Review and Measurements of Topping D50 DAC

[neilmc]

I must give props to the Topping support folks. Whenever I send an e-mail, I can expect a response the following morning (about a twelve-hour time difference, so, considering, that's a pretty snappy response). I hadn't thought to look at the Topping D50 installation .exe files, but they suggested installing the Topping D50 Foobar2000 ASIO plug-in. Uh, yeah, good idea. Did that, and now everything works smoothly. My Foobar2000 output configuration looks like this:

It sounds really, really good. I don't know where all you inputters hail from, but with Topping chiming in from China, it could be that the entire world collaborated to fix my media player-DAC workup. Much appreciated.

 

[MWC]

@neilmc, Good to hear all's well that ends well for you. Nothing like having the whole world come to your aid, eh?

I could use a little of that 'world-aid' to sort out using my D50 when playing video. Which free* software players are recommended? How to set them up to play the exact bit rate audio included in the video file.

Currently I have installed on my laptop VLC and MPC-BEx64 connected via USB to the D50. Following earlier advice on this thread I set Windows to use 24/96 as default audio output, when in shared mode, but also to allow device exclusivity. Because bit rates on video/BD vary a lot I'd much prefer to have the actual bit rate of the file sent to the D50 rather than upsampling everything to 24/96. How to accomplish this? I suspect VLC and MPC-BEx64 are not using exclusive mode, but I don't see any options within these players to fix this.

*Over the years, I have spent good money on Cyberlink players in the past and learned that free players give one just as good service but without the nagging to upgrade and other dirty tricks Cyberlink employs.

 

[neilmc]

Little did I think I'd be back on this thread so soon with another complication. After all the collaborative work getting my D50 set up, I honestly believed I would be settling in for an extended period of happy listening. However, a new problem has arisen. While listening to audio files on my headphones, at random the music will dissolve into static for a half a second or so, then complete silence for an equal amount of time, before returning to music as usual. It happens in perhaps two out of three songs, but does not happen in the same place in the same song if I repeat it. I switched back to my old Schiit DAC, and everything is fine, so that tells me that no other piece of equipment or software or setting is at fault. Unfortunately, as it has taken more than 30 days from date of purchase to get to the point of being able to use the D50 and find out something is wrong with it, Drop.com tells me, tough luck, I'm on my own. Any ideas, before I open my window to see how well the Topping D50 DAC flies?

I'll e-mail Topping in China again, but in the meantime if anyone else in here has an inspired thought, please let me know. Thanks!

 

[Noob]

Shenzen just announced the A50 amp as a companion for this. I am pretty excited. If it preforms at a level with the dac and at the same price point, this could be an amazing stack.

 

[Kiko1974]

I think I have a problem with BD-Audio discs and my D50. In order to play 96-192 Khz/24 bit PCM tracks (not DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD which are mostly used for multichannel audio tracks) I make an ISO of my original BD-Audio disc (Hotel California, Moving Pictures, Appetite For Desctruction...) and then burn the ISO on a BD-R on an LG BD recorder. I've used both DVDFab and AnyDVD, both remove any copy protection and restriction. BD-Audio discs can only output 96-192/24 via HDMI, if one uses the digital coaxial (or TosLink) of his player, sound gets downconverted to 48/16. With the copies I've made of my BD-Audio discs the digital coaxial on the Sony UBP X800 (UHD BD/Universal player) 96 and 192 Khz are passed by the digital coaxial but despite these discs been all 24 bit the Topping shows 16 bit instead of 24. Is this an issue with how the Topping sometimes fails to display the correct bit depth or maybe the copies I've made of my BD-Audio discs still keep some kind of copy protection?

 

[MWC]

@ Kiko1974 Can you play music off a PC using USB to the D50? If yes, then you can mount each iso of your BDs and use a media player like VLC, MPC-BEx64 or Cyberlink Power DVD etc.. Actually the latter may barf at a mounted iso, but you could look inside the iso for the BDMV folder.....
This approach would avoid the limits inherent with HDMI. Although you can still use HDMI to connect your PC to your TV for the video portion of any BD iso but have the audio run direct from PC to D50 over USB.
On the other hand when you ripped your BDs are you sure you selected the 24/192 lossless audio rather than the default lower res audio. Consider using AudioMuxer to be sure you get the Hi Res Lossless audio.
Manual

 

[Kiko1974]

