Topping D10s USB DAC and Bridge Review

[satread]

Hello,
all equipments have ground. As I wrote before though, I never had issues because of this...
Anyway I made the test that you suggested (Crown grounded, notebook ungrounded) and the noise has gone.

I made also one more test (both ungrounded):
Result: still a lot of noise.

I also tried joining with an electrical cable the case of the Crown and the case of the notebook, or the case of the notebook and the case of Topping, or the case of Topping and the case of Crown but there were no differences: still lots of noise.

If I operate the notebook on battery, then all the noise goes away (this happened also before this experiment, that is when both systems were grounded and nothing else was connected besides the tree involved devices and the speakers, obviously).

So the results are:
both grounded: lots of noise
only Crown grounded: no noise
both ungrounded: lots of noise

 

[Guetta]

Distortion effect of ultrasonics. For a budget DAC this is fine, there is only so much it can ward against in this price class.

Can we say that these two from graph are transparent

 

[Veri]

Can we say that these two from graph are transparent

Amir uses 90kHz bandwidth in this test to make ultrasonics show up. If 20kHz BW was used, the distortion would be very low just like the main dashboard shows (<0.0002% THD), which is absolutely transparent. For making a case of expensive DACs though, distortion can stay lower even in ultrasonic range / 90kHz BW. But I would not worry about it at all, no.

 

[Guetta]

Amir uses 90kHz bandwidth in this test to make ultrasonics show up. If 20kHz BW was used, the distortion would be very low just like the main dashboard shows (<0.0002% THD), which is absolutely transparent. For making a case of expensive DACs though, distortion can stay lower even in ultrasonic range / 90kHz BW. But I would not worry about it at all, no.

Thank you very much for explanation!

 

[half_dog]

Yep, I already had similar problems with other DACs and with all of them the noise was mitigate when I took caution to ground all the system in one point only. Leaving either the notebook or the power amplifier grounded.

 

[wiz2596]

Hello,
is anyone experiencing noises/interferences from the D10s when connected to an audio chain via its analog outputs?
I have contacted Topping with respect to my issue and I am currently waiting but I have tried a few scenarios and I have issues with my device.

My previous chain was this:

PC (desktop) with on-board audio card connected via optical cable (previously I had a mainboard with coaxial SPDIF as well) out to a Yamaha AX2. I use the Yamaha as a pre-out for the main speakers driven by a Crown DC300A II.
Other speakers are connected directly to the Yamaha.
Attached to the Yamaha there are more devices, i.e. Teac CD player, AIWA tape deck, Sony PCM-M1 DAT, Sony PCM-M10 digital recorder, Dreambox 920, etc.
Whenever possible they are connected via SPDIF (electrical or optical), otherwise with standard analogic RCA cables.

The scenarios that I have tested are the following ones and I have never had noise issues with it before attaching a D10s to the audio chain:

1. Crown amp without any input:

Crown (no input, cables disconnected) ---> speakers
no "strange" noise (except home noises/neighboroud in the recorded and attached wav file 1, etc)

2. Topping analog outputs connected directly to Crown amp (RCA cable not fully plugged in the Topping analog outputs):
Desktop PC ---> USB cable (I also tried 2 different cables) ---> Topping ---> RCA out analog cables (L+R) NOT FULLY PLUGGED IN ---> Crown amp ---> speakers
DIGITAL NOISE AND RADIO SIGNAL coming out from the speakers! (but the radio signal might be normal with this kind of connection since masses are floating... what is not normal is what I called digital noise)
(I think that this scenario can be ignored because the RCA cables were not correctly plugged in, I just reported it because I had tested it)


3. Topping analog outputs connected directly to Crown amp (RCA cable correctly fully plugged in):

Desktop PC ---> USB cable (I also tried 2 different cables) ---> Topping ---> RCA out analog cables (L+R) ---> Crown amp ---> speakers

DIGITAL NOISE coming out from the speakers (wav file 3)


4. Topping analog outputs connected to Yamaha AX2 used as preamp to Crown amp:

Desktop PC---> USB cable (I also tried 2 different cables) ---> Topping ---> RCA out analog cables (L+R) ---> Yamaha AX2 analogic input ---> Crown amp ---> speakers

