Review and Measurements of Topping D50 DAC

[amirm]

If I open the Audio Midi Setup App on my Mac Mini, I can see the various frequency rates and bit rates the D50 supports, and everything is there except the 44.1 KHz / 16-bit combo; my computer lists only 24-bit and 32-bit resolutions for all frequency rates, but 16 bits is not listed. Is this normal? Do I have a defective D50?

Welcome to the forum. That seems like a bug to me. Please send a note to Topping and see what they say.

 

[Hosehead]

Welcome to the forum. That seems like a bug to me. Please send a note to Topping and see what they say.

Thank you, amirm, I will do that.

 

[nefilim]

If I open the Audio Midi Setup App on my Mac Mini, I can see the various frequency rates and bit rates the D50 supports, and everything is there except the 44.1 KHz / 16-bit combo; my computer lists only 24-bit and 32-bit resolutions for all frequency rates, but 16 bits is not listed. Is this normal? Do I have a defective D50?

I've seen the same for D50 and DX7s.

I'm not sure it makes much of a difference, for instance with Roon I see:

 

[nefilim]

just did a little test with my DX7s - stop Roon, change sample rate to 176khz in MIDI control - it reflects the change on the DX7s display. Start playing redbook FLAC on Roon, it changes back to 44.1khz - so, your audio player should override and control bit depth & sampling rate, irrespective of what's set in MIDI panel.

i'm not intimately familiar with the USB audio protocol but i'm wondering if the XMOS firmware isn't advertising the correct capabilities.

 

[dc655321]

If I open the Audio Midi Setup App on my Mac Mini, I can see the various frequency rates and bit rates the D50 supports, and everything is there except the 44.1 KHz / 16-bit combo; my computer lists only 24-bit and 32-bit resolutions for all frequency rates, but 16 bits is not listed. Is this normal? Do I have a defective D50?

FWIW, I see something similar (and equally puzzling) hooking my SMSL iDEA to my iMac:

Using this DAC on my laptop (Linux), I can check on the audio stream parameters actually being used by ALSA in "/proc/asound", and for Redbook they're correct 16/44.1.

My guess is that finger-pointing should be aimed at Mac's MIDI software, rather than at the DAC or its USB implementation.

 

[Hosehead]

just did a little test with my DX7s - stop Roon, change sample rate to 176khz in MIDI control - it reflects the change on the DX7s display. Start playing redbook FLAC on Roon, it changes back to 44.1khz - so, your audio player should override and control bit depth & sampling rate, irrespective of what's set in MIDI panel.

i'm not intimately familiar with the USB audio protocol but i'm wondering if the XMOS firmware isn't advertising the correct capabilities.

I use Bitperfect. When I set Bitperfect to force 44.1 KHz/16-bit on the D50, the app just crashes. I am using 44.1 KHz/24-bit for now; the D50 does not seem to like the 16-bit res at all, I have to use either 24-bit or 32-bit. But it still sounds great, even without bitperfect. It is just a little nagging that it does not show the 16-bit resolution and that I cannot use it.

I sent the Topping guys a message earlier, as suggested by amirm. I will let you all know what their answer was.

 

[Hosehead]

FWIW, I see something similar (and equally puzzling) hooking my SMSL iDEA to my iMac:

View attachment 14170

Using this DAC on my laptop (Linux), I can check on the audio stream parameters actually being used by ALSA in "/proc/asound", and for Redbook they're correct 16/44.1.

My guess is that finger-pointing should be aimed at Mac's MIDI software, rather than at the DAC or its USB implementation.

Interesting, indeed. I will try the D50 with my windows partition (on the Mac Mini) tonight and let you all know what happents.

 

[Lon]

My understanding is that there is no problem with mis-matched bit rates. When a 16 bit signal is sent to a DAC set to 24 bits, the extra bits are padded (set to 0) which does not affect the reproduction. The frequency however is important. The source rate must be matched to the DAC processing rate for quality results, ie 44.1 Khz source matched to 44.1 Khz DAC rate.

 

[Hosehead]

So the service techs at Topping were very quick to reply regarding the 44.1KHz/16-bit combo not showing up on the list of available rates for the D50 when connected to the Mac Mini:

"your D50 is not defect. What will display in your OS is not only depend on the hardware device itself, but also the OS."

