Ask me questions.

[FrantzM]

Hi

A few questions/"suggestions".

• Why not a more powerful amplifier, performance leading as per your usual but at least 200 watt/ch? It could even be mono. Class D, preferred because of efficiency and balanced too.
• A full featured preamplifier with DAC and phono stage? Balanced of course, throw in a serious "Topping" headphones amplifier, something capable of 2 to 5 wpc at 16 ohms...
• A PrePro with "Topping" performance, Digital Room Correction (Audyssey? Dirac?) and the full complement of usual HT codecs (Dolby, DTS, etc..). Something to challenge the Trinnov , Storm, etc., but at a small fraction of their prices? An alternative to the MonoPrice HTP-1. Of course you throw in a serious headphone amplifier ...

And of course insure reliability because with such, many would have their endgame systems.

Peace.

 

[MaxwellsEq]

I don't see any since there are many different measurements that have been performed. If anything I feel the noise performance is underappreciated. It's the most important thing in normal listening situation after frequency response.

Thanks John, I couldn't agree more!

 

[Robbo99999]

Ever consider seeking a possible partnership with Creative for DSP functionality in a future DAC? They have the Sound Blaster X5 for the higher-end market, but it lacks some things I consider essential that the better Topping DACs/amps offer.

As a gamer & audio enthusiast this sounds attractive! Having said that some of the Creative products like the G6 already measure well, but not as good as Topping products. I would really like to see a product that totally married high end audio with gaming, for me the Virtual Surround Sound option & potential Parametric EQ is really the best marriage, and given that Creative Surround Sound is the only one that works properly for me out of the few I've tried, then this would be an excellent combo.......it's niche but would be my ideal combo.

 

[ZolaIII]

As a gamer & audio enthusiast this sounds attractive! Having said that some of the Creative products like the G6 already measure well, but not as good as Topping products. I would really like to see a product that totally married high end audio with gaming, for me the Virtual Surround Sound option & potential Parametric EQ is really the best marriage, and given that Creative Surround Sound is the only one that works properly for me out of the few I've tried, then this would be an excellent combo.......it's niche but would be my ideal combo.

You two should first examine the history of Creative Technologies and it's unethical practices towards other usually partner companies along with at least 3 rises and fall's of it.
Standalone long term development and support is I am afraid only path.

 

[Ashimaru]

Hi John, what are your current favorite IEMs and headphones?

 

[ThatGuyYouKnow]

You two should first examine the history of Creative Technologies and it's unethical practices towards other usually partner companies along with at least 3 rises and fall's of it.
Standalone long term development and support is I am afraid only path.

I know their history quite well. I also know that some past issues do not necessarily apply to present day. Some of the complaints were totally unwarranted, but every industry needs an imaginary bogeyman I suppose.

 

[Robbo99999]

You two should first examine the history of Creative Technologies and it's unethical practices towards other usually partner companies along with at least 3 rises and fall's of it.
Standalone long term development and support is I am afraid only path.

What were they?

 

[ZolaIII]

I know their history quite well. I also know that some past issues do not necessarily apply to present day. Some of the issues people complained about were totally unwarranted, but every industry needs an imaginary bogeyman I suppose.

Take a peak of it again. Today's Creative of course ain't even a glimpse of it's former self in any way. In the last big fall Intel both their ADSP division (for a bargaining price similar how Creative used to do it with numerous other "partner companies" pushed to bankruptcy in the past and now part of their current GPU architecture [Raja didn't do much if anything at all]). Don't get me wrong I believe more to Creative than Topping from user perspective but regarding partnership I don't think so.

 

[ThatGuyYouKnow]

Take a peak of it again. Today's Creative of course ain't even a glimpse of it's former self in any way. In the last big fall Intel both their ADSP division (for a bargaining price similar how Creative used to do it with numerous other "partner companies" pushed to bankruptcy in the past and now part of their current GPU architecture [ Raja didn't do much if anything at all]). Don't get me wrong I believe more to Creative than Topping from user perspective but regarding partnership I don't think so.

If Auzentech is one of the companies to which you are referring, well, I'll just say that they had much bigger problems than Creative.

 

[ZolaIII]

What were they?

This is just a glimpse of it regarding force takeovers, partners pushed to bankruptcy and force takeovers from their "golden days".

Creative Technology - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Before this escalate to polemic just a disclaimer from me; I want a tool of good quality PEQ filters and FIR implementation on a multichannel products, I don't want bunch of property gimmicks for a lot of money and potential problems over it.

 

[Sokel]

If Auzentech is one of the companies to which you are referring, well, I'll just say that they had much bigger problems than Creative.

It was a crime they shut off E-MU.
On of the most honest companies out there.
I will never-ever go near Creative again.

 

[Gorgonzola]

I'm simply going to tell you what's my personal priority at the moment. This is a modestly-priced, relatively simple AV pre/processor to replace my aging AVR receiver; (to work with a separate downstream multi-channel amp or amps). Currently available pre/pros are (a) over-priced and/or (b) poorly preforming.

