own mean nothing . Its safe to assume they sell popular lines in the thousands if not tens of thousands so even 100 confirmed failures of a model may still be small change.

I say this as a person who has owned an L30 which had a terminal failure (reported and resolved) but even in that little saga I dont recall seeing more than a low double digit figure of actual broken units reported here and elsewhere.

I hate to say it but (perhaps) all we should really expect from such products is a couple or 3 years life with no realistic solution to a repair outside of warranty without a more local service route. Ideal? No, but maybe reality

 

[Doodski]

I hate to say it but (perhaps) all we should really expect from such products is a couple or 3 years life with no realistic solution to a repair outside of warranty without a more local service route. Ideal? No, but maybe reality

I don't think we would be receiving proper component level service even if we had local techies that want to service the DAC gear. The SMD parts are too difficult to order. Minimum order amounts from suppliers and availability are all a hindrance. Been there done that. When ordering a $5 or $12 part and the minimum invoice is stated to be $50 to $200 each then service becomes a pain in the butt.

 

[Harmonie]

The title of your thread is a bit aggressive without any proof or source mentioned.
Thus coming from a new member (welcome); it's kind of unusual.

Many of us here at ASR own Topping products and as @Jimbob54 said, they are one of the rare responsible manufacturers.
Maybe you should rather ask for a way to find help, but in more gentle way?

 

[muslhead]

About 18 months ago I purchased a Topping DX-7s DAC/headphone amp that I've been using in my audio system. I've been greatly pleased with the performance....until 2 months ago when the unit started to distort heavily on both my USB and coax digital sources. Communication with Topping has been challenging, sometimes taking up to a week to respond to any inquiries. There is no US service for these units so after me badgering them several times, they very reluctantly gave me a shipping address in China, which I have to pay shipping both ways, in addition to a wait of several months to get it checked out and repaired.

I've started to hear and see rumblings that Topping has a high failure rate and I'm wondering if this is true. If so, it's very disappointing, as their products get such great ratings for very high performance and sound quality at very affordable prices, and I've been VERY highly satisfied with the performance, up to now.

I'm searching for an alternative to use while I wait for them to fix my unit, and to have as a backup incase of any future problems. The headphone amp part is not much concern to me, but I do need any replacement to have both USB and coax digital inputs, as I have a DVD player I use as a transport for playing the huge CD collection I still have.

Any advice is much appreciated, thanks in advance!

Tom Prowda

If you dont like failures or frustrating customer service then i would highly recommend you avoid SMSL based upon my small 4 device sample size experience

 

[escape2]

I'm searching for an alternative to use while I wait for them to fix my unit, and to have as a backup incase of any future problems. The headphone amp part is not much concern to me, but I do need any replacement to have both USB and coax digital inputs, as I have a DVD player I use as a transport for playing the huge CD collection I still have.

Any advice is much appreciated, thanks in advance!

I've been very happy with Loxjie D30. The headphone amp may not be the greatest, but you mentioned that you don't really need that part.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d30-dac-and-headphone-amplifier-review.16679/

 

[muslhead]

Im not sure how one begins to assess failure rates of a manufacturer/ model when the sales figures are (to the best of my knowledge) an unknown quantity. Number of reports of failures across the internet on their own mean nothing . Its safe to assume they sell popular lines in the thousands if not tens of thousands so even 100 confirmed failures of a model is still small change.

I say this as a person who has owned an L30 which had a terminal failure (reported and resolved) but even in that little saga I dont recall seeing more than a low double digit figure of actual broken units reported here and elsewhere.

I hate to say it but (perhaps) all we should really expect from such products is a couple or 3 years life with no realistic solution to a repair outside of warranty without a more local service route. Ideal? No, but maybe reality

A better suggestion may be the mfg post their mtbf data (or equivalent) as a spec. If they dont have them because they arent testing, then that is where we should be pushing them to go.

 

[Zensō]

If customer service is a top priority, I'd suggest looking into JDS Labs. I'm not affiliated with them in any way, but I have received exceptional customer service from them on more than one occasion. https://jdslabs.com/product/el-dac-ii/

 

[FireLion]

Had a Topping D10, D10s, E30 and now A30 pro. All have worked 100%.