I think I have a problem with BD-Audio discs and my D50. In order to play 96-192 Khz/24 bit PCM tracks (not DTS-HD Master Audio or Dolby TrueHD which are mostly used for multichannel audio tracks) I make an ISO of my original BD-Audio disc (Hotel California, Moving Pictures, Appetite For Desctruction...) and then burn the ISO on a BD-R on an LG BD recorder. I've used both DVDFab and AnyDVD, both remove any copy protection and restriction. BD-Audio discs can only output 96-192/24 via HDMI, if one uses the digital coaxial (or TosLink) of his player, sound gets downconverted to 48/16. With the copies I've made of my BD-Audio discs the digital coaxial on the Sony UBP X800 (UHD BD/Universal player) 96 and 192 Khz are passed by the digital coaxial but despite these discs been all 24 bit the Topping shows 16 bit instead of 24. Is this an issue with how the Topping sometimes fails to display the correct bit depth or maybe the copies I've made of my BD-Audio discs still keep some kind of copy protection?

@ Kiko1974 Can you play music off a PC using USB to the D50? If yes, then you can mount each iso of your BDs and use a media player like VLC, MPC-BEx64 or Cyberlink Power DVD etc.. Actually the latter may barf at a mounted iso, but you could look inside the iso for the BDMV folder.....
This approach would avoid the limits inherent with HDMI. Although you can still use HDMI to connect your PC to your TV for the video portion of any BD iso but have the audio run direct from PC to D50 over USB.
On the other hand when you ripped your BDs are you sure you selected the 24/192 lossless audio rather than the default lower res audio. Consider using AudioMuxer to be sure you get the Hi Res Lossless audio.
Manual

Hello. Thanksfor your reply. None of my BD-Audio discs have a low-res PCM track. Keep in mind that I also have the Sony X-800 conected via HDMI to a Pioneer A/V Receiver (SC-LX76, a 9.1 AVR from 2012 sold in the US on the Elite range) and both Pioneer AVR and the own OSD of the Sony X-800 tell the resolution of the tracks I'm playing. All of them are either 96/24 or 192/24 (with also a multichannel mix on 96/24 or 192/24 losslessly compressed with DTS-HD Master Audio), but it seems despite all copy protections removed by either DVDFab or AnyDVD, it still outputs 96/16 or 192/16 from the BD-Audio discs I have. All of the BD-Audio discs I own are released by Universal Music except for Eagle's Hotel California that is Warner Bros.'.
I've read earlier on this thread that the D50 sometimes has a hard time detecting the bith depth of the PCM audio it's playing and in fact on a firmware update the bit depth on screen info was removed. I didn't update mine as a file on this firmware said it was only for D50's with a certain serial numbers and my D50 was none of them.
Playing Hi Res 96/24 or 192/24 (the 192/24 Van Halen Remasters or the Star Wars remasters or Disney remixes that are at 192/24) my D50 shows sampling frequency and bit depth right, playing these and more of them (I have around 500 Gb. of Hi Res files) from the same Sony X-800 by its digital coaxial output, the D-50 displays the right sample frequency and bit depth.

 

[MWC]

@Kiko1974 It's a bit of a mystery isn't it? I imagine your suspicion that your D50 does not display the correct bitrate ( despite actually playing it) may be the answer. My D50 defaults to displaying 32bit for pretty much anything via USB, but I have seen it display nonsense via optical, like bitrate 00.

 

[orki]

Hi all,
I just need your help. I ve got two little questions.
Do you know, if there is any problem connecting a topping d50 on a hi-fi preamp?
For the moment I will using the DAC like this :
cd player->topping d50->preamp->amp.
In case there is no problem, the volume control of the DAC should it be set to 0, -30 ....?
Thank you to all of you.
Best regards

 

[Kiko1974]

Hi all,
I just need your help. I ve got two little questions.
Do you know, if there is any problem connecting a topping d50 on a hi-fi preamp?
For the moment I will using the DAC like this :
cd player->topping d50->preamp->amp.
In case there is no problem, the volume control of the DAC should it be set to 0, -30 ....?
Thank you to all of you.
Best regards

The Topping D50 is ideal to update/upgrade the quality of a CD player with dated or underperforming D/A converters, and of course you can connect it to an audio preamp, I have mine connected to a Pioneer A/V receiver and its sound is better than the AVR built in D/A converters.
My Topping D50 is connected via digital coaxial to a Sony UBP X-800 UHD BD player that also plays SACD's and most kind of Hi Res audio files. The combination of Sony X-800 and Topping D50 is my main digital source (I have all my SACD discs ripped and converted to DSD over PCM that the Topping D50 plays as native DSD via its digital coaxial) and a damn good one. And my A/V receiver is not a bad one, it was second top of the line from Pioneers' 2012 range, sold in the US with the Elite and THX badge, it was 2000 Euros back in 2012. The Topping D50 sounds outstanding with it, if you don't look at it and see its tiny size and think about its low price you'll think you'd be listening to a much much expensive D/A converter.
I love my Topping D50 and its sound.

