Review and Measurements of Topping DX3Pro DAC and Headphone Amp

[finneybear]

Okay, thank you again for your assistance. I'll probably leave them plugged in for convenience but it's reassuring to know that my DX3 isn't malfunctioning.

Oh, I forgot to mention that you can turn off the line out with the remote. Try it and see whether it works for you.

 

[finneybear]

I can understand that better / specifically developed interface = better. But honestly latest thesyscon drivers give me under 3ms of input lag, via USB! Years ago this would be unheard of. USB seems fine to me, xmos seems fine to me.

Maybe I'm in the minority here. OR you're just way too perfectionist

Nothing about perfectionist. It's easy to test the two interfaces, just directly switch between the two then you will immediately tell the differences. Time to spend more money!

thesyscon driver? Depends on the CPU performance and the data rate you are using, you can change the FIFO size on the PC side by editing the XML file under the driver directory.

 

[finneybear]

Finally done with the LPF. Use only one set of outputs for each 4493:

The 4 orange ones are niobium oxide caps. They are placed at the four unused outputs, in case I want to connect them to the next stage again in the future.

Here is the part list:

0 ohm resistor at each four output.

For the positive output at LPF - input resistor - 249 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 332 ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 3300pf PPS film, 2%

For the negative output at LPF - input resistor - 750 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 1k ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 1200pf PPS film, 2%

The FC point is now around 130KHz, down from 178KHz.

LPF OP - Muses 8920


How about the sound?

Let me put it this way, originally my cheap modded ES9018K2M could easily beat the stock DX3.
Now the modded DX3 would win the ES9018 by a big margin. After running the machine for 100 hours, let the e caps settle down, I will have it do a shoot out with a twin ES9038 Pro DAC.

Now the brightness on top is gone. The bottom is full and punchy. Warm, beautiful mid. The stage is wide open, the sound is embracing you from left ear to right ear. It gives you this intimacy feel and everything is so smooth and so real. . Pin point images. The vocals are specially seductive and alive when ESS DACs tend to keep you from the singer at certain distance, and try to persuade you the singer is working hard to impressed you.
To make it simple, the modded DX3 sounds so effortless yet so dynamic at the same time. It's a very refreshing listening experience to me. Now I know why AKM calls this velvet sound.

It's amazing this thing only costs around $300 after mod. And I am still using the stock power supply!

 

[777]

Finally done with the LPF. Use only one set of outputs for each 4493:

View attachment 22915

The 4 orange ones are niobium oxide caps. They are placed at the four unused outputs, in case I want to connect them to the next stage again in the future.

Here is the part list:

0 ohm resistor at each four output.

For the positive output at LPF - input resistor - 249 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 332 ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 3300pf PPS film, 2%

For the negative output at LPF - input resistor - 750 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 1k ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 1200pf PPS film, 2%

The FC point is now around 130KHz, down from 178KHz.

LPF OP - Muses 8920


How about the sound?

Let me put it this way, originally my cheap modded ES9018K2M could easily beat the stock DX3.
Now the modded DX3 would win the ES9018 by a big margin. After running the machine for 100 hours, let the e caps settle down, I will have it do a shoot out with a twin ES9038 Pro DAC.

Now the brightness on top is gone. The bottom is full and punchy. Warm, beautiful mid. The stage is wide open, the sound is embracing you from left ear to right ear. It gives you this intimacy feel and everything is so smooth and so real. . Pin point images. The vocals are specially seductive and alive when ESS DACs tend to keep you from the singer at certain distance, and try to persuade you the singer is working hard to impressed you.
To make it simple, the modded DX3 sounds so effortless yet so dynamic at the same time. It's a very refreshing listening experience to me. Now I know why AKM calls this velvet sound.

It's amazing this thing only costs around $300 after mod. And I am still using the stock power supply!

Very interesting. Could you draw the schematic ?

 

[Krunok]

Yes, this is the truth. The sound of the Line-out is too soft, without impact. Probably the negative feedback 1kohm resistor is too low and the 1nF capacitor around it is too big. TPS54331 audio band output impedance is too high in ECO mode and the bypass capacitors are too small and not too good for a two AK4493. OPA1612 open loop gain output impedance at low frequency is too big and the phase is not benign. All that factors give that nasty sound.

I was removed TPS54331 with liniar power supply and rise the NF resistor at 2kohm(and the rest of the resistors at the proper values). I was changing the NF capacitors from 1nF to 470pF. The sound is very good now.

 

[Krunok]

Now the brightness on top is gone. The bottom is full and punchy. Warm, beautiful mid. The stage is wide open, the sound is embracing you from left ear to right ear. It gives you this intimacy feel and everything is so smooth and so real. . Pin point images. The vocals are specially seductive and alive when ESS DACs tend to keep you from the singer at certain distance, and try to persuade you the singer is working hard to impressed you.
To make it simple, the modded DX3 sounds so effortless yet so dynamic at the same time. It's a very refreshing listening experience to me. Now I know why AKM calls this velvet sound.

It's amazing this thing only costs around $300 after mod. And I am still using the stock power supply!

And you can tell all that without measurement, only by ear?