 

[anmpr1]

When you buy something, anything, you have to be realistic about your purchase. You have to be realistic about why you made the purchase, and your motivation. If you are buying a one hundred dollar electronic item you pretty much have to consider it 'throw-away'. It's just a fact that you can't expect much for 'on the cheap'. On the other hand, as you go up the food chain, you should expect (but you will not always get) higher build quality.

The 'problem' with Topping, and other items made half way across the world (I don't want to single them out), is they have no local support. What they mostly have going for them is cheaper pricing than locally sourced gear (of course, good specs in the case of Topping). At throw away prices it's not a big consideration if it breaks, because you are not out much money. However, as the price of entry rises--and I don't know what the throw away cut off is, maybe three or four hundred dollars, you have to seriously think more long term. You have to ask yourself, "Do I want to take a chance if something breaks? Who is going to fix this for me?"

You are 18 months into your purchase? If you are in the US, on the low end of the price spectrum the Full of Schiit guys will probably be able to work with you because their inexpensive gear has a two year warranty. Not bad for cheapness. The shipping cost to return their item is not going to break your bank, and you won't have to wait three or four months to get your replacement. Probably.

Or, you could spring for better built stuff, like Benchmark, and get five years of warranty, but then you are not into cheapness anymore (even though Benchmark is a value proposition in the scheme of audio).

In both instances, Schiit and Benchmark, you can probably get the head honchos on the phone to talk with them, and they will be interested in helping you to solve your issues. You can call during normal business hours in your own time zone, and at local phone rates. And you won't have to worry about language issues.

Personally, if I lived in Shenzhen, or Guangzhou, or wherever they are, I'd buy a Topping product with no hesitation. But I don't, so I won't.

Keep in mind, whether ASR reviews or the goof-ball subjective reviews, it is one thing to talk up an item based on 'objective' performance, or, 'subjectively', describing how it makes you feel when listening to your music. But living with an item in the real world often presents 'other' issues that are of more importance.

 

[FireLion]

When you buy something, anything, you have to be realistic about your purchase. You have to be realistic about why you made the purchase, and your motivation. If you are buying a one hundred dollar electronic item you pretty much have to consider it 'throw-away'. It's just a fact that you can't expect much for 'on the cheap'. On the other hand, as you go up the food chain, you should expect (but you will not always get) higher build quality.

The 'problem' with Topping, and other items made half way across the world (I don't want to single them out), is they have no local support. What they mostly have going for them is cheaper pricing than locally sourced gear (of course, good specs in the case of Topping). At throw away prices it's not a big consideration if it breaks, because you are not out much money. However, as the price of entry rises--and I don't know what the throw away cut off is, maybe three or four hundred dollars, you have to seriously think more long term. You have to ask yourself, "Do I want to take a chance if something breaks? Who is going to fix this for me?"

You are 18 months into your purchase? If you are in the US, on the low end of the price spectrum the Full of Schiit guys will probably be able to work with you because their inexpensive gear has a two year warranty. Not bad for cheapness. The shipping cost to return their item is not going to break your bank, and you won't have to wait three or four months to get your replacement. Probably.

Or, you could spring for better built stuff, like Benchmark, and get five years of warranty, but then you are not into cheapness anymore (even though Benchmark is a value proposition in the scheme of audio).

In both instances, Schiit and Benchmark, you can probably get the head honchos on the phone to talk with them, and they will be interested in helping you to solve your issues. You can call during normal business hours in your own time zone, and at local phone rates. And you won't have to worry about language issues.

Personally, if I lived in Shenzhen, or Guangzhou, or wherever they are, I'd buy a Topping product with no hesitation. But I don't, so I won't.

Keep in mind, whether ASR reviews or the goof-ball subjective reviews, it is one thing to talk up an item based on 'objective' performance, or, 'subjectively', describing how it makes you feel when listening to your music. But living with an item in the real world often presents 'other' issues that are of more importance.

I always buy on eBay or on Amazon, with Prime. If a seller sends you a lemon on ebay, you have a 30 day money back guarantee and postage is on them. If they do not supply a label then you can just dump or make an ornament out of the product.
Then with Prime on Amazon your also covered for 30 days. Most of the big companies should cover the warranty.

I know xduoo helped me and it was out of warranty, I just had to pay the initial postage to China and wait a few months for it to be repaired. I'd imagine topping and smsl would be similar? If not they should be. I always thought highly of xduoo after that.

