Review and Measurements of Topping D10 DAC

[Snarfie]

The album was recorded in 1970 on analog tape.


No. The whole point of this exercise is to support my statement that "the HiRes stuff has been more carefully mastered." and to refute yours that " [f]or all we know it can as well be poorly mastered and upsampled to so called HiRes."
"?

I think we are in violent agreement.

I read that Elvis used to listen to his music on an AM radio as a final check on the recording studio because that's how most of his listeners heard his music. That obviously didn't make for the finest sound quality on good equipment (insofar as they had it then).

We still see the same kind of thing today, with compression and limiting being used to produce music optimized for car stereos in vehicles going down the road. I've heard some of my audiophile recordings in my cars and it doesn't always work out well, with road and wind noise drowning out quiet passages.

I heard many Highres masterd albums that could even not come close to a original (German) Vinyl record for instance Dire straits Sultans of swing i compared the so cald SACD with the original Vinyl. Also when i measurd it with Dynamic range meter both scored an avarage of 14 but you could easily hear the difference. On they other hand i have also a other records but than it is completely the other way the Highres is more preciece and dead quiet) so it is more a personal taste if you like the Highres more or less than for instance a original CD of Vinyl record. My personal tast is about 50/50 the digital highres albums are atleast dead quite most of the time compared to Vinyl. If you hear a CD from Adel most of them are compressed massivly (hear Adel 25 listen to hear voice and the bass, drums it is almost at the same level) a complete wast regarding her talent and music but it must sound good for hear peer group who are listning in their cars (stereo's) and or on cheap sound installation. It has all to do with the engineer who is orderd by the record companie and or has not studied the artist and/or his her interaction between band members good enough.

 

[Krunok]

I think we are in violent agreement.

It seems so.

I've heard some of my audiophile recordings in my cars and it doesn't always work out well, with road and wind noise drowning out quiet passages.

Your 500HP car, unlike my 2.5L 5cyl turbo, is probably some V8 monster which makes little babies cry when pressed hard so I guess it's far from ideal for listening music.

 

[έχω δίκιο]

Your 500HP car, unlike my 2.5L 5cyl turbo, is probably some V8 monster which makes little babies cry when pressed hard so I guess it's far from ideal for listening music.

You mean my 1.0L, 3 cylinder monster? Or my 1.8L, 4 cylinder monster?

I do have a 3.7L, 6 cylinder Infiniti G37X, but it's hardly loud. My only V8 is in a Yukon I have primarily for towing my boat, but it makes less than 300hp.

 

[Krunok]

Didn't you say you have 500HP car? Or was it @Ron Texas?

 

[έχω δίκιο]

Didn't you say you have 500HP car? Or was it @Ron Texas?

No, not me. I get in enough trouble with motorcycles.

 

[Hemicrusher]

I have seen several power supplies fail.

I had a EVGA SuperNOVA 850 P2 catastrophically fail. Took out the M/B and my Nvidia 1080ti. I literally saw sparks coming off the 8pin on the video card through my case window. EVGA was surprisingly easy to deal with and replaced the whole chain. Luckily the CPU was not damaged.....

 

[maverickronin]

I had a EVGA SuperNOVA 850 P2 catastrophically fail. Took out the M/B and my Nvidia 1080ti. I literally saw sparks coming off the 8pin on the video card through my case window. EVGA was surprisingly easy to deal with and replaced the whole chain. Luckily the CPU was not damaged.....

Enthusiast PSUs have a crazy about of current on tap now that they've all switched to a single 12V rail. EVGA says the 850 P2 is good for ~71 amps.

 

[bakker_be]

Enthusiast PSUs have a crazy about of current on tap now that they've all switched to a single 12V rail. EVGA says the 850 P2 is good for ~71 amps.

Somehow that doesn't add up 71A * 12V = ±850W, so with a 850W power supply there's nothing left for the 3.3V and the 5V rails, whereas they quote another 20A each, adding 166W total (100W total in their specs). I don't get it

 

[maverickronin]

Somehow that doesn't add up 71A * 12V = ±850W, so with a 850W power supply there's nothing left for the 3.3V and the 5V rails, whereas they quote another 20A each, adding 166W total (100W total in their specs). I don't get it

They're usually rated by the 12V rail alone now since that's what sucks up most of the power anyway. Here's a spec sheet from Corsair that does pretty much the same thing.

