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Review and Measurements of Topping DX3Pro DAC and Headphone Amp

yue

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To the extent you work for a company who chooses not to do that, then I say you are part of the problem, not the solution

i dont agree with you at all.
I dont work on hardware products at all.

you were Microsoft VP oversaw the entire multimedia product line. you had very serious problem.
 

maxxevv

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Good point. You can do a poll and see how many people here have good music theory knowledge. A better performing DAC vs a better understanding of music, I would confidently say the former means nothing and the latter empowers much more.

Obviously you don't subscribe to the latter yourself. Else you wouldn't bother being on this forum in the first place.
 

NDRQ

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Seems like double standard is really a thing here.
Blaming other companys for mistakes, but if the mistake is here just say : "We dont set anything in stone" or "you should do your own resource and buy for your own risk". I dont like this, i thought if something like this happening, everyone would try to find a way to make things better, giving ideas, maybe making a new measurement..but instead of that many people is just picking on the criticising members, blindly defending Amir and really dont care with the original problem. Everyone make mistakes, its really not that big problem, but sweeping everything under the carpet is a bad way to solve things.

I also dont like that Amir let others fight with the critics, instead of admit the problem and find a good solution.
Because if something like this will happen again, it will heavily undermine the site's reliability.
 
Last edited:

MattG

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In other news: I received my DX3Pro today, purchased from ebay seller topssale (was mentioned earlier in this thread). With ebay coupon, total cost was around $160.

Anyway: first annoyance, my remote didn't come with a battery. Am I overlooking it in the box? Or did everyone else's also not come with a remote battery? It calls for CR2032. I have CR2016 on hand, which are the same diameter and voltage (3v), just half the thickness. Fortunately the remote battery holder accepts the thinner battery.

Otherwise, initial impressions are good, but I literally just unboxed it and fired it up. At the moment, I'm using it as a standalone DAC, USB connected to a Raspberry Pi running MPD (OS is DietPi). So far I have only heard the relay clicking when switching between songs with different sample rates and/or bit-depths. Seeking within tracks and changing to tracks of the same sample rate and bit depth does not result in any clicking.

Earlier in the thread, I asked about USB pass-through of volume control. I think this does work, but I'm not 100% sure. But it does present a hardware mixer device to ALSA. I believe XMOS receivers without such capability don't provide a mixer device.

Code:
root@dietpi-music:~# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac], device 0: HifiBerry DAC HiFi pcm5102a-hifi-0 []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Pro [DX3 Pro], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

root@dietpi-music:~# amixer -c 0
<no output>

root@dietpi-music:~# amixer -c 1
Simple mixer control 'DX3 Pro ',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback 0 - 127
  Mono: Playback 76 [60%] [-51.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Topping Internal Clock Validity',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]

Note that card 0 is a RPI-HAT (my own design, simple tda1387-based DAC). And you can see card 0 has no mixer, whereas the DX3 Pro (card 1) does.
 

maxxevv

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People are trying to find a solution but if you read between the numerous postings, there are people hurling nonsense and baseless accusations.

These problems didn't manifest during Amir's testing. Or in any case, he didn't use them in a way which induced such issues to manifest. His primary concern and objective was purely reporting on the engineering measurements that he did.

Which is why he didn't report them in the original review.

Now there are people here who hurl accusations that are unwarranted and to say the least irresponsible. How is that blindly defending Amir ?

If you have read through enough of the reviews done here, you'll see that he does report on issues he encounters on the usability of units he tests, as long as the problems manifest during his testing phase/ process.

To put the onus on him to ensure that everything is perfect outside of the measurements he does is disingenuous at best.
 

THW

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I need to get more popcorn, it’s running out

Also my DX3 Pro is coming today, so I’ll see if the flaw is that bad and affects my listening experience
 

Wolven

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In other news: I received my DX3Pro today, purchased from ebay seller topssale (was mentioned earlier in this thread). With ebay coupon, total cost was around $160.

Anyway: first annoyance, my remote didn't come with a battery. Am I overlooking it in the box? Or did everyone else's also not come with a remote battery? It calls for CR2032. I have CR2016 on hand, which are the same diameter and voltage (3v), just half the thickness. Fortunately the remote battery holder accepts the thinner battery.

Otherwise, initial impressions are good, but I literally just unboxed it and fired it up. At the moment, I'm using it as a standalone DAC, USB connected to a Raspberry Pi running MPD (OS is DietPi). So far I have only heard the relay clicking when switching between songs with different sample rates and/or bit-depths. Seeking within tracks and changing to tracks of the same sample rate and bit depth does not result in any clicking.

Earlier in the thread, I asked about USB pass-through of volume control. I think this does work, but I'm not 100% sure. But it does present a hardware mixer device to ALSA. I believe XMOS receivers without such capability don't provide a mixer device.