 

[groovybassist]

From an environmental point of view, I really dislike how throw away many electronic items have become - it’s an unfortunate reality of today’s world and marketplace. I also dislike my gear breaking down or having to send it to a different continent for service (been there, done that). In my audio journey I’ve found high performance, high reliability and high serviceability comes at a correspondingly higher price - you really do get what you pay for. For me personally, TCA and Neurochrome products (by @tomchr) fit this bill and I’ve been very happy with them.

 

[egellings]

SMT parts, if not custom, are readily available. Big vendors like Digi Key stock many SMT p/n's, and hobbyists can order small quantities of them. The trick is removing a many-leaded device, or even a 2 leaded MMLC or resistor without damaging the PCB it's on, if you don't have the specialized equipment for that.

 

[hmscott]

About 18 months ago I purchased a Topping DX-7s DAC/headphone amp that I've been using in my audio system. I've been greatly pleased with the performance....until 2 months ago when the unit started to distort heavily on both my USB and coax digital sources. Communication with Topping has been challenging, sometimes taking up to a week to respond to any inquiries. There is no US service for these units so after me badgering them several times, they very reluctantly gave me a shipping address in China, which I have to pay shipping both ways, in addition to a wait of several months to get it checked out and repaired.

I've started to hear and see rumblings that Topping has a high failure rate and I'm wondering if this is true. If so, it's very disappointing, as their products get such great ratings for very high performance and sound quality at very affordable prices, and I've been VERY highly satisfied with the performance, up to now.

I'm searching for an alternative to use while I wait for them to fix my unit, and to have as a backup incase of any future problems. The headphone amp part is not much concern to me, but I do need any replacement to have both USB and coax digital inputs, as I have a DVD player I use as a transport for playing the huge CD collection I still have.

Any advice is much appreciated, thanks in advance!

Tom Prowda

Did you change anything in your USB source device? PC/Laptop? New Graphics card or other potentially "noise inducing" component upgrades?

Did you disconnect the USB cable when testing through the Coax connection?

The noises I heard in my A90 fed by RCA connections from my D90 were all due to the GPU in my PC adding hash to the USB power/ground through the USB connection between the PC and D90 DAC. And those noises mixed with my music could be perceived as distorting the sound.

Effectively breaking the USB power / ground lines in that USB cable using the ifi iDefender got rid of the last GPU induced noise. Before that I got rid of a lot of RFI/EMI induced noise simply by changing the RCA cable with a Quad Shielded with a floating shield - connected to ground at the source, but floating open at the DAC - yes a directional RCA cable. That got rid of the "idle" or CPU load noises, but when the GPU kicked up it's load for gaming or CUDA work the USB power/ground path provided a route for the noise to get into the PC/D90/A90 even over those Quad Shielded RCA cables.

I looked for a USB data only cable - without the power / ground wires - but I couldn't find one at the time, and the ifi iDefender dongle sits between the PC and the DAC (at the PC side) and not only breaks the PC USB power/ground lines it also allows injection of external USB power - should your DAC need USB power to operate.

Here's a simple example - hear GPU load noise without the iDefender - and hear silence with the iDefender - both times with the GPU under load:
ifi iDefender 3.0 Review & Demo: Breaking a GPU Noise Ground Loop - YouTube - 673 seconds in to the video, you are welcome.

Is this the noise you were hearing? If so I hope you didn't send the DX7 yet...if so and you still hear that noise when you get it back, breaking the USB power/ground lines with an iDefender might be the solution you were looking for all along.

My Topping A90/D90 MQA have been very reliable, and the noise problem was from my environment, it took me a while to work through the RFI/EMI/PC noise sources and find solutions to reduce and then remove the noises.

And, the noise can come through multiple paths. So disconnect everything when testing different inputs. I had 2 DAC's connected to my PC via USB, so either I needed to disconnect one of them, or use 2 ifi iDefenders:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d90-balanced-usb-dac-review.10519/post-575395

Eventually I found a reasonably priced independent Battery Powered solution to power the D90 MQA + A90 or D90 MQA + TA-20 to remove powerline/ground induced noise:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-headphone-amplifier-review.13592/post-753079

Now my A90/D90 MQA/TA-20 all have no audible externally induced noise, and have been very reliable.

 

[JWAmerica]

I would expect to see that reflected in Amazon and ebay reviews if it were true. Internet forum posts are anecdotal.

