My Topping EX5 review

[Tortie]

Where's the censorship?

As an update of my own experience with the EX5 above, I ended up returning it because it sounded horrible. Yes it measures well but it's terrible at transient notes, so music sounds flat and lifeless and many notes sound like crackly garbage. I believe most of the problem is in the amp side of the unit, so I'm personally staying away from Topping's NFCA based amplifiers in future. I bought a Singxer SA-1 headphones amp and am currently using it with a Topping E50 DAC. This is far more expensive than the EX5 but well worth it in my opinion. The DAC is good but I'm currently testing various power options for it before deciding whether to buy another one. I'm looking at other DAC options in the meantime too.

I'd like to hear how the new Topping DX5 compares, but I'm not willing to risk buying one to find out.

Have you ever heard of NwAvGuy? He became semi-famous after Head-fi banned him for exposing shoddy and dangerous design flaws in Schiit's original Asgard amplifier. Well, ASR did the same thing in 2021 when it banned Mr Feng, the original poster of this thread. Topping leaned on the admins and requested that they ban Feng because his thoughtful and informative posts were embarrassing Topping. In both cases the admins of each respective website appeared to be working on behalf of a vendor/company. While I can understand that in the case of Head-fi, which is ad supported and vendor funded, would have a built in bias to be deferential to companies it is less understandable for a donor supported forum.

Appreciate your feedback and comments about the EX5. They're reflective of what of the general set of impressions of topping products outside of ASR.

 

[Blew]

Do you made proper blind test (lvl matched)?

Not blind, but I compared the headphones/DAC combo against my old SMSL M500 and the difference was absolutely obvious, as the M500 sounds far better. This was extremely obvious the first time I listened to the EX5 and I even wondered if there was anything wrong with my particular unit. I also compared it as a DAC/preamp to my Topping E50 DAC and, while the difference was less noticeable than the headphones amp comparison, it was still very noticeable. The E50 sounded noticeably better when paired with my Marantz and Yamaha amplifiers that power my hi-fi systems than the EX5 as a DAC did.

 

[NiagaraPete]

Not blind, but I compared the headphones/DAC combo against my old SMSL M500 and the difference was absolutely obvious, as the M500 sounds far better. This was extremely obvious the first time I listened to the EX5 and I even wondered if there was anything wrong with my particular unit. I also compared it as a DAC/preamp to my Topping E50 DAC and, while the difference was less noticeable than the headphones amp comparison, it was still very noticeable. The E50 sounded noticeably better when paired with my Marantz and Yamaha amplifiers that power my hi-fi systems than the EX5 as a DAC did.

Not blind? Not valid.

 

[Blew]

Not blind? Not valid.

Feel free to conduct your own blind tests on it and report back. I'm reporting what I heard.

 

[Jimbob54]

Have you ever heard of NwAvGuy? He became semi-famous after Head-fi banned him for exposing shoddy and dangerous design flaws in Schiit's original Asgard amplifier. Well, ASR did the same thing in 2021 when it banned Mr Feng, the original poster of this thread. Topping leaned on the admins and requested that they ban Feng because his thoughtful and informative posts were embarrassing Topping. In both cases the admins of each respective website appeared to be working on behalf of a vendor/company. While I can understand that in the case of Head-fi, which is ad supported and vendor funded, would have a built in bias to be deferential to companies it is less understandable for a donor supported forum.

Appreciate your feedback and comments about the EX5. They're reflective of what of the general set of impressions of topping products outside of ASR.

You have evidence of these claims? The line taken here was Mr Feng requested removal of his account (edit, looks like it was a ban, for posting under a new identity after a previous ban, my memory is fallible) . There was something of a dust up with John Yang if I recall correctly.

 

[amirm]

Have you ever heard of NwAvGuy?

I have. Some people think I am him which makes the rest of your post really funny to read!

He became semi-famous after Head-fi banned him for exposing shoddy and dangerous design flaws in Schiit's original Asgard amplifier. Well, ASR did the same thing in 2021 when it banned Mr Feng, the original poster of this thread. Topping leaned on the admins and requested that they ban Feng because his thoughtful and informative posts were embarrassing Topping. In both cases the admins of each respective website appeared to be working on behalf of a vendor/company. While I can understand that in the case of Head-fi, which is ad supported and vendor funded, would have a built in bias to be deferential to companies it is less understandable for a donor supported forum.

