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Topping D30 DAC Measurement and Review

Grave

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The worse it measures the better it sounds! That's the way it is supposed to be!
 
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Hukkaz

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Managed to get myself a D30 for the very reasonable price of 95€ (Amazon.de). Been enjoying it for a week now with various sources of HQ media and I must say I'm highly impressed. Great build quality and refreshingly clear sound. Works perfectly with my Genelec setup. Highly recommended.
 

Ron Texas

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My Topping D30 arrived this evening via UPS from Parts Express. I will spare you the unboxing video. However, the unit was very warm out of the box, so I hope the UPS driver was well hydrated.

I connected it to my hi-fi, flicked the on switch and nothing happened. Thats because I forgot to connect the 15v dc switching power supply first. Ok, now it works. I was immediately transported to the Bifrost at Asgard... Not really, but there are a few Marvel/Thor movies if you are into that.

Instead of the supplied USB interconnect, I used the one which comes with an Audioengine D1. It is 2' long, looks well shielded, and has gold plated connectors. They sell it for $40, so it obviously must have magical properties.

Subjective evaluation methodology:
2 oz bourbon on the rocks, finish and repeat. I feel sorry for Europeans, because it is very difficult for them to buy American whiskey.

SQ: hints of raspberry, tobacco, tannin, citrus and arsenic. OK, most subjective impressions are BS. The Audioengine D1 I pulled out of the system was fairly new. It doesn't work at 88.2 (as advertised) with JRiver on WASAPi, or on a Mac. Perhaps the 2012 USB code is out of date. It always sounded a little dull compared to other dac's I had around here. Then again, my Grace M9xx didn't sound right on speakers until I turned down the hardware volume control 6db from what is supposed to be neutral. It kicks ass with headphones. Go figure. Anyway, the D30 sounds fine. It only cost $120, parts express has a 45 day return policy, and lots of people like it. This is a low risk deal. Think of all those poor schmucks who bought Yaggi's after reading reviews written from golden eared monkeys...

Some serious objective observations. The D30 is well behaved. There are no noticeable clicks or pops when rebooting my Win 10 computer. I only tried a short term sleep and wake, no pop. However, long term sleep might be different. Very tiny clicks when changing bitrates in JRiver, none noticed in foobar2000. I used to have a loud click switching from WASAPI audio programs to VLC (it's DS). That's gone with the D30. Apparently, the D30 has an internal hardware volume control. The Win 10 volume control works when using WASAPI. There is a blue power LED which is barely visible even with the lights off. The red unlock LED only comes on when rebooting the computer. Turning the amp off and on did not crash the DAC. I have not tried sending DSD to the DAC, but that's academic in my case because I use a DSP for bass management with my LS50's

Windows 10 says this DAC is 32bit/384. No way, all I can get out of it is 192/32. That 32 bit thing is odd because I thought this was a 24 bit DAC. Perhaps it digests 32 bit data and ignores the least significant 8 bits. Even JRiver said it was sending 32 bits when set to automatic bit depth. Perhaps one of the technical wizards around here can shed some light on this behavior

The soft feet on the nice silver case keep the unit in place even when connected to a rather heavy RCA interconnect. It's late here, and tomorrow is likely to be another awful August day of heat and humidity. What should I listen to?
 

Guermantes

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It's late here, and tomorrow is likely to be another awful August day of heat and humidity. What should I listen to?
71Jt%2BNzwg-L._SL1200_.jpg
 
OP
amirm

amirm

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Windows 10 says this DAC is 32bit/384. No way, all I can get out of it is 192/32. That 32 bit thing is odd because I thought this was a 24 bit DAC. Perhaps it digests 32 bit data and ignores the least significant 8 bits.
A lot of modern DAC ICs accept 32 bit samples. It allows them to differentiate the new ICs from last generation "24" bit parts. :)

Here is ESS for example:

1534220617850.png
 

Ron Texas

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A lot of modern DAC ICs accept 32 bit samples. It allows them to differentiate the new ICs from last generation "24" bit parts. :)

I could be the XMOS USB receiver has been changed. I don't know anything about the CS DAC chip in the D30. I can't complain, it's a bonus.
 

Ron Texas

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FWIW, the internal volume control in the D30 does not work with DSD input.
 

Krunok

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FWIW, the internal volume control in the D30 does not work with DSD input.

That has nothing to do with D30 but with the specifics of DSD format - DSD output can work only if DAC volume is set to 100%. ;)
 

Transpareo

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My Topping D30 arrived this evening via UPS from Parts Express. I will spare you the unboxing video. However, the unit was very warm out of the box, so I hope the UPS driver was well hydrated.

