• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Review and Measurements of Topping D50 DAC

OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,376
Likes
234,520
Location
Seattle Area
Amir, you think you can also obtain the Aune X7S amp and collect measurements?
Welcome to the forum. Since I have never tested any Aune products, I am game purchasing this. Where is a good store to get it from that has cheap/reliable prices?
 

RayDunzl

Grand Contributor
Central Scrutinizer
Joined
Mar 9, 2016
Messages
13,204
Likes
16,985
Location
Riverview FL

Nice avatar, but isn't it upside down?

upload_2018-4-14_12-21-11.png
-->
upload_2018-4-13_15-45-5.png
 
Last edited:

weikagen

Member
Joined
Apr 13, 2018
Messages
10
Likes
5
Welcome to the forum. Since I have never tested any Aune products, I am game purchasing this. Where is a good store to get it from that has cheap/reliable prices?

I got mine from Massdrop, but it looks like it is also available on eBay, Aliexpress, or Amazon for similar price. ~$260-$300USD. Aune is also a Chinese company like Topping.
 

DataX

Member
Joined
Mar 26, 2018
Messages
23
Likes
12
Welcome to the forum. Since I have never tested any Aune products, I am game purchasing this. Where is a good store to get it from that has cheap/reliable prices?

Would also be very interested in a Aune X7s review / measurements as it's supposed to be one of the cleaner amps you can get. I just picked one up from Massdrop and subjectively it sounds amazing (compared to my FiiO E17).
 

Toku

Major Contributor
Joined
Apr 4, 2018
Messages
2,391
Likes
2,776
Location
Japan
Hahaha - no it is not strange, at least not to me! :)

When I receive my D10 in a few weeks I will also put an effort to put DSD to work in Native and in DoP mode although I have only 5 SACD recordings which also sound fine now when I have them converted to PCM on the fly by foobar, as my current DAC cannot decode DSD.

In the meantime I can assure you that Native DSD and DoP sound exactly the same. As you are a communication device developer you will easily understand how DoP works:

DSD is a 1 bit stream. In order to transport DSD over PCM (hence the DoP acronym) you take 16 adjacent 1-bit samples from a DSD stream and pack them into the lower 16 bits of a 24/176.4 PCM data stream. In top 8 bits you put a special marker so DAC can tell it is a DoP and not PCM stream. As you managed to pack DSD into PCM stream you can no transport it as it is a normal PCM stream over USB, SPDIF, AES etc. Once DAC recognises the marker in upper 8 bits it knows it is receiving a DoP and not PCM so it starts recreating the original DSD 1 bit stream and it does that without any losses. That is why DoP sounds exactly the same as will DSD Native once you get it to work.

Thank you for the explanation of DSD (native) and DSD (Dop).
I also understand like that.

My audio technology has a history of 45 years. But the field of USB-DAC is a completely amateur.
I studied from the noise problem of this time and I gained a lot of knowledge.
 

Rabindra

New Member
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4
Likes
0
Received my unit a few weeks ago . I am using an old marantz cd 72 mkii se as transport, isotek mini sub as power conditioner, avi lab series integrated amp, audio physic Virgo 2 speakers. Initial thoughts, the marantz has a warmer tone, maybe a little more musical but I am biased because I have been listening to the marantz for many years. So I swapped out the marantz for a cheap blu ray player called BOE (model bdp 818) as transport. I can say that the Topping dac made the BOE player sound really good. Vocals were clear, less background noise, staging was well defined. Very impressed. My personal opinion this dac makes my cheap transport sound better.
Happy weekend everyone.
 

FrantzM

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Mar 12, 2016
Messages
4,337
Likes
7,737
Btw, foobar has a nicely done extension with which you can perform blind tests between various music files in a quite objective way. Many of you might be surprised how difficult may be to reliably notice difference between 320kbps mp3 and 16/44.1 flac files.

https://www.foobar2000.org/components/view/foo_abx

Once again, if you will be doing your own AB files for comparison make sure that sound level is absolutely equally adjusted otherwise you won't be able to do objective comparison.
Difficult!? .. seems to be impossible for many .. Yours very truly included :D Unless for a few pieces that are well known and of a certain type or genre ..
 

Malefoda

New Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2018
Messages
4
Likes
0
Hello gents,
lots of info here, great! Anyway, do you mind my asking a few things about the D50 prior to bank robbery?
I want to know:
- how much current needed when converting high sample rates, so via USB,
- is the volume in digital domain and done by the ESS chips,
- is max output line level or more,
- is there any ASRC or quality (jitter wise) reciever chip, mainly SPDIF users here,
- does switching from differents sample rates exhibit pops or clicks, power amp users here,
a picture of the PCB may answer most of the following questions:
- are there quality XOs used,
- is the output stage the same as D30 (I don't expect nor see the D50 to sound as... average as the D30 with great DAC chips and better output stage)

I know it's a bit of audio nervosa, but any input is welcome, even of subjective "sound type" vs the tiny D30.
Thank you very much,
Matthieu
 
Last edited:
OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,376
Likes
234,520
Location
Seattle Area
Welcome to the forum Matthieu. I will measure the current at high sample rates and report back.

