Review and Measurements of Topping D50 DAC

[amirm]

What happens when you are far away from civilization?

Can you even get far away anymore?

I don't know but the source certainly gets weaker and weaker the farther you go from AC sources.

 

[Veri]

My D50 is underway to Europe from China. Let's see if my state will tax the shit out of it

Since I'm upgrading from a fully functional older DAC I doubt I'll hear any difference though. Damn you amir making me upgrade based on your awesome pretty graphs! I'm gathering a lot of super audio CD source files though so at least I'll be listening to these for the first time, natively

 

[rh0Negative]

Hi everyone,should be getting my D50 in about 10 days or so ,it will be paired with my tube amp
I'm currently using Modi since I ren in to ground loop with R2R11 ,USB power is the way to go for my set up ,measurements on this little guy look outstanding
Thanks for this thread
Cheers

 

[amirm]

Welcome to the forum and keep us posted on how you like it when it arrives.

 

[weikagen]

@amirm

Along with the Aune X7s headphone amp you recently ordered, it would be great if you could review their other high-end products in the future:
Aune S6 DAC/amp: http://en.auneaudio.com/index.php?s=Home/Article/detail/id/148.html
and
Aune S7 headphone amp: http://en.auneaudio.com/index.php?s=Home/Article/detail/id/150.html

They're both each around $560-600 USD on eBay, Aliexpress, or Amazon.
The DAC would be a good matchup versus the Topping D50 and DX7s, would love to see how they compare.

 

[amirm]

Hi there. They do look nice. Alas, kind of pricey. I need a few more forum donations to justify buying it right now. Otherwise hang in there a bit and I will purchase it in the future.

 

[trl]

I think this is one of the few manufacturers that meet their specs, see attach pic and compare with Amir's measurements of ENOB, SNR & dynamic (hope this pic was not posted already on one of the previous 27 pages).

 

[junki]

And yes, I have tried everything I can, Windows simply isn't recognizing the DAC when the ground lead is removed.

Curious, did you remove only the GND pin? Or did you remove both the GND and the +5V pin as well?

I currently run my OL DAC with tape over the GND and +5V pins because it has its own power supply, and I haven't had any issues.

 

[junki]

@L0rdGwyn https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/7256/usb-without-vcc

 

[Warlington]

Grabbed an RCA to 3.5mm converter cable while I wait for my amp to get repaired. Happy to report that the D50 is working perfectly.

 

[Triplefun]

It's my understanding that laptops have a higher potential for better usb power just based on the power supply / battery tech used in them compared to desktop computers. But this could perhaps be a wrong broad brush generalization. Some laptop USB ports are pure junk based on measurements I've seen posted.

Regardless if the D50 sounds good from whatever power you're using (meaning no obvious issues like ground noise, etc) power is probably not a problem.

The motherboard I have is a Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Gaming 7. I bought it for the performance & part quality / dollar ratio. Not the best, but reasonably priced for top tier quality and performance.

It has a feature called USB DAC Up (Link - scroll half way down for marketing info and image).

"GIGABYTE USB DAC-UP provides clean, noise-free power delivery to your Digital-to-Analog Converter. DACs can be sensitive to fluctuations in power from the other USB ports, which is why GIGABYTE USB DAC-UP takes advantage of an isolated power source that minimizes potential fluctuations and ensures the best audio experience possible."

On top of supposedly cleaner power to these ports if your DAC has external power you can shut off power to these ports. You can also increase or decrease USB 5V voltage in .1v increments.

How much this makes a difference I'm not sure, but I use these ports. I'm very happy with the performance and sound of the D50.

I like gigabyte mobos but have yet to try the Aurora range. Please confirm if you notice a difference with DAC up. Also have you compared the d50 with the gigabyte built in sabre DAC. What CPU are you using and have you tried up sampling to dsd512 - a key strength of the d50.

Finally I strongly recommend you try daphile (dedicated Linux based player) and its very accessible upsampling capabilities. You don't need to worry with drivers. And you can try daphile initially by loading it from a USB stick without replacing your windows install.