Did NWAVGUY create three separate logins on head-fi? I think not but "feng" was the third incarnation of the same poster. You can see him confessing to one of his others here:

Upstanding citizens don't do this, right?

As they say, wait, that is not all. One of his aliases had IP address of the direct competitor of Topping on our forum. We challenged that company and they said many people in China use the same VPN. We did not buy that but decided to leave company reps to remain since they were at least posting under their correct association.

Look, if we want to ban people to make life better for us, there is a long list of people who create nothing but grief for us on daily basis. Yet many continue because they convey information you all appreciate. You think we are then going to do a favor for a company by banning someone?

So no, there is absolutely, positively no censorship here. I have no commercial interest in Topping or any other company for that matter. They live and die by objective performance of their product. Anyone is welcome to critique their products but don't do it under a disguise and act in a manner that clearly raises suspicions. Be open and ethical as I conduct myself.

 

[MrBrainwash]

Not blind, but I compared the headphones/DAC combo against my old SMSL M500 and the difference was absolutely obvious, as the M500 sounds far better. This was extremely obvious the first time I listened to the EX5 and I even wondered if there was anything wrong with my particular unit. I also compared it as a DAC/preamp to my Topping E50 DAC and, while the difference was less noticeable than the headphones amp comparison, it was still very noticeable. The E50 sounded noticeably better when paired with my Marantz and Yamaha amplifiers that power my hi-fi systems than the EX5 as a DAC did.

No one doubt your impressions. But we are aware of placebo effect and listener bias.

I think it is a matter of curiousity, to check if the results can be replicable in the properly-made blind test. I would say that even if there is a difference then we can experience it in better unamplified by bias way. We have multitude examples how our brain modify experiences especially when sources aren't level matched.

I also think that it's ok to buy or keep the equipment that give us better experience even if that experience is not provided by pure performance.

 

[Veri]

I have no commercial interest in Topping or any other company for that matter. They live and die by objective performance of their product. Anyone is welcome to critique their products but don't do it under a disguise and act in a manner that clearly raises suspicions. Be open and ethical as I conduct myself.

words to live by.

 

[Blew]

No one doubt your impressions. But we are aware of placebo effect and listener bias.

Any bias of mine would have been in favour of the EX5, as I first listened to it after reading nothing but positive reviews and comments here and elsewhere. Confirmation bias and post-purchase bias should have influenced me to believe the EX5 was better than it really was. After listening and much testing, I found it extremely hard to find anyone who agreed with me! I finally found a YouTube review by Passion for Sound that more accurately described what I was hearing and confirmed that I wasn't crazy

I think it is a matter of curiousity, to check if the results can be replicable in the properly-made blind test.

Yes I would be very interested to see that too.

I would say that even if there is a difference then we can experience it in better unamplified by bias way. We have multitude examples how our brain modify experiences especially when sources aren't level matched.

See comments re bias above.

 

[NiagaraPete]

Feel free to conduct your own blind tests on it and report back. I'm reporting what I heard.

Perhaps you could qualify what you heard with a current hearing test. What I get from your posts is that your eyes heard the differences.

 

[Blew]

Perhaps you could qualify what you heard with a current hearing test. What I get from your posts is that your eyes heard the differences.

Here's my latest from about 6 months ago. Apparently quite good for an over forty year old.

I suggest you give the EX5 a listen yourself and let us know your thoughts.

 

[MrBrainwash]

I suggest you give the EX5 a listen yourself and let us know your thoughts.

The thing is that I didn't heard any equipment that measure well but sounded like 'crackly garbage'. But I had many experiences when I thought I heard a difference but then I couldn't recognized it when doing blind test. I guess differences are not that big to ruin what we hear as much as our brain can do it.

If we heard the difference there should be measurable factor for this... sound reproduction is a science.

We (here on the ASR forum) aren't free from listener bias I think. I have a few sources and even if I know that differences are too small to have any meaningful influence my brain still give me different experiences sometimes. What I did with it? When I started ignoring it - the music started to sound good on all of them. When I am focusing only on music itself that is played the source lose it's matter. I believe that's the case even on sources that do colour the sound. Because brain are constantly doing own equalization and is adapting.