I connected it to my hi-fi, flicked the on switch and nothing happened. Thats because I forgot to connect the 15v dc switching power supply first. Ok, now it works. I was immediately transported to the Bifrost at Asgard... Not really, but there are a few Marvel/Thor movies if you are into that.

Instead of the supplied USB interconnect, I used the one which comes with an Audioengine D1. It is 2' long, looks well shielded, and has gold plated connectors. They sell it for $40, so it obviously must have magical properties.

Subjective evaluation methodology:
2 oz bourbon on the rocks, finish and repeat. I feel sorry for Europeans, because it is very difficult for them to buy American whiskey.

SQ: hints of raspberry, tobacco, tannin, citrus and arsenic. OK, most subjective impressions are BS. The Audioengine D1 I pulled out of the system was fairly new. It doesn't work at 88.2 (as advertised) with JRiver on WASAPi, or on a Mac. Perhaps the 2012 USB code is out of date. It always sounded a little dull compared to other dac's I had around here. Then again, my Grace M9xx didn't sound right on speakers until I turned down the hardware volume control 6db from what is supposed to be neutral. It kicks ass with headphones. Go figure. Anyway, the D30 sounds fine. It only cost $120, parts express has a 45 day return policy, and lots of people like it. This is a low risk deal. Think of all those poor schmucks who bought Yaggi's after reading reviews written from golden eared monkeys...

Some serious objective observations. The D30 is well behaved. There are no noticeable clicks or pops when rebooting my Win 10 computer. I only tried a short term sleep and wake, no pop. However, long term sleep might be different. Very tiny clicks when changing bitrates in JRiver, none noticed in foobar2000. I used to have a loud click switching from WASAPI audio programs to VLC (it's DS). That's gone with the D30. Apparently, the D30 has an internal hardware volume control. The Win 10 volume control works when using WASAPI. There is a blue power LED which is barely visible even with the lights off. The red unlock LED only comes on when rebooting the computer. Turning the amp off and on did not crash the DAC. I have not tried sending DSD to the DAC, but that's academic in my case because I use a DSP for bass management with my LS50's

Windows 10 says this DAC is 32bit/384. No way, all I can get out of it is 192/32. That 32 bit thing is odd because I thought this was a 24 bit DAC. Perhaps it digests 32 bit data and ignores the least significant 8 bits. Even JRiver said it was sending 32 bits when set to automatic bit depth. Perhaps one of the technical wizards around here can shed some light on this behavior

The soft feet on the nice silver case keep the unit in place even when connected to a rather heavy RCA interconnect. It's late here, and tomorrow is likely to be another awful August day of heat and humidity. What should I listen to?
Honestly, not happy hearing about pops and cracks not disappearing completely. The main reason I want to replace my current o2odac with d30 is because it is being marketed as pop-less device with async interface. Also, theoretically I would be getting reduced latency, closer to MB CODEC, with usb audio 2.0 driver. Eh, I will purchase it eventually ofc, it's not that expensive, but I'm getting a feeling, that in the end, I'm just gonna say "Screw all that hifi box collecting shenanigan bs" and plug my MD+ IEM's back into actually pop-less and instantiations ALC1150. It's drivers are atrocious though, good god.
Thanks for the review.
 

Ron Texas

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@Transpareo no DAC I ever had was 100% popless, but I don't get many out of the D30. I did find the play silence with DoP setting in Jriver to be helpful. So far I am using Windows 10 navive USB 2 and have not bothered to install the drivers. It's anti climatic as the D30 just sits there turning bits into music with a dim blue led and that's it. I should go to the range. That's a sure cure for boredom.
 

Ron Texas

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I have never heard any pops from D10 driven by Volumio.
Never? That might be your Raspberry Pi is a totally different bit of hardware than my N3700 NUC. I could probably get it to pop since I have a knack for mischief. I will say this, pops out of the D30 are rare and difficult to duplicate.
 

Krunok

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Never? That might be your Raspberry Pi is a totally different bit of hardware than my N3700 NUC. I could probably get it to pop since I have a knack for mischief. I will say this, pops out of the D30 are rare and difficult to duplicate.

Never. I think it's more due to the fact it's using MPD under Unix than due to RPIs hardware. If you have some kind of recipe to make pops I can try it and report back.
 

Ron Texas

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Never. I think it's more due to the fact it's using MPD under Unix than due to RPIs hardware. If you have some kind of recipe to make pops I can try it and report back.
The point is I don't have a way to reliably reproduce that one pop per day. It might be because the computer was sitting idle for a while. One of these days I am going to play with one of those R Pi's.
 
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