 

[orki]

Many thanks for your return.
And for the volum control 0,-30 something else?
I hope i will like it, let's try

 

[MWC]

@orki I have my D50 volume set to 0dB which I believe is the recommended volume as long as you are controlling overall volume via an amp..

 

[orki]

@MWC. Thanks for your return.

 

[BYRTT]

@orki,

In you run a preamp downstream of DAC @MWC is right to get peace in mind set D50 to 0dB and dial in the volmune on that preamp, that said unit is a modern one and can offer 32bit access if you dial in your settings right and in that case set D50 to lesser numbers than 0dB or use it as the primary volume controll is fine. On Windows 10 the sound system settings need a adjust of unit to use 32bit or use WASAPI from a dedicated player program, also ASIO can offer 32bit access but to get ASIO feature one needs to install the driver package from Topping website.

 

[orki]

@BYRTT. Thanks a lot

 

[MWC]

IMHO BYRTT is correct, but I would rather avoid all Windows audio settings and rely exclusively on the ASIO driver from Topping, if at all possible. On one of my PCs where I use my D50, I have all Windows audio off in the BIOS and everything works flawlessly, but via my laptop (in my 'holiday home') I use Windows settings and I find it unsatisfactory in some scenarios.

 

[Jimster480]

Yes you do not want to adjust the volume of your DAC from the computer. This will compromise quality.

 

[Kiko1974]

What I don't really understand is how at this price this D/A converter can sound this good. It sounds nice with PCM either at red book resolution (44.1/16) or Hi Res (I have many albums at 96/24 and mostly 192/24) but with DSD it really excells.
I took it to a friend's house with my Hi Res SSD albums and conected it to the digital coaxial outputs of the new Pioneer Elite UHD BD player, UDP-LX500 which costs around 800 US $ or 900 Euros in Europe. I also took some of my best sounding SACD discs which are duplicated on the SSD with Hi Res files (ripped and converted with dBPoweramp as DSD over PCM files that play as native DSD on the D50) to check for actual audible differences.
Both Pionner UHD BD/SACD players, the LX500 and the LX800 are highly regarded both video and audio wise.
It's surprising to check that the Topping D50 sounds just like the Pioneer LX500, I even liked the D50 more playing at DSD files ripped from SACD's.
Maybe reading an optical discs is more jittery than reading from a non moving parts SSD or that the Topping D50 simply sounds better than the Pioneer LX-500.

 

[Jimster480]

What I don't really understand is how at this price this D/A converter can sound this good. It sounds nice with PCM either at red book resolution (44.1/16) or Hi Res (I have many albums at 96/24 and mostly 192/24) but with DSD it really excells.
I took it to a friend's house with my Hi Res SSD albums and conected it to the digital coaxial outputs of the new Pioneer Elite UHD BD player, UDP-LX500 which costs around 800 US $ or 900 Euros in Europe. I also took some of my best sounding SACD discs which are duplicated on the SSD with Hi Res files (ripped and converted with dBPoweramp as DSD over PCM files that play as native DSD on the D50) to check for actual audible differences.
Both Pionner UHD BD/SACD players, the LX500 and the LX800 are highly regarded both video and audio wise.
It's surprising to check that the Topping D50 sounds just like the Pioneer LX500, I even liked the D50 more playing at DSD files ripped from SACD's.
Maybe reading an optical discs is more jittery than reading from a non moving parts SSD or that the Topping D50 simply sounds better than the Pioneer LX-500.

This isn't a surprising outcome at all. The D50 is bascially technically excellent and has almost perfect linearity. In my experiences the linearity measurements have the most translation to how a DAC sounds over all the rest of the numbers.

 

[Kiko1974]

This isn't a surprising outcome at all. The D50 is bascially technically excellent and has almost perfect linearity. In my experiences the linearity measurements have the most translation to how a DAC sounds over all the rest of the numbers.

I also think that despite the Pioneer LX500 being and excellent audio and video player that sounds and looks outstanding, the superiority of the D50 resides on having it's own (better or worse) power supply, not shared with any other device like a disc drive or an video board, and also not sharing the case with any of these devices that may cause interference between them. In a nutshell, the Topping D50 has its own power supply and inside its solid aluminium case there's a good D/A converter (very well engineered with the D/A IC's well implemented with the associated circuitry) and only a D/A converter. For some of us on audio less is more.