Review and Measurements of Topping D50 DAC

[Blumlein 88]

Hi Amirn and Blumlein,

@ Amirn, Ok Thanks, I will wait for your tests.
@Blumlein 88 , I know what you mean, especially when redbook is usually adequate for most consumer audio. I was just putting the D50 through its paces since its' advertisement made so much about being able to play all these formats, and to see if my unit was ok before leaving feedback on their website.

Oh I would probably do the same thing. Other than some SACD titles I don't bother with DSD. So mostly redbook stuff in my library. And if its supposed to do it, I'd want it to work.

I have a goofy laptop that does 44.1 in 16 or 24 bit, 48 the same, 88.2 the same and 192 the same. It won't do 176.4 however. Why? Who knows. Came up when I downloaded some 176 khz format comparison recordings.

 

[amirm]

Of course DSD64 plays too:

So if there are some issues here, it is ASIO related.

Toku-san, have you tried WASAPI to see if that works instead of ASIO? And any chance you could share the track that is causing the problem?

 

[Guermantes]

Toku-san says in his Amazon review that the problem didn't occur with WASAPI DoP, however he swapped out the D50 for the D10 and didn't have these issues. I'm suspecting a driver problem . . .

 

[trl]

The way it's been described it sounds like a thermal problem with the DAC. Given the pics I've seen of the D50 I wondered whether that might be an issue given that there's apparently no thermal pad to conduct heat directly from the chip to the case and the tight case is restricting airflow. Seems like there was some miscommunication between the PCB guy and the machinist on the case design. If that's what it is it'll be an easy fix.

An easy way to test this is to remove the board from the case and play the same DSD file while a fan is blowing on the board.

[...]

It would be best if someone could play DSD via ASIO for couple of hours, then open up the case and touch the 2 DAC chips (turn off power with couple of seconds before touching the chips). If hot indeed, then small heatsinks (similar with DIP8 heatsinks) with thermal double scotch-tape might resolve this, even if the thermal pad from the bottom is not perfect.

 

[Krunok]

I'm suspecting a driver problem . . .

I agree.

 

[Veri]

If WASAPI works perfectly and ASIO shows hiccups, I would like to quote the following from the foo_out_asio component page,

Please note that this component is meant for systems where ASIO is the only available output method. It is highly recommended to use the default output modes instead of ASIO. Contrary to popular "audiophile" claims, there are NO benefits from using ASIO as far as music playback quality is concerned, while bugs in ASIO drivers may severely degrade the performance.

 

[Krunok]

So use DSD Transcoder.
DSD file works but other music files no longer get converted to DSD (Not even sure that flac files should get converted to DSD either).

DSD Transcoder is used to get DSD Native mode from foobar, otherwise you get DoP.
There is absolutely no reason for flac files to be converted to DSD.

 

[Michael Guntsche]

If WASAPI works perfectly and ASIO shows hiccups, I would like to quote the following from the foo_out_asio component page,

Please note that this component is meant for systems where ASIO is the only available output method. It is highly recommended to use the default output modes instead of ASIO. Contrary to popular "audiophile" claims, there are NO benefits from using ASIO as far as music playback quality is concerned, while bugs in ASIO drivers may severely degrade the performance.

Well Asio can do native DSD which WASAPI cannot do.

 

[dwalme]

No issues playing DSD512 from roon to the D50 (obviously native - not DOP).

I've had mine playing this way for several hours at a time - multiple times. If there is a problem it's not audible to me.

 

[Krunok]

No issues playing DSD512 from roon to the D50 (obviously native - not DOP).

I've had mine playing this way for several hours at a time - multiple times. If there is a problem it's not audible to me.

Good to hear, but where exactly do you find DSD512 recordings?

 

[skrekk]

No issues playing DSD512 from roon to the D50 (obviously native - not DOP).

Assuming it's a thermal issue and not the driver it could be that Topping just got a bad batch of chips in a recent production run.
I do remember reading somewhere that the 9038pro got hottest when playing dsd256 and dsd512, so I presume the same would apply to the 9038q2m.

 

[amirm]

I got mine from Topping before they were released and it works fine. We have other owners who have bought them later than mine and they work fine too. So I say this may be an individual failure or a software bug. We need the sample music file to see if we can reproduce the issue.

 

[dwalme]

Good to hear, but where exactly do you find DSD512 recordings?

My sources are largely CD rips to 16/44.1 flac.

If sending 16/44.1khz to the DAC the DAC upsamples that and then converts PCM to SDM.

So instead of letting the little resource constrained dac chip do this I let roon handle it by converting to DSD512 and then send that to the D50.

On computer audiophile the author of HQPlayer posted measurements of the Pro-ject S2 pre box DAC that showed it performed best (at least in the measurements posted) when receiving DSD512 over all other input types (PCM 44.1->768khz & DSD128-DSD512). This dac is very similar to that one so I imagine the results will be similar.

I like the output from DSD512 also. Could all be in my head, but doesn't matter to me. There's zero extra effort on my part to use DSD512 so I do.

 

[Krunok]

My sources are largely CD rips to 16/44.1 flac.

If sending 16/44.1khz to the DAC the DAC upsamples that and then converts PCM to SDM.

So instead of letting the little resource constrained dac chip do this I let roon handle it by converting to DSD512 and then send that to the D50.

On computer audiophile the author of HQPlayer posted measurements of the Pro-ject S2 pre box DAC that showed it performed best (at least in the measurements posted) when receiving DSD512 over all other input types (PCM 44.1->768khz & DSD128-DSD512). This dac is very similar to that one so I imagine the results will be similar.

I like the output from DSD512 also. Could all be in my head, but doesn't matter to me. There's zero extra effort on my part to use DSD512 so I do.

