• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Review and Measurements of Topping DX3Pro DAC and Headphone Amp

Krunok

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4,600
Likes
3,065
Location
Zg, Cro
It's fine if that's how you want to run it, your site and reviews and all that, it's your business. But if you recommend things that turn out to not work correctly you are only calling into question your own impartiality as a reviewer. But that's your call, and I'll say nothing more on the matter.

it is impossible to test device like DX3 Pro in every possible usage scenario. Amirs recommendation is based on the measurements and the usage scenario he used when he tested the device (WASAPI in exclusive mode). Blaming Amir for artefacts that are happening in other usage scenario is irrational.
 

Krunok

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4,600
Likes
3,065
Location
Zg, Cro
Yep, in windows you also have a lot of different asynchronous sound events like communicators etc which can generate random sounds at a time.

Direct sound was never meant for serious audio listening - WASAPI or ASIO in exclusive mode should be used for that.
 

bona998

Member
Joined
May 20, 2018
Messages
44
Likes
8
In windows format is set in Device Properties -> Advanced -> Default Format
So it's not need to compare - not need relay click
In windows yes - because it resamples everything to what you once set. But what is gonna happen when you are using foobar with KS/ASIO/WASAPI (bit-perfect stream) and you have selected new song that is no more 16/44,1 ? What's gonna happen when you go back after it to standard 16/44,1 song ? Try to imagine that not everybody use high performance dac with directsound driver and play music only on youtube or directsound based audio players.

In your scenario - yes, it would be fine to just not touching the muting relays, having all fixed to 16/44,1 because even if you play hi-rez audio it would be automatically downsampled to what you set in windows settings.
 

bona998

Member
Joined
May 20, 2018
Messages
44
Likes
8
Direct sound was never meant for serious audio listening - WASAPI or ASIO in exclusive mode should be used for that.
You don't have to tell me this. I was explaining some other point to the guy. You just didn't get it at all getting this sentence out of the full context.
 

Krunok

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4,600
Likes
3,065
Location
Zg, Cro
But what is gonna happen when you are using foobar with KS/ASIO/WASAPI (bit-perfect stream) and you have selected new song that is no more 16/44,1 ? What's gonna happen when you go back after it to standard 16/44,1 song ?

You will hear a click. On D10 you can hardly notice it.
 

Krunok

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4,600
Likes
3,065
Location
Zg, Cro
You don't have to tell me this. I was explaining some other point to the guy. You just didn't get it at all getting this sentence out of the full context.

Oh, I did get it. How about you cool off a little?
 

bona998

Member
Joined
May 20, 2018
Messages
44
Likes
8
Noise will be there but you will NOT be able to hear it. ;)
8 bits is lost, turned into noise that he won't be able to hear anyway - don't you just question the sense of 24 bit audio (8 extra bits of information) ? :)
 

Krunok

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4,600
Likes
3,065
Location
Zg, Cro
8 bits is lost, turned into noise that he won't be able to hear anyway - don't you just question the sense of 24 bit audio (8 extra bits of information) ? :)

24 bits are useful during mastering and editing to avoid building up the noise throughout the chain. 16 bits are ok for listening.
 

Veri

Master Contributor
Joined
Feb 6, 2018
Messages
9,596
Likes
12,036
What's with people saying amir didn't show the linearity error from the start? As far as I saw the linearity graph was included from the start, and showed some deviation because of 'benign' noise and not distortion. That note had always been there.

S/PDIF and optical performance is shown on page 3 and while a little worse than USB, this should still be far from audible. I've owned several devices with much worse inherent jitter performance than what is shown there..

My only concern is whether the AK4118 receiver chip uses the incoming stream's clock, or if it reclocks the s/pdif signal with its own (possibly mediocre) clock. If @amirm used his analyser as a source then it probably gets reclocked looking at performance, which is a pity. I know that many audio devices use the external clock source if it is already good. Maybe I'm confused about this matter though.
 

Krunok

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4,600
Likes
3,065
Location
Zg, Cro
What's with people saying amir didn't show the linearity error from the start? As far as I saw the linearity graph was included from the start, and showed some deviation because of 'benign' noise and not distortion. That note had always been there.

S/PDIF and optical performance is shown on page 3 and while a little worse than USB, this should still be far from audible. I've owned several devices with much worse inherent jitter performance than what is shown there..

My only concern is whether the AK4118 receiver chip uses the incoming stream's clock, or if it reclocks the s/pdif signal with its own (possibly mediocre) clock. If @amirm used his analyser as a source then it probably gets reclocked looking at performance, which is a pity. I know that many audio devices use the external clock source if it is already good. Maybe I'm confused about this matter though.

I don't share your concern about reclocing. In my experience devices that do reclocking usually do it the right way.
 

bona998

Member
Joined
May 20, 2018
Messages
44
Likes
8
Oh, I did get it. How about you cool off a little?
Cool off ? What that supposed to mean ? Because I am answering some questions and asking some - isn't it the purpose of the forum ? If it's against the rules, I get it, my time is precious, I am out of here.

