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Topping Centaurus R2R DAC Review

Rate this R2R DAC:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 18 6.4%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 69 24.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 140 49.8%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 54 19.2%

  • Total voters
    281
Don’t you think ASR would be a nicer forum if less or no people bash others for liking coffee ice cream?

That’s what I am trying to get at. And got bashed as well. Really sad state.

Merry Christmas!!

ps: I also like coffee ice cream, with added nuts, and maybe some Baileys on top.
Coffee ice cream has a distinct taste that's different from other flavours. I think this is where the analogy breaks down...
 
  • Spray of "R2R effects" harmonics can be seen in the charts.
  • Maybe these harmonics gives the "analog" "warm" feel - like ToTape8 effects VST.

Nearly 90dB down from the main tone. Highly doubtful that this is enough to give the output anything resembling a characteristic.
 
Don’t you think ASR would be a nicer forum if less or no people bash others for liking coffee ice cream?

That’s what I am trying to get at. And got bashed as well. Really sad state.

Merry Christmas!!

ps: I also like coffee ice cream, with added nuts, and maybe some Baileys on top.
But why do you perceive disagreement as bashing?
 
Coffee ice cream has a distinct taste that's different from other flavours. I think this is where the analogy breaks down...

But preference is a preference regardless of whether it’s for the sound, visual differences, brand, marketing story, or for any particular technology, including R2R.
 
But preference is a preference regardless of whether it’s for the sound, visual differences, brand, marketing story, or for any particular technology, including R2R.
Nobody is critisisng preference here. Debating audibility, yes.
 
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I agree, but the two distinguished gentlemen seem to take this as ‘bashing’ for some reason. I’m just trying to understand why.
At least you referred to us as gentlemen . That's something positive , i guess. Who knows !
 
I agree, but the two distinguished gentlemen seem to take this as ‘bashing’ for some reason. I’m just trying to understand why.

Disagreements are fine. We all have our own views.
To cast aspersions on a group ... that's different ...
Normal in global forums, true. However, earlier years of ASR has a lot less of it.

Below are just a few examples from this thread alone ... the undertones are obvious.

The dangerous myth of original purity must be taken into consideration in this craze for R2R which finds its source among audiophiles resistant to digital


To get people sucked in continuously, they have to keep adding new reasons for audibly better sound quality. They can only come up with new, but not always (though may be sometimes, obviously) real reasons because there are usually none.., and not needed, because those things are already transparent enough for most humans. R2R, MQA, BluOS, DragonFry dacs, HDAMs, Class A, high current, toroidal, elliptical, sand cast tranformer, autoformer, expensive interconnects, fully/truly balanced, high DF>1000, DDG (one of NAD's new one) etc.etc..... the list is endless, yet there are always suckers in audio ready, waiting and rushing to suck things in!


It will appeal to those who believe , despite evidence of measurement that there is some ‘magic’ in resistor to resistor designs.


Topping is weird. They announced the coming of the A and D900 so long ago, released some other products that were announced later and now they bring this without any announcement. Also, I think they should have given this another design. This looks way too much like a tool instead of the usual audiophile jewelry that people who buy R2R expect.


Gees, what's the point of this DAC, it's expensive and measures worse than their normal offerings. Yes, must be to please people that for some unknown reason want an R2R DAC, what's the point - none! Most ASR members would write this DAC off after seeing this review, maybe even before seeing the review!


I like this rebuttal #153


Have a Merry Christmas!!
 
Coffee ice cream has a distinct taste that's different from other flavours. I think this is where the analogy breaks down...

Just askin' ... have you tried durian ice cream ?

If you have, do you like it? How does it compare to coffee ice cream?
 
I like this rebuttal #153
@NTTY confirmed that (with a proper reconstruction filter active) the degradations of this DAC relative to the state of the art, are almost certainly inaudible. I agree with him. You can do better for less money is my only gripe.

I don't believe it is correct to use this DAC with no reconstruction filter. Based on his knowledge and comprehensive testing, I'm reasonably confident @NTTY would agree.

However, it is possible that people prefer the sound with no reconstruction filter, in fact given that we all seem to like noise and distortion, it's possible that I too would prefer the non-filtered version. That doesn't make it right.
 
You can do better for less money is my only gripe.

For sure. I also agree.
On the other hand, if I can afford it, I would still buy a Porsche, instead of a Toyota 86.
I won't begrudge people who buy Porsche.

I don't believe it is correct to use this DAC with no reconstruction filter.

I also agree. My Soekris R2R uses a reconstruction filter.
In fact, at one point in time, there were people who were home-brewing the FIR filter that we can reprogram into the DAC via the internal serial port.

--

If I didn't own the Soekris R2R for several years now, I would jump at the chance to buy this Topping Centaurus, just to try out a R2R DAC.
Mind you -- for close to 30% lower in price compared to what I paid for the Soekris. This Topping Centaurus is really good value in my books.
 