Well, you can upsample to whatever frequency you like but that simply cannot enhance the sound as the information is there only to fill the 16/44.1 bucket. But, as you are continuously pushing DAC chip to work on its limits by processing DSD512 format, you can expect it to last shorter.

I can hardly imagine that ES9038Q2M, which is used in Pro-ject S2 box, gives any better results in DSD512 format than in PCM or any other DSD formats.

 

[dwalme]

Well, you can upsample to whatever frequency you like but that simply cannot enhance the sound as the information is there only to fill the 16/44.1 bucket. But, as you are continuously pushing DAC chip to work on its limits by processing DSD512 format, you can expect it to last shorter.

I can hardly imagine that ES9038Q2M, which is used in Pro-ject S2 box, gives any better results in DSD512 format than in PCM or any other DSD formats.

I don't follow your logic. Using DSD has nothing to do with adding information that doesn't exist. It's about setting the DAC up to achieve the best possible analog output.

The DAC is upsampling PCM at least 8x (if not a lot more I don't have the docs handy) then doing SDM conversion. Once this is done you're in the same place as if you were to just send in DSD.

ESS isn't very open on how the internals of their DACs function but if you send in DSD you are skipping a lot of work that the DAC chip would have needed to do with the PCM data. It's possible the internal conversion doesn't run at the same rates as DSD512 due to resource constraints. And it's also not clear how volume control works with DSD data, but ESS says the DSD data is never converted back to PCM.

So either the DAC upsamples and converts the PCM or I can do it ahead of time and feed it DSD. I prefer doing the conversion with roon or HQP. Seems you prefer to the DAC chip perform the upsampling and conversion. Cool. This product offers both options.

 

[Krunok]

I don't follow your logic. Using DSD has nothing to do with adding information that doesn't exist. It's about setting the DAC up to achieve the best possible analog output.

I don't believe ES9038Q2M DAC achieves better analog output with DSD512 format than with PCM. That is hardly ever the case with modern multibit DACs which are in fact optimized to handle multibit PCM than DSD.

And what exactly do you mean by "better analog output"? Lower distortion? Better SNR? Both?
If that is the case why DAC manufacturers don't specify these differences?

 

[Veri]

I don't believe ES9038Q2M DAC achieves better analog output with DSD512 format than with PCM. That is hardly ever the case with modern multibit DACs which are in fact optimized to handle multibit PCM than DSD.

And what exactly do you mean by "better analog output"? Lower distortion? Better SNR? Both?
If that is the case why DAC manufacturers don't specify these differences?

I think he means as was the case with the Pro-Ject dac, if you perform upsampling on your computer to a ridiculous degree, it might have resulted in marginally better measurement than with the dac doing any additional oversampling; heck if the measurement is repeated it might not even be consistent, but if there is any effect– it is absolutely inaudible for sure. It doesn't surprise me people would be sampling to 768Khz and DSD512 just to say they "think it sounds just a bit better", though they're larger numbers after all.

 

[Blumlein 88]

This upsampling is better sounds like a good thing for Amir or someone with upsampling DSD DACs to measure. It sounds all sweet to say the hardware doesn't have to work as hard to upsample if it can just be fed DSD, but really???? Do you think the hardware feels exertion? It works well or it doesn't. The resulting analog output will be better or it won't.

 

[Guermantes]

No issues playing DSD512 from roon to the D50 (obviously native - not DOP).

I've had mine playing this way for several hours at a time - multiple times. If there is a problem it's not audible to me.

What driver interface to the DAC are you using with Roon, @dwalme? Asio? Or are you running on an other platform than Windows?

Toku-san also mentioned clicks or pops when switching to and from DSD and hi-res PCM tracks. Are you able to check that?

 

[dwalme]

I don't believe ES9038Q2M DAC achieves better analog output with DSD512 format than with PCM. That is hardly ever the case with modern multibit DACs which are in fact optimized to handle multibit PCM than DSD.

And what exactly do you mean by "better analog output"? Lower distortion? Better SNR? Both?
If that is the case why DAC manufacturers don't specify these differences?

I think he means as was the case with the Pro-Ject dac, if you perform upsampling on your computer to a ridiculous degree, it might have resulted in marginally better measurement than with the dac doing any additional oversampling; heck if the measurement is repeated it might not even be consistent, but if there is any effect– it is absolutely inaudible for sure. It doesn't surprise me people would be sampling to 768Khz and DSD512 just to say they "think it sounds just a bit better", though they're larger numbers after all.

This upsampling is better sounds like a good thing for Amir or someone with upsampling DSD DACs to measure. It sounds all sweet to say the hardware doesn't have to work as hard to upsample if it can just be fed DSD, but really???? Do you think the hardware feels exertion? It works well or it doesn't. The resulting analog output will be better or it won't.

Here's the link to measurements between PCM and DSD on the Pro-ject S2. DSD512 has best performance. Maybe not significant, but upsampling outside the DAC and sending DSD512 improves measured performance.

The next post shows J-test between 24/44.1 and 24/192.

Yes these are not from the D50, but I would expect the same results from a very similarly designed device as this one. Perhaps Amir can run all his tests between 44.1khz PCM and DSD512 to see if there are any other differences in output.

What driver interface to the DAC are you using with Roon, @dwalme? Asio? Or are you running on an other platform than Windows?

Toku-san also mentioned clicks or pops when switching to and from DSD and hi-res PCM tracks. Are you able to check that?

I use Roon on Windows with the Xmos drivers from Topping in native dsd mode. Using native DSD512. I've also tested with JRiver and HQP.

I don't hear any clicks and pops from my speakers, but IIRC the unit itself makes a click when switching between PCM and DSD output. Perhaps between different sample rates too. I'll need to check next time I'm in front of the computer with the D50. It doesn't stand out as odd so it's hard to remember.