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Topping D30Pro Review (Balanced DAC)

Thanks, as ever, for the review. (Loved the video by the way - a really natural presentation). I was looking forward to this after spotting an early review on Mr. Wolf's (also excellent) site. This looks very promising (subject, of course, to the as yet unknown price). I do hope Topping have enough of the CS43198 chips to meet demand - when I looked on Mouser Electronics they were talking about a lead time of over 6 months! Please reassure us Mr. Yang!
 
It's impressive how much DACs have gotten better since 2007 when the WM8741/2 came out.
And yet, for the Quant Asylum QA402, they switched to the PCM1794A from 2003ish after the AKM fire. It seems to be able to hold its own, which I would not at all have expected from its data sheet.
 
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Heck, I didn't realize this product used such a pricy IC, ouch, I just looked it up, and I've read in this thread that the D30 pro use 4 of em. I wasn't seeing this, price TBD, but are we looking at some higher end, near flagship territory here? by Topping naming convention... 30 normally means cheap, this is an expensive design, unless they've really cut corner at PSU, but the numbers are good too...

The single unit price at Mouser is €11.40 for either CS43131 or CD43198. On the other hand, there is a bunch of dongle DACs with two CS43131 to be had for about € 50 retail, or the Meizu dongle with one of them for less than € 20.
 
AK5394A level was -110 dB THD+N.
I consider AK557x a downgrade especially when recording at single speed, though it is compensated by the ability to record at higher sample rates (384/768kHz) to deal with the aliasing and ripple.

I think this site is still using a (modded?) E-MU 1820m as the analyzer, which uses AK5394A.
https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/about.php#gsc.tab=0

The best ADC I have at this moment is a PCM4220.
 
Yes, for the RTX-6001, JensH started out with the AK5397 but went to the venerable AK5394A, which had poorer S/N but better THD and a much higher noise corner. I am not aware of any ADC using an AK 557x that has gained a good reputation for measurements.

The PCM4220 was designed into the QA-402 after the fire. From Matt's blog posts at the quant asylum page, it seems to be another gem that didn't sparkle in its data sheet.

What board or ADC model does your PCM4220 live in?
 
What board or ADC model does your PCM4220 live in?
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-asus-with-a-pcie-sound-card.6104/post-199165
RMAA report with default settings included. Actually limited by the DAC (PCM1794A) because if I turn down the DAC output, THD+N could be improved to 100dB. Anyway not something you would be interested and it is a discontinued product as well.

For example, I used the soundcard above to measure a Realtek ALC892, though not the same motherboard and other components but my results are cleaner than what Archimago did with a Forusrite Forte.
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-sample-rate-is-enough.4037/page-3#post-95240
 
You mean loopback test and there is a sweetspot at -10 to -20 dB output? That is very common, happens in the QA-400, 401 and RTX.6001, too.
 
I consider AK557x a downgrade especially when recording at single speed, though it is compensated by the ability to record at higher sample rates (384/768kHz) to deal with the aliasing and ripple.

I think this site is still using a (modded?) E-MU 1820m as the analyzer, which uses AK5394A.
https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/about.php#gsc.tab=0

The best ADC I have at this moment is a PCM4220.

Yep, AK5394A outperforms it's THD+N from the datasheet in several implementations.

Do you know how PCM4220/4222 compare to CS5381? They seem to be closely matched. The DNR is better on PCM4220 but CS5381 might have lower distortion near 0 dBFS.
 
You mean loopback test and there is a sweetspot at -10 to -20 dB output? That is very common, happens in the QA-400, 401 and RTX.6001, too.
I suppose not the same thing since you are talking about specialized analyzers but mine is a soundcard. Output volume is controlled digitally via the card's CA20k2 DSP/controller. Creative tuned the PCM1794A in a way that it has high DNR, but also higher distortion at higher volume. The Realtek ALC892 for example, has poorer results but at high volume, the degradation added by THD alone is lower than the soundcard's PCM1794A output, like this:
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...hen-turning-down-the-volume.11533/post-331619
 
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Quite an attractive product! Hoping for a price of around 250€, though I am not sure if that's a realistic estimate.
 