It is definitely an OS thing, then. I did not get a chance to try the D50 with my Windows partition last night, it refused to boot. I downloaded the D50 drivers, a fresh Windows 10 ISO, and Windows 10 support files from Apple las night and will be doing a clean Windows 10 install tonight on my Mac Mini in order to do some testing.

Does the D50 upsample or downsample incoming signals to any specifict frequency and bit depth conbination before the digital-to-analog conversion takes place? I asked the Topping guys but their answer is a little cryptic for me:

"D50 will not change the frequency or bit rate of your input signal. But when you connect to PC and all PC software will share D50's output(use D50 as a share sound card, not a exclusive sound card for one software), your PC will change the frequency and bit rate and then output to D50."

 

[amirm]

Does the D50 upsample or downsample incoming signals to any specifict frequency and bit depth conbination before the digital-to-analog conversion takes place? I asked the Topping guys but their answer is a little cryptic for me:

No it will not. But if you use the standard windows audio stack, it will resample to a fixed rate/bit depth as set in the sound control panel in Windows (and Mac). For this reason you want to use "bit-exact" interfaces like WASAPI and ASIO. Note that for the former, you do NOT need to install any drivers for Topping (or most DACs for that matter). When in this mode, no resampling will occur.

 

[yue]

"your D50 is not defect. What will display in your OS is not only depend on the hardware device itself, but also the OS."

No no no, Windows/Linux/macOS all have generic implementation for uac2, so the xmos firmware is responsible to broadcast all capability of the DAC to the operating system (including supported format, ability to mute/volume control, etc). There are various bad firmware implementation which can cause OS unable to see some feature. Usually a firmware update can reresolve such issue, but that depends on whether the manufacture is willing to upgrade and support it.

Can you post a screen shot of the supported format of D50 listed in your Mac's "Audio Midi Control" app?

"D50 will not change the frequency or bit rate of your input signal. But when you connect to PC and all PC software will share D50's output(use D50 as a share sound card, not a exclusive sound card for one software), your PC will change the frequency and bit rate and then output to D50."

This solely means if you do not use CoreAudio's hog mode (or exclusive mode in Windows), system or any app can set the output format. As a result, your DAC may have different format compared to the audio file you're playing.

If you use mpd or cmus on Mac OS X, you can enable the "hog" mode, and then "sync the sample rate/bit depths/etc" according to the file you are playing. Only when both are ensured can your DAC show identical format as your audio file. I am the author of the CoreAudio output code for both players, and if you run into issues please let me know.

 

[yue]

My guess is that finger-pointing should be aimed at Mac's MIDI software, rather than at the DAC or its USB implementation.

Not quite. Could be a firmware issue. see above.

 

[yue]

I'm not sure it makes much of a difference, for instance with Roon I see:

Roon (or any other player) is only able to set the device to a format the OS sees. All available formats are listed in macOS's "Audio Midi Setup" app. Could you post a screenshot of the result you have with your DACs, similar to what dc655321 posted?

 

[Hosehead]

No it will not. But if you use the standard windows audio stack, it will resample to a fixed rate/bit depth as set in the sound control panel in Windows (and Mac). For this reason you want to use "bit-exact" interfaces like WASAPI and ASIO. Note that for the former, you do NOT need to install any drivers for Topping (or most DACs for that matter). When in this mode, no resampling will occur.

Thank you, Amir. So, just to make sure I understand 100%: the D50 will just accept any signal "as is" (whatever frequency and bit-depth) and convert it right to analog, correct?

 

[Martin]

I am using JRiver Media Center to play a DSF files through my NUC and I cannot get it setup to correctly play DSF files on my Topping D50. When I play a DSD file through JRiver the D50 displays PCM 352.8kHz 32Bit.

When I play the same file using a Raspberry Pi running Volumio the D50 displays DSD 2.82MHz.

I have read everything I can find on the subject and cannot get JRiver and the D50 to play nice together. I either get nice sounding music showing PCM 352.8kHz 32Bit, VERY LOUD static, or silence.

I have JRiver configured thus:
Audio Device: Topping USB Audio Device [ASIO]
Bitstreaming: None (recommended)
DSP Studio: Nothing is checked.
Device Settings: DSD bitsream in DoP format is unchecked
I am running the Topping D50 driver version 4.14.0
JRiver says Input: 352.8kHz 64bit 2ch from source format DSF

I've tried setting bitstreaming to DSD and it always results in VERY LOUD static. I've tried DoP and it always results in silence.