On ASRC, I believe that is a core function of the ESS chip and is in the loop for S/PDIF.

Volume control I think is implemented using ESS. A picture of the guts was shown earlier I believe. I will do a teardown in the future.
 

Malefoda

New Member
Joined
Apr 15, 2018
Messages
4
Likes
0
Hi Amirm,
thanks for the welcoming. I think like you that, as ESS already had onboard ASRC like in the old king ESS9018, they have one here. Also means no reciever chip, same, ESS chips handle direct SPDIF. So the XO quality is critical. Great that Topping went that way and did not reinvent the wheel.
I'll dig the thread to find pics, but longing for yours and current measurements. Found the output level in the tread, so most is answered!
Thanks again!
 

Warlington

New Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2018
Messages
3
Likes
3
Hi all, my D50 just arrived and I'm having some issues getting it to work... I'm sure I'm doing something stupid, but I frankly can't figure out what I'm doing wrong.

Anyway; my proper amplifier (Feliks-Audio Elise) is currently broken, so I'm trying to get the D50 to work with my old FiiO E9 solid state amplifier. The amplifier is still working perfectly as I was running the E7 + E9 combination before my D50 arrived. I'm using my trusty Sennheiser HD650s, which are obviously fully functional as well.

After hooking up the D50, I am getting no sound whatsoever. The D50 is set to USB mode and isn't muted. I've connected it to the E9 using the line out/line in ports on both. Windows default device is set to the D50, Foobar is set to the D50. Windows is showcasing that sound is being played, but I'm getting nothing whatsover. Switching audio output to my monitor works, but obviously bypasses the entire setup.

I've also tried some youtube videos and such and have rebooted my PC several times. At no point does any sound come from my headphones.

Unfortunately I have no other amplifiers to test, nor do I have another DAC with line out connectivity to test with my E9.

I've taken some pictures and screenshots to showcase how things are set up: https://imgur.com/a/e7QKb

Am I doing something wrong software-wise? Connection-wise? Is my D50 a dud? Could it be that the line-in ports on my E9 are broken? When using the E7/E9 combination, the E7 docks into the E9, so the line-in ports aren't used.

Any and all help is much appreciated!
 
OP
amirm

amirm

Founder/Admin
Staff Member
CFO (Chief Fun Officer)
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Messages
44,376
Likes
234,520
Location
Seattle Area
Hi there. Welcome to the forum. I took a look and can't see anything you have done wrong.

Unplug the RCAs from the D50. Hold one in your hand without touching the outside and touch the pin of the RCA with a whet finger (saliva works well :D ). Do you hear a hum? Make sure you turn up the volume as much as needed to hear this. If you don't hear any hum then likely it is an amplifier issue. If you do hear the hum then the amp is fine and the D50 must be faulty.
 

Warlington

New Member
Joined
Apr 17, 2018
Messages
3
Likes
3
Hi there. Welcome to the forum. I took a look and can't see anything you have done wrong.

Unplug the RCAs from the D50. Hold one in your hand without touching the outside and touch the pin of the RCA with a whet finger (saliva works well :D ). Do you hear a hum? Make sure you turn up the volume as much as needed to hear this. If you don't hear any hum then likely it is an amplifier issue. If you do hear the hum then the amp is fine and the D50 must be faulty.

Thanks a lot for your response. You made me unplug the cables when I noticed... I knew I was doing something stupid! The RCA line in ports on the E9 aren't line IN at all, they're line OUT. I'm a bit confused as to why an amplifier has line out ports, perhaps to serve as a preamp? Either way, problem solved, I'm just an idiot.

I'll have to wait until my Elise is repaired to test the D50.

Thanks again!
 

RayDunzl

Grand Contributor
Central Scrutinizer
Joined
Mar 9, 2016
Messages
13,204
Likes
16,985
Location
Riverview FL
Do you hear a hum?

I suppose the hum is primarily from the power grid...

What happens when you are far away from civilization?

Can you even get far away anymore?
 
Last edited:

sejarzo

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Forum Donor
Joined
Feb 27, 2018
Messages
961
Likes
1,066
Thanks a lot for your response. You made me unplug the cables when I noticed... I knew I was doing something stupid! The RCA line in ports on the E9 aren't line IN at all, they're line OUT. I'm a bit confused as to why an amplifier has line out ports, perhaps to serve as a preamp? Either way, problem solved, I'm just an idiot.

I'll have to wait until my Elise is repaired to test the D50.

Thanks again!

I would assume the E9 has line outs so it can serve as a dock for a speaker rig. The pics I see of the E9 show that it does have a 3.5mm line in jack, so that would work with an adapter or appropriate cable...unless you have a version without that jack?
 
Top Bottom