Topping Centaurus R2R

[maximit]

I don't like loud fans either. But my setup is dead silent at my distance. All Noctua fans running at 20% speeds.

Also modern Macs are pretty much silent. Some dont have fans at all like MacBook Air. Others like Mac mini have a fan but it never goes past idle speed and is pretty much silent. The M Apple Silicon chips are scaled up phone chips and run very cool.

 

[Coverpage]

It's just Cyan2's module as Holo audio also sells these modules to other companies.

Specs are not as good as Spring or May but looks like better than those old PCM1704 chips and Soekris modules.

On the other hand, Cyan2 seems to have better build quality and supports higher samplerate over USB.

Are we sure about this? Any source?

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

Are we sure about this? Any source?

 

[Coverpage]

View attachment 413034

Oh man, was hoping topping could outperform Holo Audio in the R2R game and finally bring all DACs to a reasonable price point.

 

[binaryblaze]

It is now $999, and at this price point I think it is significantly less competitive compared to the proven Cyan 2. Kinda scummy to hike the price by 25% merely a day after launch.

 

[Soria Moria]

Why would someone actually buy this? I can at least understand some appeal of valves, they can look cool. But here you buy archaic technology that is entirely on the inside so there's not much of a look cool and feel warm inside factor.

 

[welwynnick]

This isn't for the ASR crowd, this is for the subjectivists. My prediction is it will sell like hot cakes. It doesn't matter if it measures worse.

 

[raif71]

It should sound natural and analog compared to the clinical delta sigma though AKM will come close to R2R

 

[777]

It is now $999, and at this price point I think it is significantly less competitive compared to the proven Cyan 2. Kinda scummy to hike the price by 25% merely a day after launch.

This looks like hell. It's a damn nasty thing done to consumers. Will be left with credibility consequences. They could increase the price after New Year's so it wouldn't look so bad. Now it looks like an street scalper.

 

[Koeitje]

Also modern Macs are pretty much silent. Some dont have fans at all like MacBook Air. Others like Mac mini have a fan but it never goes past idle speed and is pretty much silent. The M Apple Silicon chips are scaled up phone chips and run very cool.

The fact that they have no fan kills the performance though. That's why you need a MacBook Pro if you are rendering stuff, because the Air will throttle while the Pro has a fan and keeps the CPU cool(er, it will still throttle after a while). So with the same chip the Pro heavily outperforms the Air.

 

[maximit]

The fact that they have no fan kills the performance though. That's why you need a MacBook Pro if you are rendering stuff, because the Air will throttle while the Pro has a fan and keeps the CPU cool(er, it will still throttle after a while). So with the same chip the Pro heavily outperforms the Air.

Not sure what that has to do with anything. We were discussing PCs for music playback as part of an audio system and their fan noise.

But if you want to discuss it sure.... you can get good performance from an Air, I use mine for 3D modelling. I have some thermal pads I installed that helps with CPU intensive tasks. If you are using a MacBook at a desk, you can buy a laptop stand with fans that will keep the CPU from throttling, matching or exceeding the performance of a Pro (due to Airs higher clock speed) in all all tasks besides graphics. I was a MacBook Pro user for 20 years (and PowerBook user before that) but switched to Air when then M2 redesign came out, in my opinion its the best MacBook Apple has ever made. I sell and service Apple hardware and have used everything from their lineup for a few month or more. Vast majority of people do not need a Pro, very few tasks tax the cpu at 100% for extended periods of time, but buy and use wherever makes you happy.

 

[Koeitje]

Not sure what that has to do with anything. We were discussing PCs for music playback as part of an audio system and their fan noise.

But if you want to discuss it sure.... you can get good performance from an Air, I use mine for 3D modelling. I have some thermal pads I installed that helps with CPU intensive tasks. If you are using a MacBook at a desk, you can buy a laptop stand with fans that will keep the CPU from throttling, matching and exceeding the performance of a Pro (due to Airs higher clock speed) in all all tasks besides graphics. I was a MacBook Pro user for 25+ years but switched to Air when then M2 redesign came out, in my opinion its the best MacBook Apple has ever made. I sell and service Apple hardware and have used everything from their lineup for a few month each. Vast majority of people do not need a Pro, very few tasks tax the cpu at 100% for extended periods of time.

You are saying they run very cool. But they don't. Passively cooled PCs have been a thing for ages, my desktop PC also doesn't spin up its fan unless there is a real load and I could have kept it passive if I wanted.

But seems you like you need to jump through a lot of hoops to get the performance you need from it. My colleagues that do video-editing all switched from the Air to the Pro models because the Air kept on throttling. The Air is the right model for the majority of people, but if you do heavy editing and your time is valuable then the Pro is the only option.

 

[unpluggged]

You are saying they run very cool. But they don't. Passively cooled PCs have been a thing for ages, my desktop PC also doesn't spin up its fan unless there is a real load and I could have kept it passive if I wanted.

But seems you like you need to jump through a lot of hoops to get the performance you need from it. My colleagues that do video-editing all switched from the Air to the Pro models because the Air kept on throttling. The Air is the right model for the majority of people, but if you do heavy editing and your time is valuable then the Pro is the only option.

What video editing use case has to do with this thread?

 

[maximit]

What video editing use case has to do with this thread?

I would love to know as well, as the first line in my reply asked... what does this have to do with music playback PC/Mac?

And when compared to Intel they indeed run much cooler, but of course you can cause any CPU to heat up under constant 100% load.

 

[Koeitje]

Well, I'd recommend a Ryzen based mini PC for music playback. Way smaller than a MacBook, can also run passively at 10W, and can be accessed remotely by whatever you want to control it. Easier than using an entire MacBook. There's also $200 Intel solutions that are passively cooled out of the box and still provide enough performance for light loads like music playback. Just seems silly to me to use an entire laptop.

 

[unpluggged]

Well, I'd recommend a Ryzen based mini PC for music playback. Way smaller than a MacBook, can also run passively at 10W, and can be accessed remotely by whatever you want to control it. Easier than using an entire MacBook. There's also $200 Intel solutions that are passively cooled out of the box and still provide enough performance for light loads like music playback. Just seems silly to me to use an entire laptop.

Yes, there is a lot of choice nowadays. Starting with SBCs all the way to mini-PCs.

As for laptops, the race for squeezing as much compute power as possible into slim laptops with limited power budgets has led to them being unable to sustain performance for long, and now they all throttle significantly under heavy load.

 

[Deleted member 81041]

On the price bump....

Did Topping increase MSRP, or did the vendors do it due to initial demand? Either way, not cool.

 

[maximit]

On the price bump....

Did Topping increase MSRP, or did the vendors do it due to initial demand? Either way, not cool.

You can still buy it for $799 on ali, even though most have raised the price to $999.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mP4OjuT

 

[Deleted member 81041]

You can still buy it for $799 on ali, even though most have raised the price to $999.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mP4OjuT

I did notice Topping removed the price from their image.

 

[keenerz]

I gave it a blind buy cause I am insane and/or curious, I locked it in at that initial price from what I heard from Apos told me, "Topping realized they made a mistake with the cost of the Centaurus and has since raised the price." From talking to them to see if they are going to change my price.