You will hear a click. On D10 you can hardly notice it.
This was rather rhetorical question - if you'd read what he was up to quoting me first you would have known that it was about situation, where there would be no muting relays at all (no protection at all). So NO, he would not hear the click in this case but nasty loud pop/scratch. And yes, I encountered this kind of implemetation in the past and would rather have click than this.
 

Veri

Master Contributor
Joined
Feb 6, 2018
Messages
9,596
Likes
12,036
I don't share your concern about reclocing. In my experience devices that do reclocking usually do it the right way.
I think best approach is to verify the integrity and reclock when necessary. If it reclocks a signal output by the reference analyser for example, it will do more harm than good no?
 

Krunok

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4,600
Likes
3,065
Location
Zg, Cro
Cool off ? What that supposed to mean ? Because I am answering some questions and asking some - isn't it the purpose of the forum ? If it's against the rules, I get it, my time is precious, I am out of here.

You are making accusations without arguments and making comments about linearity measurement without digging into it. I can hardly imagine you will be missed.
 

Krunok

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4,600
Likes
3,065
Location
Zg, Cro
I think best approach is to verify the integrity and reclock when necessary. If it reclocks a signal output by the reference analyser for example, it will do more harm than good no?

I think it would be complex to implement such verification. As I said, from what I have seen devices that do reclocking usually do it the right way. Sure, reclocking the reference analyser doesn't make much sense but that's not really a typical usage scenario. :)
 

nebula

Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2018
Messages
15
Likes
3
Hello every one. I'm Hailin Huang, sales manager of TOPPING. I have engineering background for many years so I think I may be the suitable person in our company to communicate directly with you.

Sorry for our late reply, because our response comes too late, that makes every one here feel confused and also make Amir questioned.

I would like to introduce the problem of "click" here. And if any one have other questions, you can ask me here.

What makes the click? Is it a defect unit?
AK4493 will output a pop noise when the sampling rate changes, especially in DSD. To void this noise, we test many method including semiconductor switch and relay, at last we decide to add a relay because it did better in avoiding the pop noise. But the relay also bring the click noise. You can hear the click from the DX3 Pro itself, and also a little from the headphone(If the sensitivity of headphone is high). Because this is our setting, so every DX3 Pro has click sound, the unit with click sound is not a defect unit.

When it will click?
The relay is controlled by both XU208 and AK4118. When there's a audio stream, the relay closed, and if there's not a audio stream, the relay cut the output. So if you continue listening to music, you will not hear the relay so often. But if you doing normal operation to your PC withoud a continuous audio stream, the relay will works very often.

But when the sampling rate did not change, the relay also keep working.
Yes, that's because we are not able to judge the sampling rate is same or change when the stream comes, so we cut every time when the stream over and on.

Is there a solution?
I think yes. We will try to find a solution from XMOS. If it did not send out "cut off" signal when sampling rate did not change, this will be able to reduce most of the click sound. We already ask the XMOS firmware supplier try to solve this problem, this will take serval days and we will tell progress and results if necessary. I think the best solution will be a firmware update for DX3 Pro, we will keep working on this.
Hi, thanks for explaining the situation. It's my first time buying a Topping product, I bought DX3 Pro without hesitation after seeing the test results here.

I have a couple questions. First, is this a problem unique to AK4493/XU208/AK4118 and DX3 Pro, or do other DAC have similar issues?
I am also wondering why Amir doesn't experience the click issue on his pre-production unit during daily use. Was anything changed from pre-production to production unit?

Thanks again for informing us, Mr. Huang. Looking forward to your response.
 

Krunok

Major Contributor
Joined
Mar 25, 2018
Messages
4,600
Likes
3,065
Location
Zg, Cro
I am also wondering why Amir doesn't experience the click issue on his pre-production unit during daily use.

@amirm tested the device using WASAPI in exclusive mode. With WASAPI in exclusive mode you only get a silent click when bitrate is changed.

Are you using it the same way or with DirectSound?
 

Yuno

Active Member
Joined
Oct 26, 2018
Messages
215
Likes
266
@amirm tested the device using WASAPI in exclusive mode. With WASAPI in exclusive mode you only get a silent click when bitrate is changed.

That's not correct, Amir was testing with ASIO4All. That's the setup he always uses. WASAPI and DirectSound as per experience of I believe all people here (for sure me) is broken.
 

nebula

Member
Joined
Dec 1, 2018
Messages
15
Likes
3
@amirm tested the device using WASAPI in exclusive mode. With WASAPI in exclusive mode you only get a silent click when bitrate is changed.
Hmm, are you sure? I only remember this post:
Did you test your unit without using some form of exclusive mode?
I use ASIO interface on it using ASIO4ALL as I do all DACs. I just did some tests using S/PDIF and the linearity is better there. So there may be some issue related to ASIO4ALL wrapper.
But ignoring that, I was under the impression that he was also using it as a daily driver, and assumed he would encounter the issue using it while browsing YouTube, etc.

Are you using it the same way or with DirectSound?
I don't have my unit yet, will be receiving it tomorrow (well, later today). I will probably end up using whatever offers the highest quality playback in Foobar while still allowing me to watch videos in a browser (if such a setting exists without driving me crazy with clicks). Do you think DirectSound would be better than WASAPI for this?
 
Top Bottom