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Topping builds and sells this DAC because they feel they'll make some profit from a certain clientele that wasn't catered for with their other DACs, and because of competitors in the field like Denafrips etc. They want something of that cake, so far so good.

However, for the more open-minded and technically oriented customers I'd always recommend something like an RME ADI-2 DAC which has more and better features and everything but still offers a competent quasi-filterless NOS mode for the curious. The analog filter in these is placed at >100kHz so you one can get the full NOS effect (HF drop and images).

Plus you can try that NOS mode with and without the HF drop correction (which, in the end, is IMHO the more important aspect of the original analog reconstruction filter whereas the removal of the images is pretty much irrelevant in like 95% of scenarios). With HF drop correction in place, it will sound pretty much the same than with a standard "sharp" filter (minimum phase variant), quite expectedly.

One can even implement (in the digital feed, say from a PC) the small linearity errors to replicate the harmonic profile to find out if that detail makes a difference or not.
 
On the other hand, if I can afford it, I would still buy a Porsche, instead of a Toyota 86.
I won't begrudge people who buy Porsche
Car analogies rarely work unfortunately. Supposing the Toyota 86 was so brilliant at steering, acceleration, braking and everything else etc that no human can detect they are driving one compared to an F1 or NASCAR. That's where we are with DACs. In your analogy, the Toyota is actually better than your body can withstand when even if you are the fittest human alive. You simply cannot detect that the Porsche is better, only a robot can spot the differences.

But then someone claims that both the Toyota and Porsche are both better with square wheels (the equivalent of not using a reconstruction filter).
 
@NTTY confirmed that (with a proper reconstruction filter active) the degradations of this DAC relative to the state of the art, are almost certainly inaudible. I agree with him. You can do better for less money is my only gripe.
Indeed you can’t hear such low level distorsion. We tried to identify our threshold (when listening to music) with some friends, and the best of us achieved to hear 0.4% which was impressive.
I don't believe it is correct to use this DAC with no reconstruction filter. Based on his knowledge and comprehensive testing, I'm reasonably confident @NTTY would agree.
I’d say it’s incorrect with any DAC :) There’s no good reason not to filter the artifacts of the DAC’s zero-hold function.
However, it is possible that people prefer the sound with no reconstruction filter, in fact given that we all seem to like noise and distortion, it's possible that I too would prefer the non-filtered version. That doesn't make it right.
NOS and no analog filtering ensures massive amount of distorsion outside audio band and creates some in audio band by intermodulation. None were part of the master, so I don’t see good reason to add them, I agree.
And if one is not concerned by that level of unwanted distortion, then there’s far from an issue with this well engineered Topping.
 
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To change subject, and thanks to @binaryblaze for the contribution, this is an overlay of the Centaurus and the Sony CDP-337ESD with a less classic 999.91Hz @-6dBFS with 16bits/44.1kHz data, to compare with best in class implementation of the R2R Philips TDA1541A with 8x oversampling CXD1144 filter of Sony:

1735128076627.png


Red trace is the Centaurus, blue trace is the Sony CD Player.
In this case, THD (only) of the Centaurus is -101dB and -96dB for the Sony.

Enjoy!
 
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To change subject, and thanks to @binaryblaze for the contribution, this is an overlay of the Centaurus and the Sony CDP-337ESD with a lest classic 999.91Hz @-6dBFS with 16bits/44.1kHz data, to compare some best in class implementation of the R2R Philips TDA1541A with 8x oversampling CXD1144 filter of Sony:

View attachment 416354

Red trace is the Centaurus, green trace is the Sony CD Player.

Enjoy!
Yes, those Philips were R2R on a chip good point ... I think a modern day Sugden uses those, and downsamples to 16 bit 44 for higher bitrates. Even though the Holo Cyan 2 board accepts high bit rates, I am not sure they manage true 24 bit ... but enough is enough and more than enough.

I think the interesting thing about these R2R's is that they convert differently, in a way many seem to find aurally appealing, and with the Topping Centaurus no-one can really argue that it is distortion causing this appeal ... so long as in OS or Best modes ... this is the interesting bit (pun unintended).
 
Don’t you think ASR would be a nicer forum if less or no people bash others for liking coffee ice cream?

That’s what I am trying to get at. And got bashed as well. Really sad state.

Merry Christmas!!

ps: I also like coffee ice cream, with added nuts, and maybe some Baileys on top.
did you measure temp and thickness of this ice cream and have you done proper A/B with Bailey's substitutes ? some might taste same but cost way less !

Merry Christmas!!
 
I did not have time to publish above, but this is the Topping Centaurus vs "The R2R star" of the past, the BurrBrown PCM58 in its selected "K" version (most linear), in a Denon DCD-3560 using two of them per channel. This is again a 999.91Hz (undithered) sine tone at -6dBFS:

1735147876066.png


The green trace is the Denon and the red one the Centaurus. Respective THD (without noise) are -99dB and -101dB.
 
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