Review and Measurements of Topping DX3Pro DAC and Headphone Amp

[Tks]

Ok at least I know mine is not the only one with a loose knob. Now lets see if this lasts! I left it running yesterday for a couple of hours to see if it would shut down, nothing happened. Still working fine as I type this as well, it seems to be a 1903x serial, so not sure when that would have been manufactured.

The Bluetooth works fantastically with my Galaxy s9+, couldn't hear too much difference when running on my monitors. I accidentally double tapped the line out button on the remote, big regrets nearly blew my speakers and my ear drums :| I dont see myself doing that again though, I think the full line out being a double tap on the remote is fine.

Yeah hopefully some day we'll have more folks involved with bluetooth testing (not whole new methodologies, but simple quality comparisons or something basic at first). The bluetooth works flawlessly for me, really an amazing input I think no DAC under over $200 can afford not to have by 2020 anymore. I really like how fast it pairs with my phone, and zero hicups on iOS when playing music.

 

[guitarshredda15]

Yeah hopefully some day we'll have more folks involved with bluetooth testing (not whole new methodologies, but simple quality comparisons or something basic at first). The bluetooth works flawlessly for me, really an amazing input I think no DAC under over $200 can afford not to have by 2020 anymore. I really like how fast it pairs with my phone, and zero hicups on iOS when playing music.

Yeah it should be a normal feature for sure, especially since Bluetooth tech is finally at the point where it sounds decent. I waited so long for a package like this to arrive that combined everything I needed in one small box. Pre-amp and full line out feature without having to unplug headphones was a big one for me, It was so rare until like 2 or 3 years ago, at least in this price range.

 

[auronthas]

Let us know how you like it

Received DX3 Pro with series 1903, everything tested is OK in my HIFI system, too bad my digital source from SONOS only capable play 16-bit 48kHz, may look for network media player Auralic Aries Mini one day .

Tested on USB input from DAP Hiby R6 (photo attached) able to play DSD512, PCM 24bit 96kHZ files, finally able to hear AKM 4493EQ sings, very detailed and wider soundstage from my old Wolfson DAC.

I could hear minor click, but have gotten used to this clicking sound on my DAP Sony WM1A .

Will test its headphone amp one day.

My remote control come with button cell and not AAA batteries.

 

[kukocz]

Received DX3 Pro with series 1903, everything tested is OK in my HIFI system, too bad my digital source from SONOS only capable play 16-bit 48kHz, may look for network media player Auralic Aries Mini one day .

Tested on USB input from DAP Hiby R6 (photo attached) able to play DSD512, PCM 24bit 96kHZ files, finally able to hear AKM 4493EQ sings, very detailed and wider soundstage from my old Wolfson DAC.

I could hear minor click, but have gotten used to this clicking sound on my DAP Sony WM1A .

Will test its headphone amp one day.

My remote control come with button cell and not AAA batteries.

View attachment 26571

Interesting... Have you got plastic caps on rca connectors? How does your power supply look like?

 

[auronthas]

Interesting... Have you got plastic caps on rca connectors? How does your power supply look like?

Yes, total four nos. plastic caps, two for coaxial and two for RCA . Power supply unit I think it's standard with adaptor for two-pin British type.

I bought another Linear Power Supply 15V DC 1A, too bad the connector to DX3 Pro slightly bigger and need to find an adapter/reducer LOL

 

[Veri]

Yes, total four nos. plastic caps, two for coaxial and two for RCA . Power supply unit I think it's standard with adaptor for two-pin British type.

I bought another Linear Power Supply 15V DC 1A, too bad the connector to DX3 Pro slightly bigger and need to find an adapter/reducer LOL

Just measure/look up the specs and there probably exists some adapter. Something like this

A different power supply isn't necessarily a better one, though

 

[Tks]

Yeah it should be a normal feature for sure, especially since Bluetooth tech is finally at the point where it sounds decent. I waited so long for a package like this to arrive that combined everything I needed in one small box. Pre-amp and full line out feature without having to unplug headphones was a big one for me, It was so rare until like 2 or 3 years ago, at least in this price range.

Also, the quirkiest thing about this product is it has two coaxial inputs. Pleasant surprise for those who require coax for sure, it very surprising compared to the devices this thing competes with. You could probably imagine some designer dude throwing folks a bone, as well as the whole product being a push to see what can be offered at such an attractive price point.

This device almost seems like an accident to exist.

 

[typericey]

Are the issues (i.e. going into standby) only related to the headphone jack? Really want to try this out but afraid I might get a dud. Only going to use the RCA outputs, never the headphone jack.

 

[Yuno]

Are the issues (i.e. going into standby) only related to the headphone jack? Really want to try this out but afraid I might get a dud. Only going to use the RCA outputs, never the headphone jack.

No. My unit would go into "harmless" standby after ~70 hours of constant power on without any kind of inputs. By harmless I mean that I could wake it up from it every time.

 

[letsgoo]

I got a new one with serial 190... but it has the problem with clicking when I stop music and start again while connected over Bluetooth. Is it normal? No KHz changing.

Start Music - Click - Stop Music - Click
Youtube: Only changed the time of a music - Click!

