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Review and Measurements of Topping DX7s DAC and Headphone Amp

Toku

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Several problems in use remain in DX7s even after updating the firmware.

1. When playing a PCM 384k song after playing a song with a bit rate other than PCM 384k, a large pop noise will occur. (DX7s & D50)

2. Sometimes large pink noise occurs suddenly while playing PCM 768 k songs, making music inaudible at all. This problem newly occurred after updating the firmware.

3. Pulse noise may occur cyclically and continuously during playback of PCM 705k or PCM 768k songs. (DX7s & D50)

4. When PC starts from sleep state, it does not start automatically on Windows 10. It is necessary to turn on the power manually.

This trouble is not affected by the type of PC and audio player.
Is this problem occurring even with your DX7s? Please advise on these issues.
 

yue

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Several problems in use remain in DX7s even after updating the firmware.

1. When playing a PCM 384k song after playing a song with a bit rate other than PCM 384k, a large pop noise will occur. (DX7s & D50)

2. Sometimes large pink noise occurs suddenly while playing PCM 768 k songs, making music inaudible at all. This problem newly occurred after updating the firmware.

3. Pulse noise may occur cyclically and continuously during playback of PCM 705k or PCM 768k songs. (DX7s & D50)

4. When PC starts from sleep state, it does not start automatically on Windows 10. It is necessary to turn on the power manually.

This trouble is not affected by the type of PC and audio player.
Is this problem occurring even with your DX7s? Please advise on these issues.

it's better contacting the support. DX7s D50 NX4DSD are based on similar firmware so bugs should present on all hardware
 
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amirm

amirm

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Several problems in use remain in DX7s even after updating the firmware.

1. When playing a PCM 384k song after playing a song with a bit rate other than PCM 384k, a large pop noise will occur. (DX7s & D50)

2. Sometimes large pink noise occurs suddenly while playing PCM 768 k songs, making music inaudible at all. This problem newly occurred after updating the firmware.

3. Pulse noise may occur cyclically and continuously during playback of PCM 705k or PCM 768k songs. (DX7s & D50)

4. When PC starts from sleep state, it does not start automatically on Windows 10. It is necessary to turn on the power manually.

This trouble is not affected by the type of PC and audio player.
Is this problem occurring even with your DX7s? Please advise on these issues.
Topping should hire you for their test team. :) Thanks for pushing to get problems resolved.

My everyday DAC is Topping DX7 and I have not had any issues with it. But I don't keep track of what is in my library that it is playing.
 

ripvw

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1. When playing a PCM 384k song after playing a song with a bit rate other than PCM 384k, a large pop noise will occur. (DX7s & D50)

2. Sometimes large pink noise occurs suddenly while playing PCM 768 k songs, making music inaudible at all. This problem newly occurred after updating the firmware.

3. Pulse noise may occur cyclically and continuously during playback of PCM 705k or PCM 768k songs. (DX7s & D50)

4. When PC starts from sleep state, it does not start automatically on Windows 10. It is necessary to turn on the power manually.

On my 2018 iMac 27" here is what has happened since firmware upgrade:

1. I have only played PCM 384k music once since the upgrade - no pops

2. If I can find a free music sample at that rate I'll try it and report back

3. same as above

4. DX7s now starts up every time from sleep, reset and reboots - no more USB related issues since upgrade

now if only my remote control would show up, I'd be a happy camper
 
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amirm

amirm

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Never mind about this. There seems to be something more fundamentally wrong, either with my unit, my measurements, or the design.

From the single ended RCA output with the unit powered off, I'm still getting the same (high) levels of noise:
View attachment 14602
Above is with the unit powered off via the rear main power switch. Just the power cable and the RCA outputs connected to the soundcard's line input.
View attachment 14603
...with the power cable disconnected, the noise disappears as expected.

I'm wondering if I've got a faulty unit, or is the DX7s power supply/filtering inadequate? Note that this noise doesn't show up in the dac1541 measurements I ran at the same time, so it's not inherent to my local power supply (or the dac1541 is dealing with it properly).
So I just tested this. Here is the DX7s with power turned off:

1534038654652.png


And Power on:

1534038683174.png


So clean either way.

