Veri
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USB power or wall wart is perfectly fine to use
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Review and Measurements of Topping D50 DAC
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Alou
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I went ahead and ordered a D50s yesterday ,based on the reviews and the fact that D50 discontinued as a mail from Topping told me,
i thought i could use the linear power supply but since its overkill ,i will use a wall wart or a USB port and keep the linear for my phono premap which is 12V. Really hope D50s will be better in built quality because i heard so many D50 units stop working after a while.
I already own a D10 and i am very happy with the sound and the driver is pretty well coded.
i thought i could use the linear power supply but since its overkill ,i will use a wall wart or a USB port and keep the linear for my phono premap which is 12V. Really hope D50s will be better in built quality because i heard so many D50 units stop working after a while.
I already own a D10 and i am very happy with the sound and the driver is pretty well coded.
After reading the great reviews here and elsewhere, I was happy to receive my Topping D50 from drop.com last weekend. After installing the drivers from the Topping website, I connected the unit to my computer with the supplied USB cord, hit the main power button, and nothing. It would not power up. The driver software dialog box said ‘no device detected.’ Drop.com told me I needed to contact the manufacturer, which I did via e-mail, in English, but they’re in mainland China, so I don’t know what or when I’ll hear back from them. Any thoughts? Thanks.
Alou
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Did you connect the second USB (power) cable to a second usb port and then to the 5v in the back of the D50 ?The D50 need 5v extra power not only the data USB cable
Thanks. I am out and about. I will try that when I get home. If that should work, then for the longer term (USB ports are at a premium on my laptop), would it make sense to plug the USB to barrel plug cord into the cubic wall wart electrical plug of an iPhone? That provides 5V.
Hi!
Did you try to power it with a simple 5V DC wall wart, and feed it some spdif source?
Should work this way..... if not, sure there is a problem.
Good luck, mine works very well.
JM
Could also be some asio mess .... Check your various output settings.
JM
Success! Simply connecting the USB to barrel plug cable from the computer to the 5v input was enough. Works like a charm. My first inclination would have been to have a separate power-in, but the shaky instructions in the manual seemed to suggest that the unit would draw enough power from the USB that also carries the audio signal. Or maybe they were hoping the consumer would spring for their $100 linear power supply. In any case, thanks for all the helpful input.
Fortunately, I have an old powered 4-port USB hub I can dust off and use. The Topping D50 definitely outshines the Schiit Modi 2 that it’s replacing, but now I have to decide which headphone amp the D50 matches better with: my Little Dot MK III tube, or my veteran modded Headroom Home amp.
Alou
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I would suggest what headphone amp matches your sound taste and your headphones and not so match if it matches the D50.
Its like headphones after the specs comes the personal taste.
So far i have listened to at least 20 headamps and only like the ones from Grace Design m902.m903,m905 (not cheap though) and one Dr Meyer from Germany made couple of years back.Not that the others are not good its only personal taste of how it delivers the music i listen too.
We’re on the same page here. That’s what I meant by “match.” Maybe there’s a better word, but I’m talking subjectively better. What the laboratory measurements are or what someone else’s ears interpret is completely irrelevant. For example, someone else’s righteous bass might be boomy and non-musical to me. I’m curious about Grace Design. You’re not the first person I’ve heard to praise them. We used to have a high-end store around here where you could audition good phones and amps, but no longer.
Alou
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Yes we meant the same thing expressed differently.
Well Grace Design is more oriented towards the Pro studio world then the HIFI market ,their mic preamps for examples are something extraordinary specially when recording orchestras or string base instruments.The M9xx series are like a swiss army knife preamp ,has almost everything and is a superior head-amp that can drive anything ,has Dr Meyers crossfeed and is a class A preamp for audio. I use it also in my studio to drive anything from self amplified monitors to Vintage IMF, JBL speakers via an amplifier of course. They also make multi monitoring units to drive several headphones at once for broadcasters ,studios etc.
I got a used m902 back in 2008 and still use it everyday ,later i bought a m903 for professional use and it was even better.