DIGITAL NOISE coming out from the speakers (wav file 4)

5. Topping electrical SPDIF output connected to yamaha AX2 used as a preamp to Crown amp:

Desktop PC---> USB cable (I also tried 2 different cables) ---> Topping ---> coaxial SPDIF out ---> Yamaha AX2 coaxial SPDIF input ---> Crown amp ---> speakers

NO "strange" noise (except home noises/neighboroud, etc)



The most noisy scenario happens when I connect the Topping to one of the two USB ports of my Vaio notebook (nothing is connected to the other USB port (it has only two USB ports)) and it is scenario 4d:

Vaio NB plugged into the electrical socket---> USB cable (I also tried 2 different cables) ---> Topping ---> RCA out analog cables (L+R) ---> Yamaha AX2 analogic input ---> Crown amp ---> speakers

Very high volume DIGITAL NOISE coming out from the speakers (I haven't recorded a wav yet)

I would rule out issues in the Crown and/or in the Yamaha, because they always worked good and they still do if I don't connect Toppings RCA analog outputs' to their inputs.
I would also rule out issues in the PCs because I used two completely different ones (a desktop and a notebook, each with its very own power supply. The desktop is using a Seasonic PRIME 600 Titanium Fanless power supply) and same is true for the USB and analog RCA cables.
The mainboard of the desktop is a Gigabyte GA-Z270X Gaming 7 and it also has a couple of ports specifically dedicated to attaching a DAC devices. I have tried these ports and also other ones but there was no difference.
I am also using an APC UPS for the Desktop and the notebook.
I also never had power issues in the last 3 months:

View attachment 79702

The attached wavs have been recorded with my PCM-M10 internal microphones at about 30 cm from one of the main speakers.

You can hear a clear difference between file 1 and 3-4. Consider 1 to be the "normal" noise of the room.

The D10s does not have a separate power plug so I can't test if this would change its behaviour...
Anyway I suppose that since the D10s expects its power to be taken from the USB, then doing so should not create issues in any scenario, imho.

Do you have any clue or have experienced something similar?

Luca

No noise here, mine is working fine without any noise

 

[satread]

No noise here, mine is working fine without any noise

Thanks for the feedback

 

[satread]

Yep, I already had similar problems with other DACs and with all of them the noise was mitigate when I took caution to ground all the system in one point only. Leaving either the notebook or the power amplifier grounded.

I would just like to rule out possible issues in my Topping device first...

 

[half_dog]

I would just like to rule out possible issues in my Topping device first...

I hope you solve it
But really, in my setup it was a quite common problem before I understood what was happening...

 

[JohnYang1997]

Typical ground loop. Just try with a laptop on battery and see if there's any noise.

 

[audiojoe]

Amir uses 90kHz bandwidth in this test to make ultrasonics show up. If 20kHz BW was used, the distortion would be very low just like the main dashboard shows (<0.0002% THD), which is absolutely transparent. For making a case of expensive DACs though, distortion can stay lower even in ultrasonic range / 90kHz BW. But I would not worry about it at all, no.

I was wondering about the 90khz test as well. Sorry if this sounds stupid, I'm not educated in how all this works, but isn't the 90khz test there to show how ultrasonic noise makes the dac perform worse in the humanly audible range of 20-20khz?
The dac always oversamples everything to it's highest sampling rate (384khz) right? Doesn't this mean that there is always ultrasonic noise, even when using standard 44.1khz? So isn't a 20 khz test pretty much non representative of regular usage, or does the dac oversample in the test as well?
I know the roll off at 22.5khz in the filter is there to reduce ultrasonic noise, but I remember in the d90 review Amir showed how ultrasonic noise showed up again and said how the 24khz roll off AKM filter might be responsible for the not quite reference level of thd+n on some AKM chips: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-xlr-500-hz-fft-audio-measurements-png.43483/
Or is the 90khz test just a worst case scenario when the noise is really loud, which it normally isn't? Sorry, I'm probably getting this all completely wrong, this has me a bit confused haha. I'm just wondering if I play music on my d10s at 44.1, 48, or 96khz, what the actual thd+n really is?

