Shenzhenaudio Topping EX5 Review (DAC and Headphone Amplifier)

[threni]

Endgame all-in-one.

Except for the MQA garbage, hope they stop paying for the licence and ship out the units for 299.

They're not paying $50 for MQA. Would you like some more money off because this pointlessly supports high-resolution too?

 

[threni]

Wow. Could have been selling for 249.99 if it were not for the MQA.

LOL! The MQA licensing costs have just increased to $100 I see!

 

[JohnYang1997]

I bought the 30 Pro stack and I'm almost having buyer's remorse. I did need the analogue input, so there's that. But to think I basically paid twice the price for the looks of a stack and the analogue input to the amp is making me sad.

Think I may get this for my brother as a present. Along some Sundaras.

A30pro was an amp that pushed the envelope for extremely high single ended output. So at least the amp is not comparable at all.
EX5 is optimized for phone out performance, so you see some degradation in performance in RCA and XLR output. D30pro + A30pro give you maximum performance of the components no matter what use cases. Also D30pro has much better SNR so a whole step up as a preamp, which noise floor is actually the same as D90se. D30pro and A30pro both have some aspects that are SOTA.
EX5 was basically what can be achieved at a set price point.

 

[JohnYang1997]

LOL! The MQA licensing costs have just increased to $100 I see!

Might create a non-MQA version with 20 dollar premium.

 

[Robbo99999]

A quite expensive product but it's a headphone amp as well as DAC and would be about $100 more expensive than say my Topping E30 DAC combined with my JDS Labs Atom amp. But the DAC measures better than the Topping E30 and can also output 4V vs the 2V of the E30. The amp side of the EX5 is about as good as JDS Labs Atom amp in my quick comparison, I noted the JDS Labs Atom amp output higher SINAD at 50mv. But you get the convenience of all-in-one-package with the EX5 and the increased connectivity options of that device combined with the 4V output that I mentioned. And of course you get the balanced output too. Yeah, that ain't bad! Worth it!

 

[Maki]

Might create a non-MQA version with 20 dollar premium.

I'd pay for it

 

[Merkurio]

Endgame all-in-one.

Except for the MQA garbage, hope they stop paying for the licence and ship out the units for 299.

This.

Get rid of the MQA crap and I’m ready to upgrade my DX3 Pro for under $300.

 

[sweetchaos]

Ignoring the $50 price difference…Did this just obsolete E30 + L30 stack?

 

[JohnYang1997]

Ignoring the $50 price difference…Did this just obsolete E30 + L30 stack?

L30 is still better amplifier, for both power hungry cans(higher power) and sensitive IEMs(better 50mV SNR). The cost of EX5 went into a larger chassis, internal supply, all in one and better DAC basically.

 

[threni]

I'm not in the market for this but if I was I'd have to skip it as I put my Schiit Loki EQ between my DAC and my amp. Having RCA out from this device's DAC would fix that. Would this cost much more? I guess it makes the design more complicated (ie would the volume control the DAC or the amp).

 

[aandres_gm]

Didn't someone mention the MQA licensing fees are single digit sums? I don't get why some of you want to get this for under 300

 

[Yorkshire Mouth]

I’ve been waiting for the D10 balanced to appear, and couple it with the SMSL SH-8S, which I presume would have a price very similar to this.

Comments? I think the 8S is a better amp than the L30, so given John Yang’s comments in the last post, I may stick with my original plan.

Very tempting, though.

How does the DAC in this compare to that in the upcoming D10 balanced?

 

[Merkurio]

L30 is still better amplifier, for both power hungry cans(higher power) and sensitive IEMs(better 50mV SNR). The cost of EX5 went into a larger chassis, internal supply, all in one and better DAC basically.

What about compared to the OG DX3 Pro amplifier section overall?

Especially, I was always curious about the DX3 Pro 50 mV performance.

 

[Sancus]

I would say that this is likely the true end game DAC. It does everything one could want and is going to be essentially perfect in real world use.
Almost a given I’ll be buying one or more. I already own a couple of DX3-Pro.
Only useful DSP is missing. Add that and the game totally changes.

Agreed, add 5-band PEQ to this and it'd obsolete 99% of the market.

 

[Merkurio]

Agreed, add 5-band PEQ to this and it'd obsolete 99% of the market.

Better yet, 10-band PEQ.

100% market obsoleted.

 

[ShiZo]

WOW, If I was just getting into audio and hadn't gone the direction of super highend, I'd have just bought this and been done with it. End-game for sure at great price as well.

 

[Atanasi]

1) DAC chip used ?

Shenzhenaudio says ES9038Q2 on Twitter.

 

[gvl]

Hallelujah! My prayers for a full featured inexpensive top performing combo unit were answered!

 

[Countach]

Absolute bargain, especially with XLRs and very good headphone amp!

Hopefully there won't be problems as with E30's polarity or firsts L30s fault.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Hallelujah! My prayers for a full featured inexpensive top performing combo unit were answered!

Also no low input impedance input for you too. (as there's no analogue input haha)