Topping D90 Balanced USB DAC Review

[BDWoody]

LOVE this, BOOM!

Ever wonder why our host doesn't include a listening session in his DAC reviews?

 

[BDWoody]

By the way I may have misread your tone, and if so I apologize.

You did misread my tone... Not meant to make you feel interrogated, just trying to get you to think about your question.

Cheers.

 

[Rutarauko]

Here is what John has said before about the D90 MQA vs other implemnations:

Correct. And hence my question: does this upsampling apply to D90 non MQA also, or is D90 MQA only? (we already know that D70S and D90SE do NOT use this aproach)

 

[srkbear]

You did misread my tone... Not meant to make you feel interrogated, just trying to get you to think about your question.

Cheers.

I appreciate the clarification and I do apologize for what I made up. For what it’s worth I’ve tried to give considerable thought to my question, but after auditioning a fair amount of DACs with similar measurements and often identical processors, I’m looking for the experiences from others that involved using the auditory rather than cortical reasoning structures in their brains

 

[srkbear]

Ever wonder why our host doesn't include a listening session in his DAC reviews?

I’m glad it was you who said it first, but as a lifelong musician who studied it seriously in my youth but now enjoy it passionately as a hobby, I sometimes do wonder whether some of the Gods on here ever put down their digital calipers and actually enjoy listening to this gear after they perform the necropsies—I do get excited about the tech aspects of my setup but for me the emotional aspects of music are far more significant to me than what’s going down with those electrons…

 

[Veri]

I appreciate the clarification and I do apologize for what I made up. For what it’s worth I’ve tried to give considerable thought to my question, but after auditioning a fair amount of DACs with similar measurements and often identical processors, I’m looking for the experiences from others that involved using the auditory rather than cortical reasoning structures in their brains

I'm just not sure this forum is the place where you'll find such subjective findings. Plenty of other places with pages and pages of such discussions. Just saying..

 

[Veri]

I sometimes do wonder whether some of the Gods on here ever put down their digital calipers and actually enjoy listening to this gear after they perform the necropsies—I do get excited about the tech aspects of my setup but for me the emotional aspects of music are far more significant to me than what’s going down with those electrons…

This goes both ways. The people so avidly defending their "dac signature" findings could also just drop it and enjoy their music. Instead, I see a surge of rather emotional posts complaining about the "measurement police". On ASR. A forum rather involved with measurements, first.

Quite contradictory.

 

[srkbear]

I'm just not sure this forum is the place where you'll find such subjective findings. Plenty of other places with pages and pages of such discussions. Just saying..

I understand—this isn’t the only forum I visit; head-fi has a lot of that. Just thought I’d ask if anyone had experience on this question here because the folks on here seem to be more serious and informed about audio and the experience level is significantly higher.

If no one weighs in I can learn from that and happily adapt—I’d just appreciate being offered a little patience as a newcomer to the forum before I’m dismissed as a nuisance or patronized for asking frivolous questions. I promise I won’t waste too much space. I just finished slogging through another thread with 12 pages of pretty vicious ad hominem attacks over MQA, so…

 

[srkbear]

This goes both ways. The people so avidly defending their "dac signature" findings could also just drop it and enjoy their music. Instead, I see a surge of rather emotional posts complaining about the "measurement police". On ASR. A forum rather involved with measurements, first.

Quite contradictory.

I don’t think this is really a left brain-right brain conflict here. Asking for some subjective experiences with highly reputable gear doesn’t mean I’m weeping over it—not sure how either side of what is quickly devolving into another unnecessary conflict could be deemed more “emotional” than the other.

That’s a pretty facile capitalization on some rather superficial assumptions about the latter side of the measurements/listening paradigm. Both matter, and neither requires any more emotional control or intellectual wattage than the other. I’d argue that those with the smartest and most emotionally healthy connections to this passion excel at both…

 

[srkbear]

…and with that, if anyone can offer their insights on what I intended as an innocuous question, I’d be most grateful. Other than that, I’m out…

 

[Harmonie]

@hmscott and @spiritofjerry thanks for these interesting questions.