 

[Nathan_A]

I had my DX3 Pro for about 4 months before it put itself into standby mode and refused to come out of it. Now amount of input switching, power-cycling, factory-resetting, or anything else would get the device to come out of its coma.

However, my first assumption was that there might be something wrong with the cheap power-supply that it shipped with. So, I grabbed a much higher output rated supply from my closet and tried that before assuming the DX3 Pro was toast forever.

It worked!!! ... ... Sort of.

The DX3 Pro would come out of standby reliably using a stronger power-supply. But, now I had a new issue. Anytime an input was active, I would hear a loud distorted buzzing coming through the headphones. This noise wasn't only when audio was playing, nor was it influenced at all by volume controls. The noise stayed the same volume no matter what. If I switched to an inactive/unused input, then the noise would stop.

Oddly enough, I was able to get the noise to go away if I unplugged and re-plugged my headphones into the front of the DX3 Pro some inconsistent amount of times. However, as soon as the DX3 Pro was power cycled or put in and out of standby mode, the noise would come back, and I'd have to do the headphone jack dance again to try to get it to go away. While it was nice to have a remedy of sorts, it was inconsistent, and it seemed to work less consistently after each attempt.

Given the fact that I could make the problem go away temporarily by screwing with connecting things to the headphone jack, I began to wonder if the problem was isolated to just the headphone output paths in the DX3 Pro. So, I bought an Atom Amp to hook up to the DX3 Pro to try to use it as just a DAC. I figured it'd either work and I'd have a solid DAC with an improvement to my amp setup, or it wouldn't and I'd be half-way to having a replacement setup (just needing to buy a dedicated DAC and figure out what to do about the defunkt DX3 Pro I have laying around).

At first I thought this worked. I hooked everything up, and it didn't seem like the buzz/hum/noise was making its way to the DX3 Pro's Line-Out and into the Atom Amp, but I was wrong. I tempted fate and did a power cycle on the DX3 Pro. The noise was now making its way into the Atom Amp too. At this point, no amount of fiddling with the plugging things into the DX3 Pro's headphone jack appears to get me to a half-working setup, and now the buzz/hum/noise is a constant. I then tried yet another power supply, and that had no impact whatsoever. The noise persists, so I've just removed the DX3 Pro from my setup, I'm trying to sort out what to do to replace it.

I don't have much in the way of capacity to analyze the DX3 Pro meaningfully to track down what went wrong with it, but I wanted to layout my saga with the thing here in case it triggers any thoughts for the experts around here as to what's going wrong with these units.

 

[Woody Stool]

Before my DX3Pro quit and had to be returned I had several issues with the front panel headphone jack. I think that particular component is prone to failure - it certainly was for me.

 

[peanuts]

i cant remember seeing any brand with that many hardware issues as reported in comment sections/forums as Topping. thats a shame. products like that should not be recommended, regardless of measurements imo.

 

[guitarshredda15]

I got a new one with serial 190... but it has the problem with clicking when I stop music and start again while connected over Bluetooth. Is it normal? No KHz changing.

Start Music - Click - Stop Music - Click
Youtube: Only changed the time of a music - Click!

Did you install the latest firmware? try reinstall it again. Mine only clicks when the frequency changes or if I change from headphone out to line out

 

[letsgoo]

Did you install the latest firmware? try reinstall it again. Mine only clicks when the frequency changes or if I change from headphone out to line out

Yeah, I already did it as first. When I am connected with my PC over USB, it's fine and just clicks when the frequency changes.
Could you please test the Bluetooth mode? Both my mobile gadgets makes the same issue(Tablet and Phone). If I play music, it's fine, if I just change the music without pause it's fine, when I pause the music, click.

If it is the same on you, it seems to be normal, if not I think I should ask for a change.

 

[Klenfo]

Could you please test the Bluetooth mode? Both my mobile gadgets makes the same issue(Tablet and Phone). If I play music, it's fine, if I just change the music without pause it's fine, when I pause the music, click.

Bluetooth constantly clicks, I wrote about this problem a couple of months ago and no answer from topping are they going to fix it in the firmware or not. So I guess they will not fix it.
And I can definitely say that Bluetooth is absolutely impossible to use here with those clicks. Spontaneous shutdowns of the device also continues when it is connected via USB, and there is no information whether this will be fixed in the future or not.

 

[auronthas]

Hi, sorry if this has been asked... How to check the firmware version of DX3 Pro?

 

[letsgoo]

Bluetooth constantly clicks, I wrote about this problem a couple of months ago and no answer from topping are they going to fix it in the firmware or not. So I guess they will not fix it.
And I can definitely say that Bluetooth is absolutely impossible to use here with those clicks. Spontaneous shutdowns of the device also continues when it is connected via USB, and there is no information whether this will be fixed in the future or not.

:-( this is little bit disappointing.

 

[letsgoo]

Hi, sorry if this has been asked... How to check the firmware version of DX3 Pro?

If you install the driver, there is a topping control panel.

 

[auronthas]

If you install the driver, there is a topping control panel.

I didnt install driver, using MacBookPro. How to check firmware then? Thanks for your response , letsgoo.