Review and Measurements of Topping DX7s DAC and Headphone Amp

[Pulkass]

Mastering this darn thing, horrible command input, without a remote, anyway, can I force let s say a cd from 44 khz to be oversampled at 192 khz ???? a critical observation of the sound will appear later in the appropriate section, anyway my motto 'THE MORE HIGH END THE LESS BASS' is very valid here.

 

[Dana reed]

Mastering this darn thing, horrible command input, without a remote, anyway, can I force let s say a cd from 44 khz to be oversampled at 192 khz ???? a critical observation of the sound will appear later in the appropriate section, anyway my motto 'THE MORE HIGH END THE LESS BASS' is very valid here.

Generally all these kinds of DACs oversample CDs to a higher rate prior to conversion. If you want to oversample it prior to sending it to the DAC, you would do that with whatever software you're using.
If you really want more high end and less bass, try a pair of Grado 325e, they're super bright with rolled off bass.

 

[Pulkass]

Generally all these kinds of DACs oversample CDs to a higher rate prior to conversion. If you want to oversample it prior to sending it to the DAC, you would do that with whatever software you're using.
If you really want more high end and less bass, try a pair of Grado 325e, they're super bright with rolled off bass.

I meant 'The more high end, the less bass, because HIGH END MEANS MORE DETAIL RESOLUTION, YOU GET DEEPER IN THE RECORDING THE BREATH, THE ROOM, basically the balance in on the mid highs, there is bass of course, but....... (I don t listen to headphones) I have a huge salon treated, and a multi amped system---music is loud here----

 

[leontang]

Hello everyone.
Got the dx7s for around 6 months and have been using it nicely on my PC with Windows 10. It drove my dt1770 pretty well.

Recently, I built a CAS system in my living room. Pairing the dx7s with my Mac Mini using USB cable and output to my power amp Cambridge CXA80, I encountered a few issues that had never occur before on Win 10.

The first one is the dx7s would turn off automatically from time to time. This issue resolved after updating the firmware of dx7s, as suggested by other friendly users in this thread.
However, the second problem is still here: The dx7s seems stuck at a particular frequency (44.1khz, PCM) no matter what files (DSD, 24/96 flac) are being played on Mac mini.

I note that there are other users reporting this issue on this and other sites, but I did not discover any solution to this. Would anyone here shed some light on the condition? Is it unsolvable?

Thank you in advance!

 

[Dana reed]

Hello everyone.
Got the dx7s for around 6 months and have been using it nicely on my PC with Windows 10. It drove my dt1770 pretty well.

Recently, I built a CAS system in my living room. Pairing the dx7s with my Mac Mini using USB cable and output to my power amp Cambridge CXA80, I encountered a few issues that had never occur before on Win 10.

The first one is the dx7s would turn off automatically from time to time. This issue resolved after updating the firmware of dx7s, as suggested by other friendly users in this thread.
However, the second problem is still here: The dx7s seems stuck at a particular frequency (44.1khz, PCM) no matter what files (DSD, 24/96 flac) are being played on Mac mini.

I note that there are other users reporting this issue on this and other sites, but I did not discover any solution to this. Would anyone here shed some light on the condition? Is it unsolvable?

Thank you in advance!

Most playback software will go through the settings specified in the Audio/MIDI application in the utilities folder. So if that is set to 44/16, everything will be downsampled to that prior to going to the DAC. Things like the bitperfect addon for iTunes will automatically change the setting based on the content, or you can use something like audirvana, jriver or Roon, which will use exclusive mode with the DAC.

 

[Veri]

Hello everyone.
Got the dx7s for around 6 months and have been using it nicely on my PC with Windows 10. It drove my dt1770 pretty well.

Recently, I built a CAS system in my living room. Pairing the dx7s with my Mac Mini using USB cable and output to my power amp Cambridge CXA80, I encountered a few issues that had never occur before on Win 10.

The first one is the dx7s would turn off automatically from time to time. This issue resolved after updating the firmware of dx7s, as suggested by other friendly users in this thread.
However, the second problem is still here: The dx7s seems stuck at a particular frequency (44.1khz, PCM) no matter what files (DSD, 24/96 flac) are being played on Mac mini.

I note that there are other users reporting this issue on this and other sites, but I did not discover any solution to this. Would anyone here shed some light on the condition? Is it unsolvable?

Thank you in advance!

Like @Dana reed says this is your OS, not the device at fault. You need exclusive mode or anything else that sets your device rate based on source rate.

 

[leontang]

Thanks @Veri and @Dana reed for the quick replies! Found the midi app in the utilities. I just thought it should be done in Setting section of Mac OS, which is not the case.

Everything working smoothly now. Thank you again.

