Topping D10 Balanced Review (USB DAC)

[usern]

No, I have not this option

Is D10 often to be defective even new ?

No, this issue is not related to D10s, but RCA connection in general. There is always risk of ground loops if you use unbalanced (RCA) signalling cables. With my D10s I heard "digital noises" quietly.

If you want to avoid this issue completely, then you could get D10b (balanced version of D10s) and Topping L50 amplifier.

 

[Paul_d]

risk of ground loops if you use unbalanced (RCA)

But I can get them with other dac's too? How I can avoid this effect (if balanced connections didnt allow for me) ??

Now I'm using Crative XFi gamer, is current dac's represent more clearly sound than my old card ?

 

[usern]

You can reduce likelyhood of this effect with optical input from computer. Topping E30 can handle that. Or you could go for E50 + L50 stack - connect RCA to your speaker amplifier and connect balanced connection to L50 headphone amplifier. E50 also has optical input.

 

[Paul_d]

You can reduce likelyhood of this effect with optical input from computer. Topping E30 can handle that. Or you could go for E50 + L50 stack - connect RCA to your speaker amplifier and connect balanced connection to L50 headphone amplifier. E50 also has optical input.

So, this means that E30 more for my needs ?

How do you think, L50 amplifier better than my Harman for headphones? I know, big amplifiers have not perfect headphones output, but is it so poor ? I still want use Monitor Audio for ambient music/videos, so Harman will be with me.

Thank you for your answers!

 

[usern]

How do you think, L50 amplifier better than my Harman for headphones?

Technically yes, audibly don't know. L50 should have more headroom in terms of power output so you can use more power hungry headphones if you ever choose to.

 

[GimeDsp]

Thanks Amir, just ordered a d10 balanced today.

It's for a church that needs balanced output from PC and good sound quality. It should simplify the routing a lot and eliminate the bad sounding DI box I am using now.

On a side note I've seen many reviews calling the d10 balanced "harsh" sounding, I wonder if some people might be overdriving the inputs of their gear?

 

[peterq]

I don't think it's harsh sound, maybe a bit bright for some people. But after compared to many dacs, d10b has the best price/performance ratio. Compare to soekris 1321, I'm sure 1321 has much more higher distortion since I always missed some details.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Thanks Amir, just ordered a d10 balanced today.

It's for a church that needs balanced output from PC and good sound quality. It should simplify the routing a lot and eliminate the bad sounding DI box I am using now.

On a side note I've seen many reviews calling the d10 balanced "harsh" sounding, I wonder if some people might be overdriving the inputs of their gear?

I've had a D10 Balanced for a few weeks now. The week Amir did the review of it. I don't find it harsh.

It's possible if using oversampling in your playback software that highly compressed songs might contain some samples that overdrive it via inter-sample overs.

 

[Tom C]

Just received mine, trying to set it up today. Would like to use iPhone for Apple Music. I've been able to get the D10 Balanced to work with PC (Topping ASIO drivers installed), but can't get it to work with iPhone 12. Tried using Apple USB camera adapter model A1619 with firmware version 1.0.5 and several different USB power supplies, but no go. Updated to iOS 15 in the process, but no luck. Has anyone been able to make this work? I think we have at least one user who has.

 

[kukocz]

Just received mine, trying to set it up today. Would like to use iPhone for Apple Music. I've been able to get the D10 Balanced to work with PC (Topping ASIO drivers installed), but can't get it to work with iPhone 12. Tried using Apple USB camera adapter model A1619 with firmware version 1.0.5 and several different USB power supplies, but no go. Updated to iOS 15 in the process, but no luck. Has anyone been able to make this work? I think we have at least one user who has.

Hmm it looks like that one user was really lucky one. Topping clearly states it won't work with phones due to the current limitation.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Not tried this, but seems a powered USB hub between phone and the D10 should work.

 

[Tom C]

Yes, that seems right to me too. OTG is not powered, right? I expect not powered to not work, because of current requirements. But Apple's own adapter is supposed to be for exactly this situation, and allows the user to plug a power cord into the adapter. No one guaranteed me this would work, so maybe it just doesn't. But it would be cool if it did.

