Review and Measurements of Topping D10 DAC

[dajczu]

Ok... after a lot of switching under the desk the conclusion: If i unplug powered speaker from wall adapter its all ok. So what to do?

 

[mtnbrit]

I would recommend you look at iDefender.

 

[dajczu]

Plunging powered speakers to a different outlet in a separate room fixed the problem completely. But now i have a long cord in the middle of my room . So most likely it's a ground loop issue. I will check with different cables.

 

[pwjazz]

I didn't feel great about severing the ground on my monitor, so I went looking for other solutions. Oddly enough, using a 3.5mm to RCA cable to plug into the Atom's 3.5mm input made the hum almost completely go away?! If I crank up the volume to max on low gain (with no audio signal playing), I can just barely hear a hum, but at actual listening volumes it's not an issue.

If anyone here who knows something about wiring could provide an explanation for why that made a difference, I'd love to know. The only thing I can think of that's different is that the 3.5mm TRS connector connects both channels' ground to the same sleeve on the amp's end, whereas the standard RCA interconnect keeps the grounds separate for both channels between DAC and amp. I don't know why that would make a difference though ...

 

[pwjazz]

I didn't feel great about severing the ground on my monitor, so I went looking for other solutions. Oddly enough, using a 3.5mm to RCA cable to plug into the Atom's 3.5mm input made the hum almost completely go away?! If I crank up the volume to max on low gain (with no audio signal playing), I can just barely hear a hum, but at actual listening volumes it's not an issue.

If anyone here who knows something about wiring could provide an explanation for why that made a difference, I'd love to know. The only thing I can think of that's different is that the 3.5mm TRS connector connects both channels' ground to the same sleeve on the amp's end, whereas the standard RCA interconnect keeps the grounds separate for both channels between DAC and amp. I don't know why that would make a difference though ...

Okay, found one more hum I had a couple of powered LSR305 monitors connected to the Atom's preamplifier output. They were plugged into two different outlets, one shared with my new monitor. Plugging the two LSR305's into the same outlet, separate from the monitor, took care of this one.

Ugh.

 

[miguelx74]

hello guys, to join the Jds Atom, better the Topping D10 or the d30? thank you

 

[daftcombo]

D10 cheaper and no ESS hump, just saying.

 

[miguelx74]

Thanks for the reply. Leaving aside the cost which is better than the two? I was looking for a comparison here but I didn't find it

 

[jasonq997]

hello guys, to join the Jds Atom, better the Topping D10 or the d30? thank you

It depends on the features you need. D30 has optical and coaxial inputs. D10 has optical and coxial outputs which allow it to daisy chain with other dacs. Both measure well and are good matches for the atom. And btw the d30 @daftcombo does not use an ess dac. I own both and can report no audible difference.

 

[miguelx74]

Thanks for the reply. I have no special needs. I have to use the DAC with the Atom JDS to listen to music with the Desktop PC. The only requirement is that I would like to connect the soundbar of the PC and I would like to play the soundbar without having to remove the headphones. So which one do I take?

 

[jasonq997]

Thanks for the reply. I have no special needs. I have to use the DAC with the Atom JDS to listen to music with the Desktop PC. The only requirement is that I would like to connect the soundbar of the PC and I would like to play the soundbar without having to remove the headphones. So which one do I take?

If the soundbar has an optical input you will want the D30. It has a switch to go from USB to optical or coaxial. You can leave the headphones plugged in and use the switch to go back and forth.

 

[miguelx74]

hello, maybe you wanted to say that I have to buy the D10 because it has coaxial and optical output connectors. In contrast, the D30 has input connectors

 

[miguelx74]

PC speakers or soundbar should be connected to AMP. They should not be connected to the DAC.

 

[daftcombo]

It depends on the features you need. D30 has optical and coaxial inputs. D10 has optical and coxial outputs which allow it to daisy chain with other dacs. Both measure well and are good matches for the atom. And btw the d30 @daftcombo does not use an ess dac. I own both and can report no audible difference.

You are right, I messed up D30 and DX3.
As you say : if one just wants a USB DAC, go for D10. Otherwise consider the inputs and outputs.
I use the D10 on 2 systems simultaneously: as a DAC in the living room and as a optical sender to a FDA in another room, with a 10m Toslink cable.

 

[jasonq997]

You are right, I messed up D30 and DX3.
As you say : if one just wants a USB DAC, go for D10. Otherwise consider the inputs and outputs.
I use the D10 on 2 systems simultaneously: as a DAC in the living room and as a optical sender to a FDA in another room, with a 10m Toslink cable.

I do a similar thing. Extremely versatile. I am glad that Topping decided to make a device like that, since I don't think most people have this kind of use case in mind. Big fan of the D10.

 

[miguelx74]

The Topping D10 is connected to the Atom with the RCA cable. How to select the optical output on the Topping D10? I would like to send the audio signal to a PC speaker. I hope I don't have to remove the headphones from the Atom to select the optical output on the D10!

 

[Krunok]

The Topping D10 is connected to the Atom with the RCA cable. How to select the optical output on the Topping D10? I would like to send the audio signal to a PC speaker. I hope I don't have to remove the headphones from the Atom to select the optical output on the D10!