Code:
root@dietpi-music:~# aplay -l
**** List of PLAYBACK Hardware Devices ****
card 0: sndrpihifiberry [snd_rpi_hifiberry_dac], device 0: HifiBerry DAC HiFi pcm5102a-hifi-0 []
  Subdevices: 1/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0
card 1: Pro [DX3 Pro], device 0: USB Audio [USB Audio]
  Subdevices: 0/1
  Subdevice #0: subdevice #0

root@dietpi-music:~# amixer -c 0
<no output>

root@dietpi-music:~# amixer -c 1
Simple mixer control 'DX3 Pro ',0
  Capabilities: pvolume pvolume-joined pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Limits: Playback 0 - 127
  Mono: Playback 76 [60%] [-51.00dB] [on]
Simple mixer control 'Topping Internal Clock Validity',0
  Capabilities: pswitch pswitch-joined
  Playback channels: Mono
  Mono: Playback [on]

Note that card 0 is a RPI-HAT (my own design, simple tda1387-based DAC). And you can see card 0 has no mixer, whereas the DX3 Pro (card 1) does.

No battery included. I bought batteries because, I thought my old battery was dead, but it was broken remote. They are shipping new remote. So, you are in luck.
 

Thomas savage

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ASR is a information resource helping bring data and objective appraisal of products to interested parties in a market where there are very few places offering this information . This data void is explicitly the fault of the manufacturers and reason we exist is because these manufacturers don’t bother publishing this data or worse still don’t even conduct the tests.

Nothing more , nothing less.. it’s not everything, is that a reason for us to be nothing or not bother?

There’s a serious case of shoot the messenger here, a overall tone of giving away responsibility too. As far as I’m aware topping have a representative in this thread and you all have access to that as well as the measurements we have done. In this case you all collectively can talk about these issues and express them together bringing them to the attention of consumers and topping themselves. All this free of charge So stop bloody moaning you ungrateful sods.
 

maxxevv

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Anyway: first annoyance, my remote didn't come with a battery. Am I overlooking it in the box? Or did everyone else's also not come with a remote battery? It calls for CR2032. I have CR2016 on hand, which are the same diameter and voltage (3v), just half the thickness. Fortunately the remote battery holder accepts the thinner battery.

Almost all of the electronics I have bought online from China don't come delivered with OTS batteries. They usually mention it too and I believe its got to do with the airline postal policies with regards to safety.

But those with build-in batteries don't seem to have this issue.
 

yue

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All this free of charge So stop bloody moaning you ungrateful sods.

Constructive discussion means critical thinking and pursuit the truth, even if it's hard to reach. It's not about personal attacks.
 

Patrick1958

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Thomas savage

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(snip) Your report may serve as a good reference, but in the end people need to use their brain to make the choice.
No one here has ever claimed to be more than this. There’s no place I know , or no person I know who does more not only to offer these measurements but also help folk understand them.
 

THW

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just received it, lol

haven't encountered the click noise thing so far (or at least I don't think so), but then I'm just playing my music through the Tidal desktop app, didn't also mess with the sampling rate or anything, I just plugged the thing in and hit the play button (HiFi and Master quality btw)

i think clarity is improved over what I previously have so I'm quite happy with the sound quality, not double-blinded and A/B tested though so take this with a grain of salt, but if the click noise happens whenever I use it I'm probably not going to send it back because of that one issue

its also a lot smaller and lighter than I expected, perfect for my needs
 

Thomas savage

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Constructive discussion means critical thinking and finding the real truth, even if it's hard to reach. It's not about personal attacks as the thing you are doing.
I was not directly addressing you, you for some reason have assumed we are something no one ever claimed we could be or are.

If you think your vague attacks on the credibility of what we do here are some how constructive, well your far off the mark. Bring some data , let’s actually have a constructive discussion in a appropriate thread.
 

yue

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I was not directly addressing you, you for some reason have assumed we are something no one ever claimed we could be or are.

If you think your vague attacks on the credibility of what we do here are some how constructive, well your far off the mark. Bring some data , let’s actually have a constructive discussion in a appropriate thread.

OK. I can't publish the data for Google's dongle because it's classified. But @SMSL-Mandy certainly posted their data in the D1 review, but their concern is never answered.

In this thread, people are questioning about @amirm's double standard on linearity. In a scientific point of view, 16 bit noise vs 16 bit distortion simply does not matter. Both of them means after 16bits there's no resolution and all data are garbage. This means you get no benefit from hi-res. Why ditching others while recommending this? The concern is not answered as well.
 

THW

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quick update: click noise does occur, however only when I change sampling rates or if I'm stopping a track. however I will only notice the click noise if I'm not actually playing any kind of music, so nowhere near a deal-breaker for me.
 
OP
amirm

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In a scientific point of view, 16 bit noise vs 16 bit distortion simply does not matter.
Oh? Which branch of science is that? Sure as heck is not audio, psychoacoustics or signal processing.
 
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amirm

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quick update: click noise does occur, however only when I change sampling rates or if I'm stopping a track. however I will only notice the click noise if I'm not actually playing any kind of music, so nowhere near a deal-breaker for me.
That's my experience too. On top of that when wearing my headphones I can't hear any relay clicking at all.
 

Stein

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My model doesn't have any of the clicking issues after installing the drivers @THW
Given that I don't use WASAPI or have the need to. Still a bit flabbergasted about what people are arguing here.

Also, noise is just that - added sound(think white noise) - at the level that Amir measured, it's much more benevolent than distortion (which is playback sound being warped)
 

yue

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Oh? Which branch of science is that? Sure as heck is not audio, psychoacoustics or signal processing.

OK. they are different. If it's distortion, you can pre-process the audio and maybe it can be even out. If it's noise, whatever you do result to noise itself.
 
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