The revisions to the iDefender over the years have been mainly to do with different production component footprints and the offering of different USB versions. The essential circuit is the same in all with different circuitry requirements depending on the protocol.
It’s best used in situations where both computer and dac are earthed, causing a ground loop. It inserts resistance between the two earthed connections. If the voltage between the two earths is greater than 0.2v low resistance connection is restored between them.
If one or the other, or both, devices aren’t earthed, the iDefender won’t do anything or much to reduce grounding noise.
The main function of the iDefender is to have the facility to connect a cleaner, external source of power to the connected dac. Products such as the Zen Dac series already have the facility for external power, so this feature may not be needed.
For a complete grounding isolation the iGalvanic would be a better solution. An optical cable will do this as well, and also a transformer -coupled S/PDIF connection, but these are both limited to sampling rates ≤ 192k.

I am happy to help. Hit me up if you have more questions. When it comes to the grounding isolation/purification one should take into account the following elements:
a) if products are earthed,
b) voltages between earths,
c) sampling rates you are aiming for,
d) input/output connections.

Truly appreciate your post, which should enlightened many people here.
Namely most of the posts I read, is people having a noise issue and try to mask the noise using a device like yours.

if I got it right, you indicate to find the source of the noise, measure it (ground leaking current ?) and explain how in some particular cases you can cure it.

My primary advice is to create a good electrical circuit from the breaker and to try avoiding ground noise issues from the beginning, rather than just trying to hide it with an add-on device.

 

[Harmonie]

…and with that, if anyone can offer their insights on what I intended as an innocuous question, I’d be most grateful. Other than that, I’m out…

In your posts you are just asking for subjective opinions.
As indicate here and there, you have thousands of posts claiming contradicting opinions.
How can you decide which one is right ?

What several people try to tell you IMHO is, make your own judgement on objective measurable allegations.

Read-on and understand the spirit of ASR.

PS- Welcome

 

[srkbear]

In your posts you are just asking for subjective opinions.
As indicate here and there, you have thousands of posts claiming contradicting opinions.
How can you decide which one is right ?

What several people try to tell you IMHO is, make your own judgement on objective measurable allegations.

Read-on and understand the spirit of ASR.

PS- Welcome

Well, I surely appreciate the welcome!

In response to your question, I think that sorting through the myriad opinions offered here, along with their various concurrences and contradictions, is one critical thinking endeavor I find both challenging and rewarding! I’m always sure to learn something, irrespective of whether an individual position supports my preformed hypothesis or not (as is the very basis of the scientific method).

I enjoy assessing the credibility of the source and weighing the appropriateness of their point of view against my question. And clearly the more opinions the better: one or two contradictory opinions is unlikely to be of use, but a large number of varying positions is how I spot trends, common themes and a prevailing consensus, if one exists.

Obviously it’s eventually up to me to whittle down my final choices and hear for myself whether I chose wisely amongst all the offered opinions. But isn’t that one of the most salient benefits of consulting a forum such as this, to help us make informed choices? After all, given the outlandish costs involved with all this gear, it would be inefficient indeed if all of us bought 25 or 30 DACs in the service of picking our favorite.

NOW THEN. I went ahead amidst this unexpected didactic exercise today and bought the damn pre-owned Topping d90 to compare to my d90se myself. And sure enough, measurements be damned, they sound markedly different. I need a bit more time to form the words to describe how and why, but once I do I’ll post them on here and answer my own question!

Thanks again,

Steve

 

[BDWoody]

. And sure enough, measurements be damned, they sound markedly different. I need a bit more time to form the words to describe how and why, but once I do I’ll post them on here and answer my own question!

What controls are you using?

Edit:
If you want your subjective opinion to be based on your ears, and not everything else a sighted, uncontrolled test would include, here is a video from our host to help.

Uncontrolled subjective claims aren't as reliable as we might wish. Placebo is real. Bias is real. Control for them and you've actually got evidence.

 

[srkbear]

What controls are you using?

