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D10 2019 or D30

  • D10

    Votes: 16 61.5%
  • D30

    Votes: 10 38.5%

  • Total voters
    26

Daverz

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My speakers have RCA and 3.5mm inputs. So I guess the D10? Also, does USB power and wall wart have an audible difference in audio quality? The D10 has optical inputs too no? Also, 99% of my FLAC files are 24/196. The rest, 24/192 and some DSD files.

I mentioned the D30 wall wart to contrast with the D10 which is powered off the USB bus. It's not a performance issue, I just hate dealing with wall warts. But the D10 has no coaxial or optical inputs. The differences in performance are not significant, so choose based on features.
 
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La!$

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I mentioned the D30 wall wart to contrast with the D10 which is powered off the USB bus. It's not a performance issue, I just hate dealing with wall warts. But the D10 has no coaxial or optical inputs. The differences in performance are not significant, so choose based on features.
Can a good RCA cable make up for the SQ decrease of not being able to use an optical cable? Or an RCA cable is just as good as optical? If so, recommend me a good cable under $50. How about the QED cables? Also, which should I upgrade first. The RCA or the speaker wire? Currently using the stock audioengine a5+ speaker wires.
 
Last edited:

Eirikur

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I have my desktop pc. Will get a raspberry pi soon with Volumio!
D10 (I chose this)
  • PRO: easy PC connection with only USB, no power-cord
  • PRO: up to DSD256 and up to PCM 384kHz/32bits, so unlikely that any useful audio format won't play
  • PRO: more "modern" ESStech ES9018k2m chip (ES9018 is from 2010/2011, the k2m from 2013)
  • CON: no other digital inputs
  • CON(maybe): no detailed information on how DSD is handled
D30
  • PRO: power switch + separate power supply if you want to power it with something special
  • PRO: coax and toslink inputs
  • PRO: can do DSD direct, i.e. bypass all processing (DSD volume + 50kHz filtereing optional)
  • CON: massively older CirrusLogic CS4398 chip (2003)
  • CON: no 32bit PCM, i.e. digital attenuation is less accurate
They measure about the same (SINAD ~105dB) so both will probably be audibly transparent.
My choice was to go for simplicity (USB powered) and that fancy D10 screen ;)

When connecting to a Pi check your power supply: according to specs the Topping D10 will use about 0.5A out of the USB port... I hear the "official" wall-wart is a little under-powered! This also depends on your Pi generation, e.g. v4 likes more juice more than v3, which in turn drinks more than v2.
 
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La!$

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D10 (I chose this)
  • PRO: easy PC connection with only USB, no power-cord
  • PRO: up to DSD256 and up to PCM 384kHz/32bits, so unlikely that any useful audio format won't play
  • PRO: more "modern" ESStech ES9018k2m chip (ES9018 is from 2010/2011, the k2m from 2013)
  • CON: no other digital inputs
  • CON(maybe): no detailed information on how DSD is handled
D30
  • PRO: power switch + separate power supply if you want to power it with something special
  • PRO: coax and toslink inputs
  • PRO: can do DSD direct, i.e. bypass all processing (DSD volume + 50kHz filtereing optional)
  • CON: massively older CirrusLogic CS4398 chip (2003)
  • CON: no 32bit PCM, i.e. digital attenuation is less accurate
They measure about the same (SINAD ~105dB) so both will probably be audibly transparent.
My choice was to go for simplicity (USB powered) and that fancy D10 screen ;)

When connecting to a Pi check your power supply: according to specs the Topping D10 will use about 0.5A out of the USB port... I hear the "official" wall-wart is a little under-powered! This also depends on your Pi generation, e.g. v4 likes more juice more than v3, which in turn drinks more than v2.
Can you shed some light on my RCA/Optical question.

Thanks for this info! ☺️
 

q3cpma

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Unless cables are badly designed or super long, you won't hear any differences. I suggest you lurk more, because you seem a bit new to non-magical audio.
 

BDWoody

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Can you shed some light on my RCA/Optical question.

Thanks for this info! ☺️

You would use optical only if you were trying to convert the usb to optical to feed another DAC, that may not have usb in, or some other reason. For your use, it is to actually convert the digital to analog, and generate the analog signal. That will always end up going through RCA. (Or xlr, but we aren't talking about that).
 

Daverz

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Can a good RCA cable make up for the SQ decrease of not being able to use an optical cable? Or an RCA cable is just as good as optical? If so, recommend me a good cable under $50. How about the QED cables? Also, which should I upgrade first. The RCA or the speaker wire? Currently using the stock audioengine a5+ speaker wires.

No, the RCA is the analog output from the D10. The D10 lacks the optical digital input that the D30 has.

The interconnects and cables you have now are probably fine.
 
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La!$

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The interconnects and cables you have now are probably fine.
So I should stick with the stock RCA and Speaker wire since there will be no audible SQ improvement?
 

Eirikur

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Can a good RCA cable make up for the SQ decrease of not being able to use an optical cable? Or an RCA cable is just as good as optical? If so, recommend me a good cable under $50.
Optical or coax will likely be worse than USB, since you'll be connecting the clocks via PLL.
The great thing about USB is that you'll have a jitter-free connection using a $2 cable. The USB data connection is a twisted pair differential signal, and assuming a USB2.0 or better specced cable there will be very few lost bits in your lifetime.

You'll still need a pair of RCA cables for the analog signal - sorry, no recommendations from me. I often use two strands of a high-quality RGB video cable for this since I can't (subjectively) hear the difference with expensive "interlinks" and had these available.

PS: For digital coax I've always used the 3rd strand of that high quality RGB video cable (75 ohm), they're relatively cheap and very reliable - never any glitches. Toslink has the advantage of galvanic separation of source and destination, but that comes in play when you may have a ground loop.
 

Daverz

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So I should stick with the stock RCA and Speaker wire since there will be no audible SQ improvement?

The standard audiophile doctrine is to upgrade from stock interconnects and cables because all such changes are an improvement. You will not get that standard doctrine here.
 
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La!$

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The standard audiophile doctrine is to upgrade from stock interconnects and cables because all such changes are an improvement. You will not get that standard doctrine here.
I don't understand what you said sir. English is not my first language.
 

Daverz

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I don't understand what you said sir. English is not my first language.

If you go to many other audiophile forums and ask the same question, you'll get recommendations for more expensive RCA cables and more expensive speaker cables because the usual belief is that they will make an audible difference. However, most people on this forum don't share that belief.
 

Willem

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They will sound equally good. Both connect to your speakers by rca cables. The D10 also has spdif output but why would you need that? You are converting to the analogue rca inputs of your amplified speakers. I would go for the D30 because it also has an optical input which you can use to connect eg your television.
 
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La!$

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They will sound equally good. Both connect to your speakers by rca cables. The D10 also has spdif output but why would you need that? You are converting to the analogue rca inputs of your amplified speakers. I would go for the D30 because it also has an optical input which you can use to connect eg your television.
I won't connect it to my Television. Only music from PC to speakers.
 
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