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Topping Centaurus R2R DAC Review

Rate this R2R DAC:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 23 7.5%

  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 70 22.9%

  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 153 50.0%

  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 60 19.6%
  • Total voters
    306
Chagall said:
For those who don't watch videos:

- Golden Sound measured Centaurus and then measured Holo Cyan 2 by using the same module from Centaurus (so that unit variation isn't a factor)
- Centaurus and Cyan have a similar 4V sinad
- Centaurus 48khz running NOS (disabling best OS mode) works similarly to Cyan 2
- Centaurus 44.1khz running NOS (disabling best OS mode) loses 20db sinad, two channels are not in phase, awful jitter
- internal oversampling in Centaurus is broken if over x2 (so x4, x8 and x16 don't work) - lots of jitter and distortion
- He asked Topping if this was something they could fix with a firmware update, but they didn't say

The takeaway is to use Centaurus in OS mode best and forget about NOS. If you want an R2R non-oversampling DAC, buy Cyan 2.
Click to expand...
That will be Centaurus sales screwed then. Awaiting Centaurus 2....
 
VientoB said:
Well Goldensound seems to have looked into it in more detail and explained it in more detail. It's interesting.
Click to expand...
Agree. And GS did more to deep dive the issue but couldn’t get much out of Topping. Also he discovered/reported that there is another chip DAC under the R2R module! That Topping clarified is not used in the analog conversion but used for visualization, which was an interesting find.
 
Herbert Shooler said:
Wow whats going on here guys?? without NOS and at 44.1khz seems serious issues according to Goldensound seems ok at 2x though...
Click to expand...

I have 2 questions regarding this topic. I’m asking purely out of curiosity:
  • If it performs this poorly in both NOS and OS modes (outside the default mode it ships with, but still a very plausible use case), what might we be missing in @amirm 's measurements for any DAC?
  • GS isn’t showing us measurements of the Cyan 2 under similar conditions. How do we know it doesn’t perform as badly as the Centaurus?
 
cany89 said:
I have 2 questions regarding this topic. I’m asking purely out of curiosity:
  • If it performs this poorly in both NOS and OS modes (outside the default mode it ships with, but still a very plausible use case), what might we be missing in @amirm 's measurements for any DAC?
  • GS isn’t showing us measurements of the Cyan 2 under similar conditions. How do we know it doesn’t perform as badly as the Centaurus?
Click to expand...
  • The measurements on here do make me wonder what Amir was doing behind the scenes and whether he encountered any of these issues and if so why he wouldn't mention anything. I think it would be worth Amir having another look at it and seeing if he can reproduce the measurements GS was getting, maybe he has more influence with Topping than GS does
  • He has an upcoming Cyan 2 review I believe so we'll be seeing measurements for it when that comes out most likely
 
womanofscience666 said:
  • The measurements on here do make me wonder what Amir was doing behind the scenes and whether he encountered any of these issues and if so why he wouldn't mention anything. I think it would be worth Amir having another look at it and seeing if he can reproduce the measurements GS was getting, maybe he has more influence with Topping than GS does
  • He has an upcoming Cyan 2 review I believe so we'll be seeing measurements for it when that comes out most likely
Click to expand...
Also he usually posts full measurements on his website.
 
Herbert Shooler said:
well said...or get a DSD DAC? lol Amir did talk about 2x being best and in NOS, ultrasonic noise was off the charts,seems this guy has just said more on the -ves.
Click to expand...
I think 95% of people who follow Amir's reviews just look at the Pink Panther figure and the SINAD chart, lol.

I gotta hand it to Amir though, "yeah it's mid but you want mid so it's fine I guess" is an incredible moment of growth for a guy who kept measuring tube amps over and over.
 
The better it measures, the worse it sounds....according to some people, right?
 
Robert Weide said:
For a $200 DAC that might be acceptable, but for a $999 DAC, everything should be perfect.
Click to expand...
Sure. But DA conversion works flawlessly in OS mode and a fair share of the price is in the cost of R2R module. For example Cyan 2 is even more expensive, but it doesn't have oversampling mode out of the box - just NOS, no EQ, no screen etc. So just to put things into context, this DAC is the cheapest R2R that actually measures great afaik.

It seems that Topping made this DAC for a different crowd and stabled a bit with the features. So not great, but nothing serious...
 
Chagall said:
Sure. But DA conversion works flawlessly in OS mode and a fair share of the price is in the cost of R2R module. For example Cyan 2 is even more expensive, but it doesn't have oversampling mode out of the box - just NOS, no EQ, no screen etc. So just to put things into context, this DAC is the cheapest R2R that actually measures great afaik.

It seems that Topping made this DAC for a different crowd and stabled a bit with the features. So not great, but nothing serious...
Click to expand...
I do believe that there are quite a few things to unpack.

I have always tried to be consistent, in the sense that all things being equal and everything operating normally, in a practical sense it won't be audible to me whether an R2R dac is inferior or superior. So it would down to 1) The desire to get an R2R dac 2) the features, build, quality (as in, it doesn't break).

The only thing I can say is that if I decide to get an R2R DAC, I will be fully aware that is in irrational impulse, based simply in a desire to buy. No audible difference or superiority of R2R implied here, just to let you know that same as my love of vinyl, I fully understand it is just that.

Then, obviously, the most important thing is reliability, build, quality and price. If a device has that, I will be happy with it, even if I cannot tell it apart from a Schiit Modi.

Last, someone back in december replied to the question of why make a product like this, answering with "Money" as if it was really an issue. A pet peeve of mine. Money? Of course captain obvious! :D It is a commercial product in a capitalist system, so, well, of course. What did you expect? Same as everything.

The right question would be, IMHO, why is there a market for this? Then we can have a serious discussions on audiophilia and why using old technology feels to be necessary for a segment of the market. IMHO, there is no need, except I am a dum-dum and sometimes, I just want stuff for any reason. Horses for courses. Again, as long as nobody promotes myths, all good, IMHO.
 
Chagall said:
Sure. But DA conversion works flawlessly in OS mode and a fair share of the price is in the cost of R2R module. For example Cyan 2 is even more expensive, but it doesn't have oversampling mode out of the box - just NOS, no EQ, no screen etc. So just to put things into context, this DAC is the cheapest R2R that actually measures great afaik.

It seems that Topping made this DAC for a different crowd and stabled a bit with the features. So not great, but nothing serious...
Click to expand...
A 20db drop in sinad at 44.1khz is not a small thing...It's a shame.
 
But then you can argue, that the Cyan 2 has only one mode...
Nevertheless: I'll prefer (owning a Cyan2, a May and a Bliss from Holo Audio) in every case a product from Holo Audio, because they seems to be well engineered and have a real warranty.
 
womanofscience666 said:
  • The measurements on here do make me wonder what Amir was doing behind the scenes and whether he encountered any of these issues and if so why he wouldn't mention anything. I think it would be worth Amir having another look at it and seeing if he can reproduce the measurements GS was getting, maybe he has more influence with Topping than GS does
  • He has an upcoming Cyan 2 review I believe so we'll be seeing measurements for it when that comes out most likely
Click to expand...
He may not have tested all the different setting combinations the way GS did, or at least he may have, saw how badly they performed, and chose to only continue with the best measuring setup. He'd have to clarify.

I think when you're dealing with these kind of more esoteric DACs that have different combos of filters, sampling, etc. you have to be a bit more thorough with what you're doing so you can check for these kind of weird issues.
 
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