Well Grace Design is more oriented towards the Pro studio world then the HIFI market ,their mic preamps for examples are something extraordinary specially when recording orchestras or string base instruments.The M9xx series are like a swiss army knife preamp ,has almost everything and is a superior head-amp that can drive anything ,has Dr Meyers crossfeed and is a class A preamp for audio. I use it also in my studio to drive anything from self amplified monitors to Vintage IMF, JBL speakers via an amplifier of course. They also make multi monitoring units to drive several headphones at once for broadcasters ,studios etc.
I got a used m902 back in 2008 and still use it everyday ,later i bought a m903 for professional use and it was even better.
Alou
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M901 was their first headamp its not made anymore,it was made untill 2002. It has a great headamp but their dac unit is a little out of date .
If you search you might find them used in a good price .Their analog part is still comparable if not greater still today then most.
Same goes with the Grace m902 their analog part is super but their usb dac is a little old by todays standard,their digital converters,spdif,toslink,aes ebu are great based on AKM chips and custom made (Order) bur brown opamps. Even though their usb is without a driver (windows driver only up to 48khz) if you listen to streaming music you will not notice any difference even with reference speakers. With better recordings from wav or 320kbps mp3 you might hear a difference.
So for the USB part i used a D10 connected via coax or analog (sometimes i hear a slight brighter better sound through this).
I found the combination of the D10 as digital and Grace fro analog simply great and very detailed.
Grace has replaced my Mark Levinson and Meridian preamps long time ago. With Grace you hear everything bad or good they way it was recorded.
I will replace the D10 with the D50s and take the D10 in the office with me to listen via headphones
The m903 has an asynchronous usb dac with a custom ASIO driver and goes up very high in khz.
I use it in the studio and is very precise as a reference monitor controller. Drivers are very important if you use a device thorugh USB and sometimes it is something that mot much pay attention to in allot of forums.I have or heard professional audio units behave very bad due to poor drivers.
So far topping drivers are very solid,they outsourced their driver to another company and to be honest i purchased the D10 couple of years ago just on the fact of their drivers and was not wrong.
If you want to source a Grace best chance is to source a good used one ,better deal in price even though they are hard to find because most keep them.
There was a supposed budget Grace designed heamp for sale at DROP but this is not part of their catalog and is made in China by another maker (Grace is hand made in USA),so i guess its not a real Grace just designed by them i guess not that it would be a bad one but i dont know anything about it.
If you search you might find them used in a good price .Their analog part is still comparable if not greater still today then most.
Same goes with the Grace m902 their analog part is super but their usb dac is a little old by todays standard,their digital converters,spdif,toslink,aes ebu are great based on AKM chips and custom made (Order) bur brown opamps. Even though their usb is without a driver (windows driver only up to 48khz) if you listen to streaming music you will not notice any difference even with reference speakers. With better recordings from wav or 320kbps mp3 you might hear a difference.
So for the USB part i used a D10 connected via coax or analog (sometimes i hear a slight brighter better sound through this).
I found the combination of the D10 as digital and Grace fro analog simply great and very detailed.
Grace has replaced my Mark Levinson and Meridian preamps long time ago. With Grace you hear everything bad or good they way it was recorded.
I will replace the D10 with the D50s and take the D10 in the office with me to listen via headphones
The m903 has an asynchronous usb dac with a custom ASIO driver and goes up very high in khz.
I use it in the studio and is very precise as a reference monitor controller. Drivers are very important if you use a device thorugh USB and sometimes it is something that mot much pay attention to in allot of forums.I have or heard professional audio units behave very bad due to poor drivers.
So far topping drivers are very solid,they outsourced their driver to another company and to be honest i purchased the D10 couple of years ago just on the fact of their drivers and was not wrong.
If you want to source a Grace best chance is to source a good used one ,better deal in price even though they are hard to find because most keep them.
There was a supposed budget Grace designed heamp for sale at DROP but this is not part of their catalog and is made in China by another maker (Grace is hand made in USA),so i guess its not a real Grace just designed by them i guess not that it would be a bad one but i dont know anything about it.
Thanks much for the input. It is not hard to find used m901’s for sale online, but from what you say, I’d probably be better off with a used m903. Unfortunately, there aren’t any for sale now. Having a high-quality DAC and a high-quality headphone amp in one box would be convenient (smaller footprint on the desk), but until a 903 pops up, the Topping D50 and Headroom Home will be fine.
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