Quite an attractive product! Hoping for a price of around 250€, though I am not sure if that's a realistic estimate.
$300/€250 seems reasonable. Especially in a D30Pro+A30Pro deal, €500 both. Perhaps individually a little bit pricier then.
 
If choosing between this and the D90, what extras/performance/benefits am I getting with the D90?
 
Well, if you go by Amir's measurements, the D30 Pro sits at -135 dB HD2 and -138 dB HD3 with a noise level of about -155 dB (after averaging), and the D90 is at -132 dB HD2 and HD3 each with about -159 dB noise (assuming the analyzer settings were the same).

I don't think you need the HD performance in audio, and it is questionable if this difference is really there (interaction between source and analyzer nonlinearities), but the D30 Pro seems to come out on top, and just as a measurement source, I would choose the D30 Pro.


Amir, I noticed you always do the 1 kHz FFT at full output. How about testing also at say -6 and -12 dB where many DACs have their sweet spot?
 
Well, if you go by Amir's measurements, the D30 Pro sits at -135 dB HD2 and -138 dB HD3 with a noise level of about -155 dB (after averaging), and the D90 is at -132 dB HD2 and HD3 each with about -159 dB noise (assuming the analyzer settings were the same).

I don't think you need the HD performance in audio, and it is questionable if this difference is really there (interaction between source and analyzer nonlinearities), but the D30 Pro seems to come out on top, and just as a measurement source, I would choose the D30 Pro.


Amir, I noticed you always do the 1 kHz FFT at full output. How about testing also at say -6 and -12 dB where many DACs have their sweet spot?
Actually no. The sweet spot of THD+N (SINAD)is usually 0dBFS, especially when the harmonics are low(lower than -120db). It's the THD that has a sweet spot. But that's also often not the case now with these new chips and when implemented well.
 
I can probably drag up a few examples where THD grows out of proportion on the last few dB before full scale, but you are right, this is not generally true. However, S/N is of concern mainly for studio use. For audiophile use, I am way more concerned about HD than I am about whether the noise floor is -130 or -135 dB. Same goes for lab use, optimizing DACs or amps. Pretty much every soundcard or analyzer I have played with (nothing beyond the RTX price wise, though) had a THD sweet spot below full scale.
 
I can probably drag up a few examples where THD grows out of proportion on the last few dB before full scale, but you are right, this is not generally true. However, S/N is of concern mainly for studio use. For audiophile use, I am way more concerned about HD than I am about whether the noise floor is -130 or -135 dB. Same goes for lab use, optimizing DACs or amps. Pretty much every soundcard or analyzer I have played with (nothing beyond the RTX price wise, though) had a THD sweet spot below full scale.
It's just not really true for D30pro. And pretty much all dacs with ESS chip.
Yeah the soundcards you played around with(I did too) have such behavior. But this is just a result of cheap chips/ old chips/ poor design. Or they could have set to the sweetspot already (like d70s).
So what's the deal. You will find more DACs without that behavior with even better performance in the future. ADCs too.
 
I can probably drag up a few examples where THD grows out of proportion on the last few dB before full scale, but you are right, this is not generally true. However, S/N is of concern mainly for studio use. For audiophile use, I am way more concerned about HD than I am about whether the noise floor is -130 or -135 dB. Same goes for lab use, optimizing DACs or amps. Pretty much every soundcard or analyzer I have played with (nothing beyond the RTX price wise, though) had a THD sweet spot below full scale.
It could be interesting to do this extra tests, as probably other as well, but Amir can't test everything. Now I believe that the reference should still be 0DBFS, and if THD up there is problematic, I'd rather see it than find the "sweet spot". As many other that have a mix of sources and use preamp and analog volume. I have always left my DACs unattenuated. I have nothing against digital attenuation, you either use it or you don't, but I don't think there are many users that would think it's OK to have to bring it down a bit of two as default because it doesn't perform optimally at full Dynamic range.
 
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