 

[Blew]

The thing is that I didn't heard any equipment that measure well but sounded like 'crackly garbage'. But I had many experiences when I thought I heard a difference but then I couldn't recognized it when doing blind test. I guess differences are not that big to ruin what we hear as much as our brain can do it.

If we heard the difference there should be measurable factor for this... sound reproduction is a science.

Yes I agree it would be great to be able to measure this aspect in the review tests. The issue is something to do with the transients of the frequencies from one to the other. The EX5 sounded like it was cutting off each musical note very abruptly, so it sounded very unnatural. It sounded crackly because it was like the note was being cut off prematurely, then there was a tiny period of silence before the next note was reproduced. It was most noticeable in cymbals and guitar strums, but also very noticeable in some electronic music I tested it with. The ASR tests don't factor this in, as they only test the accuracy of a series of static frequencies.

As I mentioned, this problem was extremely obvious to me from the first time I started listening to it. It's not something I had to switch back and forth to notice. It was what made me wonder if there was a fault with mine, as I hadn't seen anyone mention anything bad about it before in reviews or in the forums here. I then found this review which describes the issue better than I could:

Other issues that with it were that the sound is very "flat" and there is hardly any sound stage. I compared this to the SMSL M500 using headphones, and the Topping E50 that I tested with various Marantz and Yamaha amplifiers both with headphones and stereo speakers. In all cases I could definitely heard an obvious and stark difference between the way the M500 & E50 sounded compared to the EX5. The EX5 definitely did sound better when only used as a DAC (ie not using the headphones amp on it) but also definitely did not sound anywhere near as good as the E50 or M500 in any situation. I don't know what the science behind sound staging is but it would be great to be able to measure that too.

I should note that I mostly tested the EX5 with a pair of Sennheiser HD660S headphones, which I find are very resolving and unforgiving in a lot of ways. I did also test with a pair of HD599S, which are more forgiving but have a very different sound signature, but the issues were still very obvious on those too.

We (here on the ASR forum) aren't free from listener bias I think. I have a few sources and even if I know that differences are too small to have any meaningful influence my brain still give me different experiences sometimes. What I did with it? When I started ignoring it - the music started to sound good on all of them. When I am focusing only on music itself that is played the source lose it's matter. I believe that's the case even on sources that do colour the sound. Because brain are constantly doing own equalization and is adapting.

Yes I agree that we all have cognitive biases and nobody can claim to be completely objective. However, we need to be aware of those biases as much as possible in order to compensate for them. In this case though, the problem was so obvious and completely the opposite of my initial expectations that I can't put it down to bias alone.

 

[MrBrainwash]

The issue is something to do with the transients of the frequencies from one to the other. The EX5 sounded like it was cutting off each musical note very abruptly, so it sounded very unnatural. It sounded crackly because it was like the note was being cut off prematurely, then there was a tiny period of silence before the next note was reproduced. It was most noticeable in cymbals and guitar strums, but also very noticeable in some electronic music I tested it with. The ASR tests don't factor this in, as they only test the accuracy of a series of static frequencies.

The problem is that I didn't saw or heard about any proof for this kind of claims from subjective audiophile community. I can't provide technical details to you (someone from this forum maybe can or can correct me) but from how I understand sound reproduction the transients don't change. @Amir in one of his video explained from where this mistake can come from - if sources aren't volume matched then more sounds in the source with lower volume will disappear quicker because they start from lower lvl.

Transients might hurt from clipping but that's another problem that give different symptoms.

Headphones can be underpowered when source have insufficient power delivery, dongle connected to the smartphones might have this problem - then we will hear it IN bass section and we can interpret this as less dynamic sound. I don't think EX5 suffer from this problem.

In this case though, the problem was so obvious and completely the opposite of my initial expectations that I can't put it down to bias alone.