Help!

Martin

 

[yue]

Thank you, Amir. So, just to make sure I understand 100%: the D50 will just accept any signal "as is" (whatever frequency and bit-depth) and convert it right to analog, correct?

Just the opposite. Dac only supports a variety of formats. If the audio file happens to be in one of the DAC supported format, OS can feed into the dac directly. Otherwise format conversion is done in the OS. If you don’t do the conversion and feed wrong format into the dac, you will only hear white noise.

 

[Hosehead]

Just the opposite. Dac only supports a variety of formats. If the audio file happens to be in one of the DAC supported format, OS can feed into the dac directly. Otherwise format conversion is done in the OS. If you don’t do the conversion and feed wrong format into the dac, you will only hear white noise.

I am pretty sure the D50 supports 44.1 KHz at 16 bits, but I cannot select that combo using either the Midi Setup app in Mac OS or Bitperfect.

I cannot post a picture right now, but the Audio Midi Control app lists all of the possible sample rates in the usual step increases starting at 44,100 Hz all the way up to 768,000 Hz, it just does not show all the usual bit-depths (16, 24, 32), it only shows 24 and 32. The 16-bit resolution is not shown. If I launch Bitperfect, I can force 44.1/16, but Bitperfect will surprisingly report it is configured for 44.1 KHz / 0 bits (your read that right! zero bits!) and that is what I can see before I start playing music. As soon as I hit play, on iTunes, Bitperfect crashes. So, for now, I am using 44.1 KHz at 24 bits.

I am not complaining about the sound though, let me make that abundantly clear, I would just like to know if there is any particular setting I should be using that would be better for the D50 since I cannot choose 44.1 KHz at 16 bits (although now I understand that if I am using core audio this is exactly what could be happening behind the scenes).

Still, I will create a new Windows partition tonight (hopefully) and report to you, all, what happened. Also, I am not familiar with the mpd or cmus players, but now I am interested.

 

[yue]

I am pretty sure the D50 supports 44.1 KHz at 16 bits, but I cannot select that combo using either the Midi Setup app in Mac OS or Bitperfect.

I cannot post a picture right now, but the Audio Midi Control app lists all of the possible sample rates in the usual step increases starting at 44,100 Hz all the way up to 768,000 Hz, it just does not show all the usual bit-depths (16, 24, 32), it only shows 24 and 32. The 16-bit resolution is not shown. If I launch Bitperfect, I can force 44.1/16, but Bitperfect will surprisingly report it is configured for 44.1 KHz / 0 bits (your read that right! zero bits!) and that is what I can see before I start playing music. As soon as I hit play, on iTunes, Bitperfect crashes. So, for now, I am using 44.1 KHz at 24 bits.

I am not complaining about the sound though, let me make that abundantly clear, I would just like to know if there is any particular setting I should be using that would be better for the D50 since I cannot choose 44.1 KHz at 16 bits (although now I understand that if I am using core audio this is exactly what could be happening behind the scenes).

Still, I will create a new Windows partition tonight (hopefully) and report to you, all, what happened. Also, I am not familiar with the mpd or cmus players, but now I am interested.

This clearly indicates a firmware bug of the usb interface (XMOS chip for D50).

In daily scenario, using higher bit depth is always encouraged, as you will have better SNR even when turning the software volume down. redbook will always be transparent in 24 or 32 bits, plus the benefit of being able to maintain the 16 bit depth even with a very low software volume.

However, letting user to have the option to play 16bit on Mac OS X is always better, as the product did specify being able to support 16 bit, and work under Mac. This can be resolved by a firmware update. But it's unclear whether Topping is willing to fix it.

Your D50 may be able to work in 16 bit in Windows or Linux. I've seen similar issues happened before. For instance, Schiit DAC products are not able to adjust volume under Mac OS X, but could be done in Windows. This is another example of buggy firmware programs.

 

[kcarch]

Just saw that Topping posted a new firmware for D50 and DX7s. "This firmware improves USB anti-interference performance, we recommended D50 users to upgrade."

http://en.tpdz.net/wdzn_detail/newsId=83.html

 

[esm]

I've emailed Topping to see if they'd be willing to support LVFS for firmware updates, so those of us using Linux can get updates too. (Any other Linux users here might want to send a note in support of this too. )