Review and Measurements of Topping NX4 DSD Dac and Portable Headphone Amplifier

[amirm]

That is not good then. I assume you have it charged?

 

[HerbDetective]

That is not good then. I assume you have it charged?

Yep it's fully charged. That was the first thing I suspected, so I let it charge for a good hour or so.

 

[amirm]

Last thing would be the cable. Or the USB connectors on the device. Other than that, it may be time to send it in.

 

[Stump909]

This or the SMSL iDea for a portable phone setup?

 

[amirm]

If size is not an issue, the NX4 DSD for sure. It has 4X more power and so should be able to drive lots more headphones to good volume.

 

[HerbDetective]

As an update, my replacement NX4 DSD arrived and it's been working good so far. I wonder how common my experience has been among Topping NX4 DSD owners.

 

[bakker_be]

I don't understand, on their website it says 114 mW @ 300 Ohms. Not 57 ... . So what am I seeing wrong?

2 channels?

 

[kdejaeger]

So if I want to compare this with the sabaj da3 is at 52mW for balanced and 13mW unbalanced. The sabaj is pretty much the same if you order a balanced cable. Or is the 52mW also to be divided by 2?

 

[bakker_be]

So if I want to compare this with the sabaj da3 is at 52mW for balanced and 13mW unbalanced. The sabaj is pretty much the same if you order a balanced cable. Or is the 52mW also to be divided by 2?

I'd look at the values as measured by @amirm

 

[kdejaeger]

Could you help me with this, I don't see the values on the graphs. I don't understand this so well.

 

[amirm]

Could you help me with this, I don't see the values on the graphs. I don't understand this so well.

Whenever I show the distortion versus voltage, you can convert them to watts by squaring the voltage (read on horizontal axis) and divided by the load. That is what I have done in this graph for a couple of output loads:

I can have my instrument show these measures in watts but because the loads are different, I can't overlay them per above graph. This makes it more work but seeing how it is more useful, I have started to do that recently. Please ask if you have any other questions.

 

[kdejaeger]

I don't get it. And if I do that formula on the second cursor, I get this number: 2438.58674921 .

 

[amirm]

What math did you do?

 

[amirm]

The second cursor which is the 33 ohm load for NX4 DSD, has a voltage of 2.2 volts. So power = 2.2 * 2.2/33 = 0.15 watts as indicated.

 

[kdejaeger]

HerbDetective I just read on an Amazon review you can reset the device by holding one of the buttons while plugging in the USB. Try that.

 

[kdejaeger]

Ok

What math did you do?

I did a square root instead .

 

[kdejaeger]

HerbDetective, sorry, that was for the sabja da3. I was confused.

 

[poimandres]

I am considering ordering this over the ifi nano bl. Curious if those of you with lower impedance iems (I will be using the psb m4u-4’s and they are 16 ohms) experience any channel imbalance? If so when does it disappear?

Also wondering for those of you with iPhones what cable you are using?

 

[poimandres]

I broke down and ordered the NX4.

I also ordered a meenova lightning to micro 6 inch cable that is confirmed working with iPhones and the NX4.

I found another cable on eBay that is around 45 US shipped that the seller claims is made from an apple cck and is guaranteed to work with apple updates. It is a 90 degree cable and the photo is attached. If you search the text below on eBay it will pull up the auction.

 

[amirm]

Please keep us posted on what works and doesn't.