I understand but still... it isn't as simple as having attitude or conviction. The bias may come from many silly factors (environmental cues), and it's working independently from our conscious thinking. The reason for your experience may be objective - some units might have some defects but in general measurements if it comes to electronics tells the whole story and still we can have some different experiences becouse it's not about what the equipment have to offer (it's only signal production) but what our brain do with it. Brain will be affected by price, visual cues, unconscious preconvictions, temperature and so on. That's why you can choose to follow subjective qualia you get but it's not something we can depend upon unless it's come from controlled conditions (blind test).

 

[Blew]

The problem is that I didn't saw or heard about any proof for this kind of claims from subjective audiophile community. I can't provide technical details to you (someone from this forum maybe can or can correct me) but from how I understand sound reproduction the transients don't change. @Amir in one of his video explained from where this mistake can come from - if sources aren't volume matched then more sounds in the source with lower volume will disappear quicker because they start from lower lvl.

In this situation the volume didn't seem to affect the issue. No matter how loud I turned up the volume the issue was still present. I did try to volume match as best I could anyway, but it was subjective.

I'd be interested to see that video if you can find a link to it. In the EX5 review Amir mentions it has more than enough power to drive the HD650, which has 300ohms impedance. I tested with the HD660S at 150 Ohms and HD599S at 50 Ohms. Volume wasn't an issue on either. So I don't know how it could be an issue due to volume.

Transients might hurt from clipping but that's another problem that give different symptoms.

Yeah it didn't sound like clipping.

Headphones can be underpowered when source have insufficient power delivery, dongle connected to the smartphones might have this problem - then we will hear it IN bass section and we can interpret this as less dynamic sound. I don't think EX5 suffer from this problem.

The bass itself sounded quite "punchy" and I didn't have an issue with the lower frequencies in general. However, it didn't sound very dynamic at all. The sound was very flat and lifeless. Not sure what the explanation for that is but given the above re impedance and the EX5 power output I don't think it was related to lack of power for the headphones.

I understand but still... it isn't as simple as having attitude or conviction. The bias may come from many silly factors (environmental cues), and it's working independently from our conscious thinking. The reason for your experience may be objective - some units might have some defects but in general measurements if it comes to electronics tells the whole story and still we can have some different experiences becouse it's not about what the equipment have to offer (it's only signal production) but what our brain do with it. Brain will be affected by price, visual cues, unconscious preconvictions, temperature and so on. That's why you can choose to follow subjective qualia you get but it's not something we can depend upon unless it's come from controlled conditions (blind test).

I'd totally agree with this if the difference was minor, but it was so blindingly obvious I can't say it's anything to do with bias. The only other explanation that I can think of that explains why myself and Lachlan from Passion for Sound both hear the same issue while apparently not many others do is that we are both in Australia where we use 240v 50Hz power. Perhaps there's an issue with the switching power supply in the EX5?

As an example of awareness of bias, I've been testing the Singxer SA-1 with my HD660S headphones recently. I read somewhere that the headphones perform better with low output impedance on the amp (under 10 Ohms) while up until now I've been using high (11 Ohms). I subjectively feel that the lower output impedance makes the sound less distorted in the high frequencies, but has less "body" in the overall sound. However, I can't be sure that it's not just a bias of mine, as I'm aware of when I'm flicking the output impedance switch. I'd need to do a blind test to say for sure. It's a very different situation to my experience in testing the EX5.

 

[MrBrainwash]

I'd be interested to see that video if you can find a link to it.

Sure Luckily I found it.

Starts from 11:30

The bass itself sounded quite "punchy" and I didn't have an issue with the lower frequencies in general. However, it didn't sound very dynamic at all. The sound was very flat and lifeless. Not sure what the explanation for that is but given the above re impedance and the EX5 power output I don't think it was related to lack of power for the headphones.

I'd totally agree with this if the difference was minor, but it was so blindingly obvious I can't say it's anything to do with bias. The only other explanation that I can think of that explains why myself and Lachlan from Passion for Sound both hear the same issue while apparently not many others do is that we are both in Australia where we use 240v 50Hz power. Perhaps there's an issue with the switching power supply in the EX5?

Impressions are impressions if you can't shake off them it's only reasonable choice to do a change of the gear to get psychological-aesthetic comfort. And sharing that information can have some usefulness - for example if we find many similar cases and do re-measuring we could find out that not every unit measure the same or there is other issue. But from general and scientific point of view there is high probability for one or two people having different impressions becouse other factors than performance of the model.