Edit:
If you want your subjective opinion to be based on your ears, and not everything else a sighted, uncontrolled test would include, here is a video from our host to help.

Uncontrolled subjective claims aren't as reliable as we might wish. Placebo is real. Bias is real. Control for them and you've actually got evidence.

Controls in the scientific experiment sense?

 

[BDWoody]

Controls in the scientific experiment sense?

Level matching by voltmeter and in
sighted, meaning you don't know what is playing.

You teach medicine...? If someone started interrupting you on rounds preaching how you really should get that stethoscope out of your ears, because homeopathy is really where the cutting edge is, what would you ask for? Anecdotal 'evidence,' or the real kind?

You say you are here to learn...maybe put those perceptions to the test, before you continue to imply 'we' are the ones missing out?

I used to hear the same things...until I went through this tedious process and realized I couldn't tell them apart to save my life.

Saved me a lot...well, actually, shifted the budget to speakers, but kept me from wasting money on a DAC looking for sound quality improvements.

 

[srkbear]

Level matching by voltmeter and in
sighted, meaning you don't know what is playing.

You teach medicine...? If someone started interrupting you on rounds preaching how you really should get that stethoscope out of your ears, because homeopathy is really where the cutting edge is, what would you ask for? Anecdotal 'evidence,' or the real kind?

You say you are here to learn...maybe put those perceptions to the test, before you continue to imply 'we' are the ones missing out?

I used to hear the same things...until I went through this tedious process and realized I couldn't tell them apart to save my life.

Saved me a lot...well, actually, shifted the budget to speakers, but kept me from wasting money on a DAC looking for sound quality improvements.

Actually, I think many a doctor would benefit from getting the stethoscope out of their ears once in awhile to take the opportunity to listen to their patients, since the majority of accurate diagnoses are made by history alone. Which is hardly the same as eschewing science for “homeopathy”. That analogy went splat.

And for the record, I was not the one who started the accusation that anyone here is missing out on anything—I simply liked someone else’s comment that did. My point of view is that one can benefit from both measurements and listening.

I don’t know you, but I think just about every comment I’ve made on here to date has been good spirited and open to hearing others’ points of view. As I said before, I came here to learn. From what you’ve shown me so far you seem to be more on the cynical/jaded side of things (which may be something I might have had a hand in provoking) and there’s not much positive either of us can learn from that.

So I’ll give some thought to what you said and examine my part in things, and ask for a reboot in the service of friendship. Are you in?

 

[srkbear]

Returned the original D90; the newer D90SE offers better detail retrieval and strength across all frequencies, while the D90 sounded a bit veiled in the highs and had less clarity in the bottom end (although both handled bass frequencies with equal authority).

The D90SE also offers 7 PCM and 4 DSD filter options, compared to the D90’s 6 and 2, and it’s the D90se’s 7th sharp roll off corrected minimum phase I prefer the best. The D90se also includes the option of either 4 or 5 volt XLR output (I prefer 5 with the Pro iCAN Signature), while the D90 is capped at 4.

None of these preferences seem to have any influence from the AK4499eq vs ES9038pro side of things, which has put that issue to rest for me at last.

Now I’m waiting for the Gustard x26 Pro to show up for comparison with the D90se. And despite the fact that the Topping is the current champion of SINAD scores, the Gustard’s far more sophisticated and innovative topology, superior build quality and enthusiastic imprimatur from every reviewer I’ve come across thus far leads me to believe that my Topping D90se is likely destined to be returned to Amazon’s stock, and I’ll live long and prosper with the Gustard.

I’m inclined to be more fascinated with Gustard as a brand anyway—there’s some elan they have going seems to differentiate them among the current list of unsexy Chinese mass marketers that have emerged (such as Topping, SMSL and Loxjie). I’m not sure I can entirely explain why; they just seem more boutique in their use of proprietary technology and their seriously exacting implementation of every component in their schematics. Anyone who who hasn’t seen the innards of the x26 Pro should go check this out for a treat:

 

[hmscott]

Returned the original D90; the newer D90SE offers better detail retrieval and strength across all frequencies, while the D90 sounded a bit veiled in the highs and had less clarity in the bottom end (although both handled bass frequencies with equal authority).