Optical output on D10 is always active so just connect your speakers and you will have sound.

 

[miguelx74]

Thanks for the reply.
I would like to connect the D10 to this device:

device

with an optical cable.
Then I would like to connect the PC speaker to this device (it is a soundbar and has a single RCA audio input / 3.5 "jack).
Is it a good idea or could I do better?

If I connect the soundbar to the atom, I have to remove the headphones to make the soundbar sound.

 

[Lioraclev]

This is a review of the recently released Topping D10 DAC. I purchased mine from massdrop for just $75 including shipping. I see it online from Aliexpress for $89. I must say, this is one of the most handsome budget DACs I have seen with a nice retro amber/orange 7-segment LED display:

View attachment 11515

Despite its very low price, the unit is solidly built out of thick aluminum and has good bit of heft to it. As a result, the cables connected to it stay put.

The only on the input is USB. Outputs are of course analog unbalanced RCA but also Toslink and S/PDIF coax:

View attachment 11516

Format support is excellent as indicated on the front panel and more detail at Topping website: http://www.tpdz.net/en/products/d10/index.htm

Unlike vast majority of audio hardware out there, Topping has full FCC/CE regulatory emissions certification together with that of "high-res audio" the certificate of which is included in the box! That certification is apparently done in Japan. The regulator emissions certification is useful for those of you who sweat traditions from your gear.

The USB interface is class 2 compliant meaning no driver was necessary to use it in my Roon player using exclusive mode, WASAPI in Windows 10 Creators Edition. Auto-detected formats by Roon are:

View attachment 11517

I know most of you are anxious to see how it measures. So let's get into that. As usual, if you are not familiar with what these graphs are, refer to my tutorial on understanding audio measurements: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/understanding-audio-measurements.2351/

Measurements
Because this is a USB only DAC, I can only run a subset of my usual measurements. For this review, I compared the Topping D10 to my previously recommended Behringer UMC204HD. The Behringer is a good DAC but has anemic output which means it can't drive some amplifiers to full output. It also looks more like a pro piece of equipment and not an expensive one at that. The Topping D10 remedies all of these but let's see how it compares specifically, starting with jitter and noise:

View attachment 11526

The Behringer is in yellow and Topping D10 in red. As we see, the topping D10 has some jitter sidebands around our main tone of 12 kHz. So in that regard it is worse than Behringer. However, if you look at the amplitude of our tone, you see that the output of the Behringer is lower. Compensated, the signal to noise ratio of Behringer is worse than Topping D10 and the jitter spikes would be barely visible. Regardless, the jitter components are at a whopping -130 dB and lower which are absolutely not an audible concern.

As a bonus and to show how good these measurements are, I have also shown a preview of the measurements of the Schiit Fulla which retails for $99 (but has a headphone amp) in green. As you see, its signal to noise ratio is much worse.

If you want perfection here, then you would need to step up to Topping D50 ($250) which has the same noise floor but no jitter spikes to speak of.

Next let's look at linearity or how well the DAC produces the output voltages that we instruct it to, from digital domain:

View attachment 11519

Very respectable performance from both DACs. Even when we start to see deviations from perfect zero dB line, nothing goes wild all the way up to -120 dB (20 bits). The Topping D10 though pulls ahead a bit but sticking to zero line more perfectly than the Behringer. This is no doubt due to its higher output.

We can see a confirmation of that in a much clearer picture as we look at the ability of the DAC to reproduce a -90 dB sine wave (at the limit of 16 bit audio):

View attachment 11520

The picture speaks for itself. The Topping D10 produces excellent output that resembles a nice sine wave whereas the Behringer UMC204HD has too low of an output and a noisier one at that.

Let's look at harmonic distortion where the Behringer has been an excellent champion at:

View attachment 11521

Ah, we discover something interesting. The Behringer doesn't show a lot of harmonic distortion because its noise floor is much higher. The Behringer beats it by as much as 25 db. By doing so, its harmonic distortion is visible but they are all lower than what the Behringer produces (note: this noise is the combination of the DAC and my analyzer). Net, net the Topping D10 has far better performance even though its graph looks more "busy."

Edit: forgot to post the frequency response/channel matching:

View attachment 11576

Measured output voltage was 2.113 volts (RMS) on one channel and 2.108 on the other so very excellent (0.021 dB difference). Response is essentially ruler flat to 20 kHz.

Conclusions
The Topping D10 is a delightful audio DAC. It looks very "cute" and masculine at the same time. I cannot fathom how it can be built and shipped at such incredibly low prices. Combine that with proper manufacturing that includes regulatory certification and such and the value you get is just amazing.

Measured performance is excellent and just shy of its more expensive brothers like the Topping D50. With its much higher output vs Behringer UMC204HD (1.5 volt RMS vs 1.1 volt) it is suitable to drive any and all amplifiers.

For an entry level DAC without headphone output I cannot recommend the Topping D10 enough! Another job well done by Topping.

EDIT: Updated measurements using new analyzer here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...surements-of-topping-d10-dac.2470/post-157302

As always, questions, comments, corrections, jokes, etc. are all welcome!
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So. If I want it for none headphone, only usb it's not recommended?

 

[Zek]

So. If I want it for none headphone, only usb it's not recommended?

Where does this come from?