P.S. I'm sure changing stock power supply would improve the sound even more. Just be sure to use directional power cable which has been properly burned-in.

 

[noobie]

Finally done with the LPF. Use only one set of outputs for each 4493:

View attachment 22915

The 4 orange ones are niobium oxide caps. They are placed at the four unused outputs, in case I want to connect them to the next stage again in the future.

Here is the part list:

0 ohm resistor at each four output.

For the positive output at LPF - input resistor - 249 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 332 ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 3300pf PPS film, 2%

For the negative output at LPF - input resistor - 750 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 1k ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 1200pf PPS film, 2%

The FC point is now around 130KHz, down from 178KHz.

LPF OP - Muses 8920


How about the sound?

Let me put it this way, originally my cheap modded ES9018K2M could easily beat the stock DX3.
Now the modded DX3 would win the ES9018 by a big margin. After running the machine for 100 hours, let the e caps settle down, I will have it do a shoot out with a twin ES9038 Pro DAC.

Now the brightness on top is gone. The bottom is full and punchy. Warm, beautiful mid. The stage is wide open, the sound is embracing you from left ear to right ear. It gives you this intimacy feel and everything is so smooth and so real. . Pin point images. The vocals are specially seductive and alive when ESS DACs tend to keep you from the singer at certain distance, and try to persuade you the singer is working hard to impressed you.
To make it simple, the modded DX3 sounds so effortless yet so dynamic at the same time. It's a very refreshing listening experience to me. Now I know why AKM calls this velvet sound.

It's amazing this thing only costs around $300 after mod. And I am still using the stock power supply!

Sorry if this has already been asked and answered... Can you send the modified unit to @amirm so he can quantify the differences vs stock units?

 

[gypsygib]

Oh, I forgot to mention that you can turn off the line out with the remote. Try it and see whether it works for you.

I can only hear it when set to headphone out. If I set it to line out or dac mode the noise goes away. Also, if I unplug a single RCA cord it goes away, it needs both plugged in to make the noise. Wouldn't EMI or ground noise still be audible if only one RCA cord was plugged in?

Still not sure if it's normal as it only occurs in the right ear piece and when set to high gain.

 

[la2ygoo]

Finally done with the LPF. Use only one set of outputs for each 4493:

View attachment 22915

The 4 orange ones are niobium oxide caps. They are placed at the four unused outputs, in case I want to connect them to the next stage again in the future.

Here is the part list:

0 ohm resistor at each four output.

For the positive output at LPF - input resistor - 249 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 332 ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 3300pf PPS film, 2%

For the negative output at LPF - input resistor - 750 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 1k ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 1200pf PPS film, 2%

The FC point is now around 130KHz, down from 178KHz.

LPF OP - Muses 8920


How about the sound?

Let me put it this way, originally my cheap modded ES9018K2M could easily beat the stock DX3.
Now the modded DX3 would win the ES9018 by a big margin. After running the machine for 100 hours, let the e caps settle down, I will have it do a shoot out with a twin ES9038 Pro DAC.

Now the brightness on top is gone. The bottom is full and punchy. Warm, beautiful mid. The stage is wide open, the sound is embracing you from left ear to right ear. It gives you this intimacy feel and everything is so smooth and so real. . Pin point images. The vocals are specially seductive and alive when ESS DACs tend to keep you from the singer at certain distance, and try to persuade you the singer is working hard to impressed you.
To make it simple, the modded DX3 sounds so effortless yet so dynamic at the same time. It's a very refreshing listening experience to me. Now I know why AKM calls this velvet sound.

It's amazing this thing only costs around $300 after mod. And I am still using the stock power supply!

You should let amirm measure your modified version of dx3pro

 

[Killingbeans]

Sorry if this has already been asked and answered... Can you send the modified unit to @amirm so he can quantify the differences vs stock units?

+1

I can't help seeing the subjective impressions of this mod as a pure product of confirmation bias, but I'd like to be proven wrong.

 

[pacman]

Let's face it. The AP jitter test is a decent indicator yet not quite a full jitter test. You need machines like Wavecrest for that yet the company is long gone.

XMOS is generally OK for 44.1K data. Amanero is a bit better than the old XMOS. The C-media has more problems. Pay attention to the DAC which uses C-media.

The ESS interface test was done under a controlled setup. That interface actually is very sensitive to power, something I plan to fix.

Since you're fixing things with such ease, I'd recommend you to apply for a job on Topping engineers team.

It would be cool this enlightened wisdom designing products for us customers.

 

[Krunok]

XMOS, Amanero, etc, they are actually just generic processors. Take XMOS as an example, the new one has 8 or more small cores with a dedicated USB interface. The make may boast the processing power as 4000MIPS yet this is the total processing power of multiple cores. The computation capability of each core is much less than that.

XMOS does have a dedicated USB yet this interface does not support any CRC checking, etc. The CRC error checking will have to be done by a core. The core also has to handle the data resend, etc. Yep, the core may not have enough processing power to handle the data transmission job on time. Cheap XMOS chip only has 128K memory on board. This memory has to used for data processing as well as the FIFO for incoming audio data. This means the size of the FIFO is very limited.