 

[trl]

http://archimago.blogspot.ro/2013/09/measurements-pcm-to-dsd-upsampling.html
http://forums.stevehoffman.tv/threa...ective-subjective.329071/page-2#post-11604469

 

[Triplefun]

Yes, I have seen this article from archimago. But before passing judgement and provided your equipment can handle it give dsd256 and dsd512 upsampling a try. Even arcimago agrees in the improvements.

http://archimago.blogspot.co.nz/2017/05/measurements-smsl-idea-usb-dac.html

"Speaking of the PCM 768kHz and DSD512 sample speeds, if you look at the ESS information about the ES9018Q2C, they actually only mention that the DAC is capable of 384kHz and DSD256 (11.2MHz) in the product brief. I wonder if the higher sample rate is just undocumented in the publicly available information or if the XMOS USB microcontroller might be doing downsampling before feeding the DAC. I'll have to take a look at this another time with my oscilloscope. I'd be interested if anyone has insight into this. In any event it's not like there's actual content at 768kHz or DSD512/22.4MHz to really benefit from these ultra-high sample rates (upsampling in JRiver 22 to these high sample rates sounds great)!"

 

[L0rdGwyn]

Curious, did you remove only the GND pin? Or did you remove both the GND and the +5V pin as well?

I currently run my OL DAC with tape over the GND and +5V pins because it has its own power supply, and I haven't had any issues.

I had originally tried taping over the 5V, GND, then both. It was covering the GND that solved my noise issue. The cable originally worked without GND, so I purchased a cable that had both 5V and GND disabled. About a week later, Windows stopped detecting the DAC. Tried the original cable with GND taped, nothing. So I am back to stock cable with both 5V and GND enabled. Haven't made any other attempts to fix the loop yet.

On an unrelated note, and again this might be a problem isolated to my system/PC, when I have the DAC on and I've played something through it with either ASIO or WASAPI, I cannot play videos (via YouTube, for example), playback completely stops. If I turn the DAC off or restart it without playing any audio, YouTube starts working again. Bizarre and annoying.

 

[rh0Negative]

I had originally tried taping over the 5V, GND, then both. It was covering the GND that solved my noise issue. The cable originally worked without GND, so I purchased a cable that had both 5V and GND disabled. About a week later, Windows stopped detecting the DAC. Tried the original cable with GND taped, nothing. So I am back to stock cable with both 5V and GND enabled. Haven't made any other attempts to fix the loop yet.

On an unrelated note, and again this might be a problem isolated to my system/PC, when I have the DAC on and I've played something through it with either ASIO or WASAPI, I cannot play videos (via YouTube, for example), playback completely stops. If I turn the DAC off or restart it without playing any audio, YouTube starts working again. Bizarre and annoying.

Hi Gwyn , please try to connect via USB hub and see if this helps

 

[zephyros]

when I have the DAC on and I've played something through it with either ASIO or WASAPI, I cannot play videos (via YouTube, for example), playback completely stops. If I turn the DAC off or restart it without playing any audio, YouTube starts working again.

I'm not sure of the technical behind it, but for AISO that is the normal behaviour (all the DAC I had using AISO driver would do that). Not sure about WASAPI.

 

[junki]

@Toku I reached out to Topping, and Topping has updated Thesycon drivers for Windows.

Ver 4.35: https://www.dropbox.com/s/k1rsf8vrmt34wet/Topping_UsbAudio_v4.35.0_2017-11-01_setup.zip

Thesycon's latest drivers available for their custom driver service is 4.38, so these should be quite close to being up to date. However, note Topping's advice, "why we only provide V4.14 but not V4.35, because V4.14 more friendly to computers with low configuration, so compatibility is better."

 

[junki]

On an unrelated note, and again this might be a problem isolated to my system/PC, when I have the DAC on and I've played something through it with either ASIO or WASAPI, I cannot play videos (via YouTube, for example), playback completely stops. If I turn the DAC off or restart it without playing any audio, YouTube starts working again. Bizarre and annoying.

It sounds like whatever application assumes exclusive control of the DAC hasn't let go. As long as it has exclusive control of the DAC, no other application will be able to use the DAC to output sound.

 

[rh0Negative]

Got this tiny guy about half an hour ago ..listening session is about to begin

 

[amirm]

Congrats. Let us know how it works!