 

[Veri]

I was wondering about the 90khz test as well. Sorry if this sounds stupid, I'm not educated in how all this works, but isn't the 90khz test there to show how ultrasonic noise makes the dac perform worse in the humanly audible range of 20-20khz?
The dac always oversamples everything to it's highest sampling rate (384khz) right? Doesn't this mean that there is always ultrasonic noise, even when using standard 44.1khz? So isn't a 20 khz test pretty much non representative of regular usage, or does the dac oversample in the test as well?
I know the roll off at 22.5khz in the filter is there to reduce ultrasonic noise, but I remember in the d90 review Amir showed how ultrasonic noise showed up again and said how the 24khz roll off AKM filter might be responsible for the not quite reference level of thd+n on some AKM chips: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-xlr-500-hz-fft-audio-measurements-png.43483/
Or is the 90khz test just a worst case scenario when the noise is really loud, which it normally isn't? Sorry, I'm probably getting this all completely wrong, this has me a bit confused haha. I'm just wondering if I play music on my d10s at 44.1, 48, or 96khz, what the actual thd+n really is?

-Delta sigma DAC will always oversample due to the nature of conversion
-This discussion is more of academic nature, I don't see any problem in audible band, no. Consider there are people listening to filterless DACs with tons of aliasing/imaging/ultrasonics.

 

[Davide]

I would like to follow up on my previous post to add some considerations related to the change of opamp I made on my D10S.
I state that I wanted to try to change because I had two OPA1611s and I was curious, but I did not expect to hear any particular differences ... and indeed it was.
As far as I could hear from swapping, there is a slight improvement with the OPA1611: a kind of more energetic and live sound, always distinguishable in a blind test.
It is not a matter of day and night, but if you pay attention, you will notice...
But obviously nothing that actually changes the sound presentation... the system is that and that remains.
I also wanted to try to measure the phase by changing the opamp and with REW a slight variation emerged on the low frequencies, about 80 degrees of phase shift respect to 49720.

 

[BDWoody]

As far as I could hear from swapping, there is a slight improvement with the OPA1611: a kind of more energetic and live sound, always distinguishable in a blind test.

How did you do this blind test? Do you have two of them?

 

[Davide]

Obviously no, I just asked a colleague to exchange opamps at random and on 5 or 6 tests we did the difference was quite recognizable (maybe I just got lucky). however I repeat, the differences are completely negligible ... to a normal listening it makes no difference (at least between these two opamps).

 

[Guetta]

-Delta sigma DAC will always oversample due to the nature of conversion
-This discussion is more of academic nature, I don't see any problem in audible band, no. Consider there are people listening to filterless DACs with tons of aliasing/imaging/ultrasonics.

So for the average user information on the graph is not a problem because values are very low and not audible?

 

[Veri]

So for the average user information on the graph is not a problem because values are very low and not audible?

It shows that at this budget, it is not quite on top of the line DAC-level (costing 3-4 times as much), but in the audible range it can be safely assumed that there's no issue. Noise, distortion (harmonic and intermodulation) are far more important measures and these are all excellent. The Khadas shows roughly the same THD+N ratio and is audibly absolutely transparent. D10s is just as much, but with even better distortion measurements.

 

[Guetta]

It shows that at this budget, it is not quite on top of the line DAC-level (costing 3-4 times as much), but in the audible range it can be safely assumed that there's no issue. Noise, distortion (harmonic and intermodulation) are far more important measures and these are all excellent.

I understand, thanks.

What do you think about 'ESS hump' on Khadas Tone Board and other ESS Sabre based DACs? Is that part issue?

 

[Veri]

What do you think about 'ESS hump' on Khadas Tone Board and other ESS Sabre based DACs? Is that part issue?

It's hard to say since no real research has been done on this phenomenon. Without tests it's hard to say for sure. But it looks bad enough in some cases that it could very well border on an audible problem. I would take comfort in having a DAC that shows no IMD hump issue. But who knows, it could very well be a non-issue.

 

[BDWoody]

What do you think about 'ESS hump' on Khadas Tone Board and other ESS Sabre based DACs? Is that part issue?

It's funny...while I realize it is highly unlikely I would be able to hear any impact from the dreaded 'hump,' I would also avoid it, since it is so easy to do so. It is basically a solved problem now from what I understand. Too many choices without it to have to deal with that nagging voice in the back of my mind...