 

[GimeDsp]

For pro audio use this thing checks all the boxes.
I believe the Peavey USB one Amir tested was transformer isolated and had a "ground lift" switch but with a balanced system I am not sure if noise will be an issue.

PLUS, windows/MAC already have a built in MONO summing mixer in the accessibility options.
So for pro audio when you only want to use a mono channel, sum to mono in PC then output balanced signal.

 

[kchap]

I've had a D10 Balanced for a few weeks now. The week Amir did the review of it. I don't find it harsh.

It's possible if using oversampling in your playback software that highly compressed songs might contain some samples that overdrive it via inter-sample overs.

I think the D10 balanced is more susceptible to intersample overs compared to some other DACs; I have a couple I can use for comparison. One track in particular seemed to highlight the problem. I have since solved the problem but I made matters worse before I got there.

I was unhappy with the LPF filter implemented in the D10B. I upsampled my flac files to 192 K using SoX so I can use the standard linear phase LPF at 44.1 k. I did use the guard option which adjusts the source gain to ensure that none of the individual digital samples exceed 0 dB FSD. For CDs created since the late 90s, all I did was increase the chances of intersample overs occurring. I have gone back an applied a -3 dB gain to my existing flac files and changed my process to include a -3 dB gain when I rip my CDs.

I look forward to the day when record executives are banned from the final mastering and engineers always leave 3 dB headroom. I suspect I could be waiting a while that day to arrive.

Finally, I said one track seemed to highlight the problem. That particular track was misbehaving in its original 16/44.1 format

 

[GimeDsp]

I think the D10 balanced is more susceptible to intersample overs compared to some other DACs; I have a couple I can use for comparison. One track in particular seemed to highlight the problem. I have since solved the problem but I made matters worse before I got there.

I was unhappy with the LPF filter implemented in the D10B. I upsampled my flac files to 192 K using SoX so I can use the standard linear phase LPF at 44.1 k. I did use the guard option which adjusts the source gain to ensure that none of the individual digital samples exceed 0 dB FSD. For CDs created since the late 90s, all I did was increase the chances of intersample overs occurring. I have gone back an applied a -3 dB gain to my existing flac files and changed my process to include a -3 dB gain when I rip my CDs.

I look forward to the day when record executives are banned from the final mastering and engineers always leave 3 dB headroom. I suspect I could be waiting a while that day to arrive.

Finally, I said one track seemed to highlight the problem. That particular track was misbehaving in its original 16/44.1 format

Does just turning down pc volume give you same headroom?

 

[kchap]

Is Windows ASIO a HW volume control, implemented post conversion or is it SW volume control acting on the PCM data? I use a HW volume control on Volumio and MoOde. I had to decrease the volume 20 dB or more before the affect disappeared. I never tried the SW option.

 

[GimeDsp]

Is Windows ASIO a HW volume control, implemented post conversion or is it SW volume control acting on the PCM data? I use a HW volume control on Volumio and MoOde. I had to decrease the volume 20 dB or more before the affect disappeared. I never tried the SW option.

I was having issues with minidsp and if I turned it down in windows SW or moni dsp the digital distortion didn't clear up until -6db was applied.

 

[kchap]

I was having issues with minidsp and if I turned it down in windows SW or moni dsp the digital distortion didn't clear up until -6db was applied.

3 dB is not a magic number. Some articles recommend 3 to 3.5 and I suppose in some cases it might need to be 6 dB.

 

[kchap]

It might even be an artistic choice to generate distortion.

 

[GimeDsp]

RESOLVED- answer in post #608. had to use same pc to output and input with REW.

I am pretty sure I know nothing about measuring distortion. Everything I measure is showing crazy digital distortion.

Here is how I measured the Topping (probably wrong)

1. PC---REW 1k sign----Zoom h6 at -18dbfs----REW RTA on spectrum on another PC

So doing it this way the topping results with a clean signal at -13.3dbfs then it goes bonkers with digital clipping at only -11.9dbfs

I have this same problem with all the DAC's I am testing so it must be my problem. but the mini DSP doesn't go crazy until-6dbfs
the clipped screen grab doesn't show all the data, but you can see what looks like straight up digital clipping.

I tried this with and without the topping drivers and swapped computers to see if issue remained. thanks for any help!