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Topping D30 still the best ~$100 DAC?

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I’m not an audio engineer, and probably what you say is right, also I believe that’s it should be practically impossible to tell apart 2 high end dacs, say a dCS and a Benchmark, BUT in the moment you hear the highs or the guitar, or even the bass on a cheap dac, you feel smth is not right.
I got the D30 and for some time I enjoyed the spidf and the usb input, but in the moment I put back a cd player, music kicked again.
It may be that the Topping was a later revision and not what Amir measured, but I’m not going to spend more money on cheap dacs.
You've made your point......a long time ago. Time to give it a rest.
 

jsrtheta

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No, that’s exactly what a dac does.
I’ve always thought that the speakers are the most important part in the chain, but they probably are the most easy component to tell apart, not the most important.
If your source is bad then speakers can’t help. Well the 0 and 1 are bit exact but the timing may be wrong.
I enjoy Amir measurement, because if a dac measure bad it doesn’t deserve a chance, but I don’t agree when he says that the differences are not audible..
I can’t tell apart my cd players if I listen for few seconds blind, but I know their sound caracteristics after listening to each of them, for years.

There's one way to tell: double-blind testing. Without that, your claims will remain just that - claims, not proof of anything.
 

sonci

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$350
https://www.stereophile.com/content/marantz-cd5004-cd-player-marantz-cd5004-cd-player-measurements
311Marfig7.jpg


$3000
https://www.stereophile.com/content/marantz-reference-sa-ki-pearl-sacdcd-player-measurements
710KIPfig11.jpg

710KIPfig12.jpg


Not saying they will sound different, but a bit funny.

I think there are a lot of things in digital audio that we don't comprend yet. The 3k$ Marantz should sound stunning. I doubt Marantz has priced it only for the heavy case, but the cheaper one probably sound good too, and there should be audible differences, while of course one can prefer the cheaper one.

I find it hard to believe that nobody here has a cd player and at least one or two cd, please turn them on and let them them spin for some time, then compare to the same ripped files on a Dac, and get back here..
unless your dac is double the price of the player I find it hardly to sound better.
 

Roen

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I think there are a lot of things in digital audio that we don't comprend yet. The 3k$ Marantz should sound stunning. I doubt Marantz has priced it only for the heavy case, but the cheaper one probably sound good too, and there should be audible differences, while of course one can prefer the cheaper one.

I find it hard to believe that nobody here has a cd player and at least one or two cd, please turn them on and let them them spin for some time, then compare to the same ripped files on a Dac, and get back here..
unless your dac is double the price of the player I find it hardly to sound better.
You'd be surprised how much double-blind ABX testing disproves your claims of things being expensive sounding better. That's pretty much the only scientific way of testing what sounds better.
 

Krunok

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Well unless your dac is $6k I find it hardly to sound better!
:rolleyes:o_O:facepalm:

Even in that case it's very likely there would be no difference - I believe a DAC like SMSL SU-8 V2 can boldly survive blind test with no difference detected even with the best DACs tested here.
 

Bliman

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Plenty of "audiophile" CD players sound as "bad" as the Topping, because they sound the same. (Or even worse.) "Separate instruments" and the like are the domain of speakers, not DACs. There is damned little a DAC can do for imaging, "depth," and the rest because 1s are 1s, and 0s are 0s. What I've seen on this site is measured differences in DACs that, by and large, are inaudible. There are outliers, of course, but they tend to suffer from power supply problems and audible distortion. Do those affect imaging? I suppose in the most extreme cases they would. But the acoustic properties you mention are simply not the job of the DAC. They are characteristics of rooms and speakers, which vary wildly compared to DACs. Which audibly vary little.

Unless you're talking NOS or mid-'80s.
I am not a techical guy at all. But in my main system I have a Grace Design m902 set up as pre amplifier. Now I have bought a new headphone and when I play the same music through the computer's dac or through the Grace there is an enormous difference in depth , imaging and detail. It also sounds like there is some noise removed and this all with the same headphone.
So why is this the case? Has this nothing to do with the dac do you think?
I find this interesting because if a dac is just a dac then I can just buy a atom amp and be done with it. Or is a dac just a dac but does the difference lie with the components around it?
 

Roen

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I am not a techical guy at all. But in my main system I have a Grace Design m902 set up as pre amplifier. Now I have bought a new headphone and when I play the same music through the computer's dac or through the Grace there is an enormous difference in depth , imaging and detail. It also sounds like there is some noise removed and this all with the same headphone.
So why is this the case? Has this nothing to do with the dac do you think?
I find this interesting because if a dac is just a dac then I can just buy a atom amp and be done with it. Or is a dac just a dac but does the difference lie with the components around it?

Computers (motherboard audio) suffer from EM interference, so that’s where you could be deriving your performance benefits.
 

Bliman

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Computers (motherboard audio) suffer from EM interference, so that’s where you could be deriving your performance benefits.
That's certainly possible. Would that be visible in the measurements if taken (like the graphs you see here)?
And if so in what measurement would you see this EM?
 

Roen

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That's certainly possible. Would that be visible in the measurements if taken (like the graphs you see here)?
And if so in what measurement would you see this EM?
It would most likely show up as lower SINAD.
 

Hypnotoad

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Got a Topping D30 the other day, and after ditching the dodgy plug adaptor on the wallwart, and installing drivers and Foobar2000 I'm please to say I'm really impressed with the little cheap DAC. Using it in a bedroom connected via USB to an old PC with Win XP it performs well. Nice clear, clean and sort of laid back, typical of the OPA2134 output op amp. Plays all music files I have without a hitch. For the price it's allowed me to get great sound instead of using the onboard Realtek HD sound.

For the price its a winner IMO.
 

jsrtheta

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No, that’s exactly what a dac does.
I’ve always thought that the speakers are the most important part in the chain, but they probably are the most easy component to tell apart, not the most important.
If your source is bad then speakers can’t help. Well the 0 and 1 are bit exact but the timing may be wrong.
I enjoy Amir measurement, because if a dac measure bad it doesn’t deserve a chance, but I don’t agree when he says that the differences are not audible..
I can’t tell apart my cd players if I listen for few seconds blind, but I know their sound caracteristics after listening to each of them, for years.

Funny. You shouldn't need your eyes to tell you how something sounds. No wonder you can tell a "difference"! You're not listening.
 
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