This may be interactions in the setup you have as opposed to a broken DX7s.
 

Dana reed

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On my 2018 iMac 27" here is what has happened since firmware upgrade:

1. I have only played PCM 384k music once since the upgrade - no pops

2. If I can find a free music sample at that rate I'll try it and report back

3. same as above

4. DX7s now starts up every time from sleep, reset and reboots - no more USB related issues since upgrade

now if only my remote control would show up, I'd be a happy camper

I ordered one of these from Massdrop and will be interested to see if I can hear any difference between it and the Schiit stack or the Chord Mojo either on magneplanar speakers or various dynamic and planar headphones.

As far as 384 kHz and even 768 kHz music, it's not clear to me what typical commercial recordings are even released in that format. The highest I typically see for sale are 192/24 and from what I've read most of these don't actually even require the dynamic range of 96/24
I did some downsampling tests of Some Rush/Zeppelin and other recordings that I re-purchased in 192/24 and I could not have told you which (44,48,96,192) version I was listening to no matter what DAC (Chord, Schiit, Sony, Oppo etc) I was using.
Comparing them to the original CD masterings on my old CDs though was night and day easy to tell. Though I wouldn't automatically say I liked the remasters any better than the originals. They were just different.
 
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amirm

amirm

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amirm, I found a seller who has DX7. I'm hesitating to buy it. Do you think DX7s has any advantage than DX7 except much output power.
I actually think DX7 is better. It doesn't have that mid-level IMD distortion. It is what I use in my everyday listening.
 

derp1n

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So I just tested this. Here is the DX7s with power turned off:

View attachment 14708

And Power on:

View attachment 14709

So clean either way.

This may be interactions in the setup you have as opposed to a broken DX7s.
Thanks for the measurements Amir! I've got an ADI-2 Pro FS on the way, so I'll remeasure with that and see what comes up.
 

pos

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Amir, if I am not mistaken the original tests were all done on the unbalanced output.
Did you also test the balanced output to see if something similar to the SMSL SU8 might occur when approaching full scale?
 
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amirm

amirm

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vato3001

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Unsuccessful item delivery attempt (Inb)
(Remote) AliExpress

LOL!
 
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Toku

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On my 2018 iMac 27" here is what has happened since firmware upgrade:
1. I have only played PCM 384k music once since the upgrade - no pops
2. If I can find a free music sample at that rate I'll try it and report back
3. same as above
4. DX7s now starts up every time from sleep, reset and reboots - no more USB related issues since upgrade
now if only my remote control would show up, I'd be a happy camper
I think that there is a problem with the Windows driver provided by Topping for the causes of these abnormal actions.
iMac can not compare because the drivers are different.
 

JohsonChou

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Another interesting DAC to cpmpare to Topping DX7s is Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus, which is $349. It is also fully balanced with dual DAC.
It measured well here: https://kenrockwell.com/audio/cambridge/dacmagic-plus.htm (This guy's measurement seems to be trustworthy since his benchmark dac1 measurement is similar to yours).

I am interested to see how they compare in your setup. If it measures well on your setup, we will have another good affordable dac out there.
 

ripvw

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Another interesting DAC to cpmpare to Topping DX7s is Cambridge Audio DacMagic Plus, which is $349. It is also fully balanced with dual DAC.
It measured well here: https://kenrockwell.com/audio/cambridge/dacmagic-plus.htm

- no remote option
- headphone output impedance over 30 ohms makes it even worse than DX7s in "balanced" mode - only 600 ohm phones need apply for accurate frequency response (but at least you don't have to buy a "balanced" headphone cable to get decent headroom)
 

gvl

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- no remote option
- headphone output impedance over 30 ohms makes it even worse than DX7s in "balanced" mode - only 600 ohm phones need apply for accurate frequency response (but at least you don't have to buy a "balanced" headphone cable to get decent headroom)

- no DSD
 
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