 

[ThatGuyYouKnow]

This is just a glimpse of it regarding force takeovers, partners pushed to bankruptcy and force takeovers from their "golden days".

Creative Technology - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Before this escalate to polemic just a disclaimer from me; I want a tool of good quality PEQ filters and FIR implementation on a multichannel products, I don't want bunch of property gimmicks for a lot of money and potential problems over it.

Say what you will, but Creative's current processing suite is hardly a gimmick. Their only issue as I see it is that their hardware is rather lacking in quality, especially their headphone amps. People who complain about their acquisitions and subsequent dissolve of technologies are not factoring in the nature of the business where things quickly become obsolete as fixed hardware functions have periodically moved over to software. People glamorize past companies like Aureal and continue a narrative as if Creative put an end to some groundbreaking tech, just as graphics aficionados still glamorize 3dfx and blame Nvidia for stunting innovation when they are actually the most technologically advanced company in the world.

 

[Zensō]

I believe there are people in music production (but not only) who would use this if they could. And many of them don't even know that they need it, yet.

Perhaps. I had an RME ADI-2 DAC FS for a time. I found the onboard EQ to be effective, but a pain to set up and adjust due to the tiny screen, sub-menus, etc. I’m not sure if there are competing products with better ergonomics, but the RME failed in this regard.

On the music production side Sonarworks is pretty ubiquitous. It’s dead simple to set up and provides a number of features that are important to producers (zero latency, speaker emulations, target presets, etc.). The ease of use is off the charts compared to the RME. The musicians I know are much less inclined to want to fuss with this stuff than audiophiles.

 

[Berwhale]

Topping, SMSL, Zidoo ( Eversolo) and others have started a revolution providing SOTA components relatively inexpensively, my question is were you ever tempted ( or are you tempted ) to add a ‘milled from solid case’ and pitch at the audiophile world?
Keith

Like the D50(s)/A50(s)?...

 

[Robbo99999]

This is just a glimpse of it regarding force takeovers, partners pushed to bankruptcy and force takeovers from their "golden days".

Creative Technology - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

Before this escalate to polemic just a disclaimer from me; I want a tool of good quality PEQ filters and FIR implementation on a multichannel products, I don't want bunch of property gimmicks for a lot of money and potential problems over it.

Seems like par for the course though, I did read that wiki link, but I only garnered that they bought one competitor when they went under. I didn't really see anything particularly negative there. But anyway, in my ideal mind I'd like to see significant per channel Parametric EQ capabilities combined with Creative Virtual Surround Sound in a one DAC (amp too perhaps) product whilst measuring good to excellent.

 

[Robbo99999]

Say what you will, but Creative's current processing suite is hardly a gimmick. Their only issue as I see it is that their hardware is rather lacking in quality, especially their headphone amps. People who complain about their acquisitions and subsequent dissolve of technologies are not factoring in the nature of the business where things quickly become obsolete as fixed hardware functions have periodically moved over to software. People glamorize past companies like Aureal and continue a narrative as if Creative put an end to some groundbreaking tech, just as graphics aficionados still glamorize 3dfx and blame Nvidia for stunting innovation when they are actually the most technologically advanced company in the world.

I definitely agree, Creative's Virtual Surround Sound is really good, but I don't think the hardware is that lacking - the SoundblasterX G6 that Amir measured (which is the model I own) came out extremely well in terms of measurements as long as you run it below -2dBFS. In fact I also bought the Soundblaster G1 dongle (quite cheap) before I bought the G6, purely as a means of working out if I liked Creative's Virtual Surround Sound before I paid the big bucks for the SoundblasterX G6. As a gamer you could definitely get by on that G1, but I wanted to go the extra mile for the G6.

EDIT: I'm realising we're getting off topic a little. But suffice to say the Creative Labs talk is in regard to the desire for such a good Virtual Surround Sound system to be placed with Topping audio quality & hopefully parametric EQ too!

EDIT#2: I'd probably pay £300 for a DAC/amp that had minimum independant 10 band parametric EQ per channel combined with Creative Virtual Surround capabilities that could be tuned in the same 0-100 manner that current Creative Surround products function, and if it measured in the usual Topping high quality audio realm (or close to it, would probably measure just a little worse).

 

[eddantes]

Thank you for your work. Many of us here enjoy the products you designed. What I would like to see from Topping are two products:

1. A DAC with DSP: apply curves in the digital domain and send the "ready" analog to >>>
2. A simple amp (~real 100w into 8o) - no volume control, no nothing - a box w PS, RCA_in and speaker_out

Those two products with the usual @JohnYang1997 magic would make for an end game system for me.

 

[TheBatsEar]

Another question i have:

• Was math discovered or invented?

 

[Matias]

I don't think DM7 having poor sales has anything to do with multichannel power amplifiers. The latter complements AVRs and AVPs mostly. But then you have to get the reliability right. Don't you beta test with a dozen users for a couple of months before releasing to the world?

Also on power amplifiers. Instead of building around the existing chip amps, why not go the hard way and design a proprietary discrete design including PFFB loop and the iterations refine from there?