 

[ex audiophile]

I sympathize, had the same maybe worse experience with Matrix. A lot goes into these purchase decisions and I think we often prioritize initial price too highly. I fully understand that Topping's excellent performance/price combination is hard to pass up. Their reliability may be better or worse than average, I don't know but all brands have issues. The critical thing is how these problems are handled by the manufacturer.

I ended up prioritizing build quality, service after the sale, resale value and simply pleasure of ownership when I decided to go with Benchmark. Many of us are on a first name basis with Rory, their excellent service/sales rep and other benefits include 5 year warranty and of course superb performance. Never looked back after a Benchmark purchase and have had zero problems with a fair number of their components (AHB2, HPA4, LA4, DAC 3B, cables).

 

[hmscott]

I would expect to see that reflected in Amazon and ebay reviews if it were true. Internet forum posts are anecdotal.

What are you talking about? As a technical customer haven't you ever found product problems?, debugged the problem issues to their source cause(s), found solutions with specific fixes, and then taken the time and effort to provide feedback to a manufacturer in the form of a detailed root cause analysis?

In this case @JohnYang1997 confirmed the ground loop and RCA path as potential noise paths immediately upon initial reports of RCA noise problems. John is a good guy on top of being a good engineer, his honest attitude helps immensely in mitigating customer problems:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d90-balanced-usb-dac-review.10519/post-475832
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d90-balanced-usb-dac-review.10519/post-475836

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d90-balanced-usb-dac-review.10519/post-475846

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d90-balanced-usb-dac-review.10519/post-475851
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...d90-balanced-usb-dac-review.10519/post-475864

My own A90 / D90 MQA RCA noise observations along with root causes and solutions were report here and on head-fi.org. In the process of sharing problems with other users they confirmed their own RCA noises problems.

The more experienced you become as a technical customer the clearer it becomes that manufacturers need helpful customer assistance in the form of accurate problem reports with repeatable configurations for replication and testing provided through customer feedback.

A single product owner may start out innocently reporting "anecdotal" problems with other owners - simply complaining "that something ain't right", and that is how the process of problem discovery often begins:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-headphone-amplifier-review.13592/post-790592

'Hey, whenever I use the RCA inputs, I get noise, how about everyone else?'

Not every discovery reported anecdotally correlates to something useful, but many do.

 

[anmpr1]

From an environmental point of view, I really dislike how throw away many electronic items have become - it’s an unfortunate reality of today’s world and marketplace.

Yes. In the early days of hi-fi, if it broke, it was easy to repair, since chances were that you built it yourself, and consequently you understood how it was put together. Of course I'm not equating modern electronics with Dynaco tube kits, don't get me wrong. Yet even when solid state took over, although you might not have been able to work on your gear, pretty much every city had multiple repair centers, both independent and factory trained. Repair was common, practical, and a relatively inexpensive process. Now, all that is gone. In fact, a lot of gear just isn't fixable by anyone because of the way it's stamped out. In any case, the average consumer has to rely on either a dealer or manufacturer to cover repairs.

I fully understand that Topping's excellent performance/price combination is hard to pass up. Their reliability may be better or worse than average..., The critical thing is how these problems are handled by the manufacturer. I ended up prioritizing build quality, service after the sale, resale value and simply pleasure of ownership when I decided to go with Benchmark.

Again, the 'problem' with Topping (and again I don't want to single them out) is that once the consumer moves out of the 'cheapness' category of throw-away goods, they are going to be looking at other factors than lowest price as they make more substantial purchases. Exactly the the factors you mention. But for Topping (or any 'mail order' Chinese brand) to create a US service center to handle warranty and sales would likely cause their price/performance edge to evaporate.

[As an example, my recently purchased Epiphone SG headstock cracked. It is made in Gibson's Qingdao factory, but all I had to do was send it to Gibson Nashville. They sent me a new one, as it was under warranty. Took less than two weeks. I could have bought an offbrand Chinese made SG styled guitar for half the price of the Epiphone, but if it arrived with a defect, what's the point of the savings?]

In the end it's caveat emptor. There is really no way for the average consumer to judge how long an electronic item is going to last. That said, if my Dyna Mk IV blows up I'll take out a soldering iron and poke around the parts bin. If my AHB2 blows up, it's going back to Syracuse, express--because of necessity. And Syracuse is a lot closer to me than Shenzhen.