You're on the wrong forum.

 

[Killingbeans]

Nahh, there's no "wrong forum". If all of us had the same opinions and experiences, it would quickly become a ghetto of people patting backs and smelling their own farts. Just like the forums that has made many of us flee to this one.

But yes, the only difference between a general purpose microcontroller and a dedicated chip is ease of implementation and the profit margin on the final product.

 

[ChuckT]

Finally done with the LPF. Use only one set of outputs for each 4493:

View attachment 22915

The 4 orange ones are niobium oxide caps. They are placed at the four unused outputs, in case I want to connect them to the next stage again in the future.

Here is the part list:

0 ohm resistor at each four output.

For the positive output at LPF - input resistor - 249 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 332 ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 3300pf PPS film, 2%

For the negative output at LPF - input resistor - 750 ohm, 0.1%
LPF resister - 1k ohm, 0.1%
LPF cap - 1200pf PPS film, 2%

The FC point is now around 130KHz, down from 178KHz.

LPF OP - Muses 8920


How about the sound?

Let me put it this way, originally my cheap modded ES9018K2M could easily beat the stock DX3.
Now the modded DX3 would win the ES9018 by a big margin. After running the machine for 100 hours, let the e caps settle down, I will have it do a shoot out with a twin ES9038 Pro DAC.

Now the brightness on top is gone. The bottom is full and punchy. Warm, beautiful mid. The stage is wide open, the sound is embracing you from left ear to right ear. It gives you this intimacy feel and everything is so smooth and so real. . Pin point images. The vocals are specially seductive and alive when ESS DACs tend to keep you from the singer at certain distance, and try to persuade you the singer is working hard to impressed you.
To make it simple, the modded DX3 sounds so effortless yet so dynamic at the same time. It's a very refreshing listening experience to me. Now I know why AKM calls this velvet sound.

It's amazing this thing only costs around $300 after mod. And I am still using the stock power supply!

Thanks for the excellent report of the tweak. Using only 2 of the dac output sans output capacitor is an excellent idea. So you have to replace all of the existing parts around the opamp for the new filter values?
Also, my understanding is its a good idea to keep high frequency out of opamp input (which is one reason why opamp for dac is not so good). So I am wondering if replacing that zero ohm with a choke would be a good idea.
You might want to experiment with the decoupling cap for the opamp as well. Sometimes I found improvement in removing the ceramic cap and use a good ecap.

 

[Krunok]

Nahh, there's no "wrong forum". If all of us had the same opinions and experiences, it would quickly become a ghetto of people patting backs and smelling their own farts. Just like the forums that has made many of us flee to this one.

Let's not jump to such conclusions. I didn't say that because I expect everyone on this forum to have the same or similar opinions/experience, but I do expect that on science based forum everybody follows the same principles when making claims like that one, and that principle is if you make hardware changes there is only one way to see the results, and that is to repeat the measurement. Everything else is blablabla and that hardly fits science based forum.

 

[777]

Let's not jump to such conclusions. I didn't say that because I expect everyone on this forum to have the same or similar opinions/experience, but I do expect that on science based forum everybody follows the same principles when making claims like that one, and that principle is if you make hardware changes there is only one way to see the results, and that is to repeat the measurement. Everything else is blablabla and that hardly fits science based forum.

In that case you must to read only the first Amirm post with measurements, all the rest is blablabla . If you want the real science, well, you will find a lot of "life" outside of the Amirm standard measurements. We talking about that, not about snake oil. We talk about better caps, smaller noise of the power supply, proper impementation of the op-amps, etc,etc...real science. If you like only black and white science, without grey tones, it's ok, is your choice.

 

[Krunok]

In that case you must to read only the first Amirm post with measurements, all the rest is blablabla . If you want the real science, well, you will find a lot of "life" outside of the Amirm standard measurements. We talking about that, not about snake oil. We talk about better caps, smaller noise of the power supply, proper impementation of the op-amps, etc,etc...real science. If you like only black and white science, without grey tones, it's ok, is your choice.

I can only repeat once more - let's not jump to conclusion. As an electrotechnic engineer I am willing to accept all "modding" talk (better caps, PS, opamps, etc), but only, and here I repeat, only if the results can be verified by repeating the measurement.

 

[Killingbeans]

Let's not jump to such conclusions. I didn't say that because I expect everyone on this forum to have the same or similar opinions/experience, but I do expect that on science based forum everybody follows the same principles when making claims like that one, and that principle is if you make hardware changes there is only one way to see the results, and that is to repeat the measurement. Everything else is blablabla and that hardly fits science based forum.

I know. But all I'm trying to say is that if we weed out all of the nut jobs, there'll be no one left to keep us on our toes

We talk about better caps, smaller noise of the power supply, proper impementation of the op-amps, etc,etc...real science.

Yes... But like Krunok says; Talk is just talk if there's no measurements to verify it.

 

[Krunok]

I know. But all I'm trying to say is that if we weed out all of the nut jobs, there'll be no one left to keep us on our toes

Nut job can only annoy me while thoughts coming from smart and experience folks will keep me on my toes.

 

[Killingbeans]

Well, the way I see it the best way to learn is to teach