 

[leontang]

apologize if I am asking another silly question. Dx7s support 768khz but my music files are mostly 96khz only. Should I set the output as 96khz or 768khz?
Does the sampling rate in MacOS mean the maximum value only or the Mac will upsample all the music?

Thank you.

 

[amirm]

apologize if I am asking another silly question. Dx7s support 768khz but my music files are mostly 96khz only. Should I set the output as 96khz or 768khz?
Does the sampling rate in MacOS mean the maximum value only or the Mac will upsample all the music?

Thank you.

Neither. As noted, you should get a player that can automatically match the sample rate of the music to the DAC. That means bypassing the Midi settings.

 

[Veri]

apologize if I am asking another silly question. Dx7s support 768khz but my music files are mostly 96khz only. Should I set the output as 96khz or 768khz?
Does the sampling rate in MacOS mean the maximum value only or the Mac will upsample all the music?

Thank you.

Macos will upsample all to target sample rate. OS X resampler is not "bad" though, so putting it at 96Khz for everything is a reasonable trade-off if you want to use default system-wide core audio. Even better would be exclusive/automatic control by the app though, like amir says.

 

[duckling]

Hi to all,

I'm pretty new to this Headphone / Amp thingy, have been reading reviews in the forum.
I just bought a HD660s, driving it with ASUS Xonar Essence STX.
I'm considering getting a external DAC/Amp, not sure to go with DX7s or D50/A30 stack?

Appreciate advice...many thanks!

 

[Rollaven]

Hi to all,

I'm pretty new to this Headphone / Amp thingy, have been reading reviews in the forum.
I just bought a HD660s, driving it with ASUS Xonar Essence STX.
I'm considering getting a external DAC/Amp, not sure to go with DX7s or D50/A30 stack?

Appreciate advice...many thanks!

Go for the JDS Atom instead of the A30. The A30 has high output impedance. If you do change your headphones in the future you do not have any problems by limiting yourself because of this impedance.

 

[Pulkass]

Generally all these kinds of DACs oversample CDs to a higher rate prior to conversion. If you want to oversample it prior to sending it to the DAC, you would do that with whatever software you're using.
If you really want more high end and less bass, try a pair of Grado 325e, they're super bright with rolled off bass.

Could l change the op Amps to better ones fixing in the same sockets???

 

[NTomokawa]

Could l change the op Amps to better ones fixing in the same sockets???

Define "better".

Op-amp "rolling" in general is very ill-advised, especially when you cannot objectively measure and quantify any changes.

Psychoacoustics are a huge deal here, because if you install an op-amp that you believe to be "warmer", then you'll deceive yourself into believing that it is really "warmer".

See here.

 

[Pulkass]

Define "better".

Op-amp "rolling" in general is very ill-advised, especially when you cannot objectively measure and quantify any changes.

Psychoacoustics are a huge deal here, because if you install an op-amp that you believe to be "warmer", then you'll deceive yourself into believing that it is really "warmer".

See here.

I just was wondering if there could be a technically better op amp. This one costs USD 2.50 each !!!

 

[NTomokawa]

I just was wondering if there could be a technically better op amp. This one costs USD 2.50 each !!!

A lot of op-amps can be "technically better" (see the Nwavguy article). The issue is that not all of them are relevant to audio, and some "better" specs such as a very fast slew rate can actually be detrimental.

I highly advise against "blind" op-amp rolling.

 

[Dana reed]

A lot of op-amps can be "technically better" (see the Nwavguy article). The issue is that not all of them are relevant to audio, and some "better" specs such as a very fast slew rate can actually be detrimental.

I highly advise against "blind" op-amp rolling.

If you want to do "rolling", just get a tube amp and you can plug in lots of tubes to try with no opening of the case required

 

[NTomokawa]

If you want to do "rolling", just get a tube amp and you can plug in lots of tubes to try with no opening of the case required

.....aaand suffer all the tube idiosyncrasies.

But who knows, one might prefer the "tube" distortion.

 

[Pulkass]

.....aaand suffer all the tube idiosyncrasies.

But who knows, one might prefer the "tube" distortion.

Dear Paolo

Thank you for your suggestion! We agree with you the tube will sound much better. We had been discussing how to add a tube into our system to make sound better but also keep excellent spec. I think we are able to do this in near future.

Best Regards!
----------------------------------
Hailin Huang
Sales manager & Product team member of TOPPING
26th Jiaomen Road, Huangge Town, Nansha, Guangzhou, China
Zip code: 511455

 

[duckling]

Go for the JDS Atom instead of the A30. The A30 has high output impedance. If you do change your headphones in the future you do not have any problems by limiting yourself because of this impedance.

Thank you for your suggestions. I read the reviews for Atom and it looks promising.

I actually prefer a one box solution such as DACAmp but will definitely consider seperate box options. Just needs to weighs the Pros and Cons.