In discussion like this I am after two things:
1) reasonable justification
2) validation / verification.

Something that can improve my knowledge&understanding

Typically people in audio communities without solid scientific background share with others only own convictions. And this is not that useful in long run as it seems at first glance.

And I will tell you that I know people from here who are very smart but they would still believe in sound signature of linear well performing sources if they hadn't made a blind tests themselves.

 

[Blew]

Sure Luckily I found it.

Starts from 11:30

Thanks. I had intended to watch this one.
The point regarding transients being affected by volume is valid, but not the cause of the issue in this case. I tested all volumes and the issue was still present regardless of the volume.

Impressions are impressions if you can't shake off them it's only reasonable choice to do a change of the gear to get psychological-aesthetic comfort. And sharing that information can have some usefulness - for example if we find many similar cases and do re-measuring we could find out that not every unit measure the same or there is other issue. But from general and scientific point of view there is high probability for one or two people having different impressions becouse other factors than performance of the model.

In discussion like this I am after two things:
1) reasonable justification

The potential cause that Lachlan gives in the video sounds reasonable. The NFCA amplifiers are intended to measure well in reviews like these, but the reviews don't measure transients. It means that this issue is not exposed in objective reviews, so it seems reasonably plausible that it's a design that's intentionally made sacrifices in subjective sound quality in order to measure well at a low price.

2) validation / verification.

This is where an objective test of transients is needed.

Something that can improve my knowledge&understanding

Typically people in audio communities without solid scientific background share with others only own convictions. And this is not that useful in long run as it seems at first glance.

And I will tell you that I know people from here who are very smart but they would still believe in sound signature of linear well performing sources if they hadn't made a blind tests themselves.

I understand and agree with your points here, but also point out that we don't have objective tests for all factors in digital audio. This issue is an example, but so is the third harmonic issue with the SMSL M500. In the latter case, Amir adjusted his testing to account for this issue, but only after it was noticed by users. I suspect that there are plenty of other factors that affect audio reproduction that are not currently objectively measured for a variety of reasons. Therefore I see objective measurements as a starting point rather than something that tells the whole story.

Ultimately I think we should use as much scientific evaluation of data as possible, but not assume that we have all the data that we need.

 

[Music1969]

I just bought the Topping EX5 and got it today. here's my take.

A few month ago I emailed Topping's boss and JohnYang, asking for a device that is

1. combo unit with DAC XLR output and headphone out. For HP out, just use the L30 circuit.
2. low power. use switch power supply so it won't produce a lot of heat. sleep mode should not consume > 0.5W.
3. use single ES9038Q2M and achieve good jitter result
4. small. no desktop clutter, no cable management issue.
5. no MQA shit
6. no traditional ugly topping display.
7. has negative gain for IEM users.
8. <$400

and I can see EX5 implemented part of them. Thanks Topping.

Analysis:

1. Topping devices do not use a switch power supply that produce both +15V and -15V rails like their competitor SMSL does. So it makes them very hard to deliver -15V rail in a cheap way. On Premium devices they use premium component such as larger inductors/discrete DC-DC converters, etc. However on this cost saving device they can't. So they just use discrete charge pump followed by a tps5430 to step down into -12.3V.

No, this is not a measurement error. On the PCB I clearly see the feedback resistors are 9.1k and 1k so 1.221*10.1 = -12.33V. So you have a +15V / -12.33V rail for all op amps and headphone amplifier.

I'm not saying they are doing it wrong. but you see who the product targets. In the end you get what you paid for.

2. There's no premium grade component. You won't find things like OPA1612. All op amps in the signal path are LM4562.
Also, based on my measurement of XLR output and HP out, the power supply is a bit noisier than I expected.

3. The DAC chip is powered by, you guess it, an LM4562 op amp. No ES9311 (which is usually used as power supply chip in ESS designs) is used. The op amp also serve for bias input for LPF op amp. Usually to do a linear power supply a BJT is used with the op amp to supply more current. Not here. I'm quite surprised one piece of LM4562 has enough current to support two DAC chips + bias input.

Later I saw a PCB photo of Topping D90SE. the 9038Pro is powered by two pieces of OPA1612. Well, ok...