The D90SE also offers 7 PCM and 4 DSD filter options, compared to the D90’s 6 and 2, and it’s the D90se’s 7th sharp roll off corrected minimum phase I prefer the best. The D90se also includes the option of either 4 or 5 volt XLR output (I prefer 5 with the Pro iCAN Signature), while the D90 is capped at 4.

None of these preferences seem to have any influence from the AK4499eq vs ES9038pro side of things, which has put that issue to rest for me at last.

Now I’m waiting for the Gustard x26 Pro to show up for comparison with the D90se. And despite the fact that the Topping is the current champion of SINAD scores, the Gustard’s far more sophisticated and innovative topology, superior build quality and enthusiastic imprimatur from every reviewer I’ve come across thus far leads me to believe that my Topping D90se is likely destined to be returned to Amazon’s stock, and I’ll live long and prosper with the Gustard.

I’m inclined to be more fascinated with Gustard as a brand anyway—there’s some elan they have going seems to differentiate them among the current list of unsexy Chinese mass marketers that have emerged (such as Topping, SMSL and Loxjie). I’m not sure I can entirely explain why; they just seem more boutique in their use of proprietary technology and their seriously exacting implementation of every component in their schematics. Anyone who who hasn’t seen the innards of the x26 Pro should go check this out for a treat:

As I recall that is a used D90? And, you just got it Friday, and you posted your conclusion Saturday? You might have given it a few weeks of time in your system, before jumping to a conclusion. It probably didn't even have time to get warmed up....

Perhaps there was something wrong with that particular D90?

Looking forward to your comparison of the Gustard X26 Pro, and I hope you give it a longer comparison, say a few weeks of music through it - acclimate to the X26 Pro without listening to the D90SE, and then do the comparison over a few days at least.

Anyway, that is minimally how I would compare them, and I wouldn't have been in such a rush to judgement. I'm equally surprised there was such a marked difference that you heard the difference immediately, as others say it is tough to tell them apart in a side by side listening comparison.

And, I would have looked for a used D90 MQA to compare to the D90SE MQA. I would like to know if the D90SE handles MQA decoding better than the D90 MQA rendering, and if there are audible differences.

But, to each their own.

 

[Harmonie]

Returned the original D90; the newer D90SE offers better detail retrieval and strength across all frequencies, while the D90 sounded a bit veiled in the highs and had less clarity in the bottom end (although both handled bass frequencies with equal authority).

The D90SE also offers 7 PCM and 4 DSD filter options, compared to the D90’s 6 and 2, and it’s the D90se’s 7th sharp roll off corrected minimum phase I prefer the best. The D90se also includes the option of either 4 or 5 volt XLR output (I prefer 5 with the Pro iCAN Signature), while the D90 is capped at 4.

None of these preferences seem to have any influence from the AK4499eq vs ES9038pro side of things, which has put that issue to rest for me at last.

Now I’m waiting for the Gustard x26 Pro to show up for comparison with the D90se. And despite the fact that the Topping is the current champion of SINAD scores, the Gustard’s far more sophisticated and innovative topology, superior build quality and enthusiastic imprimatur from every reviewer I’ve come across thus far leads me to believe that my Topping D90se is likely destined to be returned to Amazon’s stock, and I’ll live long and prosper with the Gustard.

I’m inclined to be more fascinated with Gustard as a brand anyway—there’s some elan they have going seems to differentiate them among the current list of unsexy Chinese mass marketers that have emerged (such as Topping, SMSL and Loxjie). I’m not sure I can entirely explain why; they just seem more boutique in their use of proprietary technology and their seriously exacting implementation of every component in their schematics. Anyone who who hasn’t seen the innards of the x26 Pro should go check this out for a treat:

I agree 100% with @hmscott 's comment.
To add another aspect for your possible choice; you may wish to consider the companies' structures as well.
Communication, response,, after sales service could be other important factors IMO.