 

[έχω δίκιο]

Topping D10 'Sleep Of Death' FIXED!​

I finally received a reply from Topping in which:

• They claimed to only check their support email address twice per week.
  • I first emailed their support address on the 22nd and their reply came on the 27th.
  • Their reply came about six hours after I emailed their sales department with a link to my negative review on Amazon.
• They provided the "old" version of the firmware, which was named "1804_D10_USB_old.bin" (the same file they supplied to Timbo2 for his 1804 series).

Flashing the older firmware appears to have fixed the problem on both my iMac Pro and Windows 10 computers, so I recommend that people avoid the new "18G" firmware.

I replied to Topping telling them reverting to the older version firmware fixed the problem and that I had updated my review on Amazon to a very positive one. I also included:

1. Detailed information about the problem and how to reproduce it.
2. A recommendation that they pull version 18G as it's causing the problem.
3. A request that they fix their firmware update utility so that it does not say v6.F2 regardless of the actual version in the D10.
4. A recommendation that they check their email more often, both out of consideration for their customers and to prevent multi-day, online discussions of problems and Topping's apparent unresponsiveness to emails.

 

[bakker_be]

I finally was able to stop listening for long enough to check behaviour of my unit (which has an 1806 serial BTW) on all computers I have. Behaviour is identical on all: dimly lit decimal point during sleep and correct waking up after.

 

[Wombat]

I think we're having a misunderstanding here - I thought we were discussing if the difference between RBCD and HiRes of the same analog source can be heard.

In general, I'm sure that some HiRes files are product of carefully done remasters, others much less so, but I don't really think the sampling rate is important factor here as good remaster IMHO will sound equally well on RBCD as on HiRes format.

P.S. thank you for the lecture about what mastering is, but, as I was working for many years on national TV&Radio I believe I'm quite familiar what mastering means.

It is regrettable that higher quality mastered versions were not available on separate issue RBCDs instead of 'toffy' new-format discs that required a special player. The general public may have come to prefer them and the loudness wars tempered, somewhat.

RBCD audio reproduction capability is outstanding when fully utilised.

 

[Krunok]

RBCD audio reproduction capability is outstanding when fully utilised. View attachment 15071

I fully agree with this, and would like to add that no HiRes format can compensate for poorly recorded and mastered material.

 

[έχω δίκιο]

I finally was able to stop listening for long enough to check behaviour of my unit (which has an 1806 serial BTW) on all computers I have. Behaviour is identical on all: dimly lit decimal point during sleep and correct waking up after.

Then for the love of God, don't "upgrade"!

It is regrettable that higher quality mastered versions were not available on separate issue RBCDs instead of 'toffy' new-format discs that required a special player.

There are some higher quality versions available on RBCD. Mobile Fidelity Sound Lab has released quite a few over the years. The 50th anniversary remastered Sgt. Pepper CD is massively improved over earlier versions. But it's hard to convince most consumers who already own a CD to buy a "new and improved" CD.

I fully agree with this, and would like to add that no HiRes format can compensate for poorly recorded and mastered material.

Of course not. But 'bad sounding' material is much less common in HiRes formats than in RBCD.

 

[Timbo2]

Then for the love of God, don't "upgrade"! .

I thought I did my best to make this point also...

Although, to be fair, when I build a new PC I flash everything current because if the flash goes bad or the device doesn’t work as expected I’m in my return period. After that all bets are off.

 

[bakker_be]

Then for the love of God, don't "upgrade"!

I don't intend to. The firmware update isn't intended for my version anyway, it's for either 1710 or 1801 through 1805.
Thanks for your concern though

 

[Krunok]

I don't intend to. The firmware update isn't intended for my version anyway, it's for either 1710 or 1801 through 1805.
Thanks for your concern though

And which serial do you have?

 

[έχω δίκιο]

Although, to be fair, when I build a new PC I flash everything current because if the flash goes bad or the device doesn’t work as expected I’m in my return period.

This was brand new device (still in the return period), others had reported stability problems with the factory firmware, and the factory recommended the upgrade for everyone. Seemed like a good idea given all that, but hindsight is 20/20.

 

[Krunok]

This was brand new device (still in the return period), others had reported stability problems with the factory firmware, and the factory recommended the upgrade for everyone. Seemed like a good idea given all that, but hindsight is 20/20.

Road to hell is always paved with good intentions.

 

[έχω δίκιο]

Road to hell is always paved with good intentions.

Tell me about it!