4. The signal path is interesting. works like the following:
1) DAC differential outputs to LPFs using LM4562.
2) differential outputs from the LPFs go into a LM4562 for summing
3) The LM4562 in stage 2 is used with a TPA6120A2 and form a nested feedback composite amplifier. The architecture is exactly the same as the Topping L30 one. It's just one chip for both L and R, while in L30 you have two chips.
4) There's another LM4562 which gets the HP out and inverts it.

Why this is interesting? Well. For the rear XLR output. it gets the XLR + phase signal from the class AB headphone amplifier discussed in 3). and the - phase signal is from the inverting signal of a regular op amp 4).
Also more interesting is there's no separate op amp for the RCA output. they share the same headphone amp output.

So for people using XLR output, the + and - signals are getting from chips for different purposes. Also for people who connect XLR and RCA simultaneously, remember they are powered by the same buffer.

In reality maybe it's fine --- After all TPA6120A2 has a lot of power, and can power RCA + XLR simultaneously. The capacitive load (if your speaker/preamp/amp has AC coupled input) may also be fine thanks to the zobel network. But just something you need to be aware of.

5. The last disappointment is from the Jitter performance. In my measurement jitter performance is quite poor. I wonder why topping was not applying their D10B into this product.

Overall Topping delivered a product in a good price tag. They cut a few corners and is able to sell it for $350 but can still get plenty of profit.

I would recommend them further improve this product by
1. using better power supply that can output +/- rails directly. this won't cost more.
2. reducing DAC chip to one. Save more cost.
3. killing MQA. Why would one need it?
4. solving the jitter issue.

I haven't done stability test though. Will report back after a month of using it.

Here's the PCB.

View attachment 138477

ASRC or synchronous clocking?

 

[Deleted member 35357]

Just a note that lower output impedance causes a overall lower low frequency "punch" or volume and higher high frequency energy, while the opposite is the effect with high output impedance to your headphones. Where you would get more bass punch with higher output impedance output to the same headphones.

Saw the results on headphone tests where this was shown to be the cause. So a headphone will sound different depending on the output impedance your DAC does have.
With the EX5 having only 0.4Ohm output impedance it's rather low and if you are used to a "higher output" having lacking "warmth" as people would like to say about the bass frequency range response, might seem correct if you are that sensitive to such changes in this range.

You would need to output equalize the output between DACs if you want them to sound the same with the same headphones or you alter the frequency response they give out.
Though some basic EQ should fix the variation this does have, it's not much but there is a couple dB or such change in the low frequencies range and some in the higher ones as well.

A example for the headphones I just got yesterday:

https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/images/stories/headphonemeasurements/beyerdynamic_dt_900_pro_x/fr_5_75_700h.png

You could say even lower output impedance as the EX5 has, would cause even lower, lower frequency curve & response.
So higher output impedance will give "warmth" to a set of headphones everything else the same in general.

 

[Jimbob54]

Just a note that lower output impedance causes a overall lower low frequency "punch" or volume and higher high frequency energy, while the opposite is the effect with high output impedance to your headphones. Where you would get more bass punch with higher output impedance output to the same headphones.

Saw the results on headphone tests where this was shown to be the cause. So a headphone will sound different depending on the output impedance your DAC does have.
With the EX5 having only 0.6Ohm output impedance it's rather low and if you are used to a "higher output" having lacking "warmth" as people would like to say about the bass frequency range response, might seem correct if you are that sensitive to such changes in this range.

You would need to output equalize the output between DACs if you want them to sound the same with the same headphones or you alter the frequency response they give out.
Though some basic EQ should fix the variation this does have, it's not much but there is a couple dB or such change in the low frequencies range and some in the higher ones as well.

A example for the headphones I just got yesterday:

https://www.soundstagenetwork.com/images/stories/headphonemeasurements/beyerdynamic_dt_900_pro_x/fr_5_75_700h.png

You could say even lower output impedance as the EX5 has, would cause even lower, lower frequency curve & response.
So higher output impedance will give "warmth" to a set of headphones everything else the same in general.

In some, not all headphones. Depending on the impedance of the headphone and how it's FR changes with impedance.