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Topping D30Pro Review (Balanced DAC)

tvrgeek

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Found the WellTempered Computer page. Looks like some help.
It does explain a few mysteries, such as why some recommending setting windows volume ay 98%, not 100. Several other issues where WAE messes with the bits. That explains why the computer even with this fancy almost perfect DAC does not sound as nice as my old Rotel CD player. But, looks like there is hope. Though it it stutters again, it is going back!

Going to bring it over to my desktop where I can work out all the configuration.
 

MaxBuck

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No question, the Topping got a little better after a couple of days. My Parasound amp took several weeks for some of the edge to come off.
Neither my D30Pro nor my NAD C298 power amp got better, nor gained or lost "edges." So I guess you're lucky.

Or not.
 

ninetylol

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Found the WellTempered Computer page. Looks like some help.
It does explain a few mysteries, such as why some recommending setting windows volume ay 98%, not 100. Several other issues where WAE messes with the bits. That explains why the computer even with this fancy almost perfect DAC does not sound as nice as my old Rotel CD player. But, looks like there is hope. Though it it stutters again, it is going back!

Going to bring it over to my desktop where I can work out all the configuration.
Any link? Havent seen a definite answer so far configuring Windows outside of WASAPI.
 

tvrgeek

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Links so far. Some with, some without. JDS and Focusrite also had some comments on config. If you search configuring windows for audio" you get the advice on power management, bit rates, and extra crap running. Things doing updates in the background are killers. As I am not currently streaming, I kill the network, wi-fi, and BT, so I can stop MalwareBytes and Defender. I turn them back on before I do monthly maintenance. I wish I had better process to process listing on what Windows actually needs to run. I am sure about half of what I have left. We need an actual list, not "turn off what you don't need" It would boot quicker I bet!

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/equalizer-apo-and-asio.19520/

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...nding-the-windows-audio-quality-debate.19438/

https://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/KB/WASAPI.htm

https://sourceforge.net/p/equalizerapo/discussion/general/thread/219a3df5f3/
 

tvrgeek

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Neither my D30Pro nor my NAD C298 power amp got better, nor gained or lost "edges." So I guess you're lucky.

Or not.
Do note, the differences were small, but clear to me and more so to my wife. She has very sensitive hearing.
So, how do you like the NAD? It's on my short list along with March if I go class D. If AB, it is Atoll for "flavor" or Vidar and Benchmark for clean.
 

tvrgeek

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OK, I had forgotten APO needs to be added to each device. So it is now in the loop with the Topping driver, but I assume, using Windows Media Player, it is using WAE. So to use WASAPI I have to switch players, and then add Voicemeter?
 

MaxBuck

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Do note, the differences were small, but clear to me and more so to my wife. She has very sensitive hearing.
So, how do you like the NAD? It's on my short list along with March if I go class D. If AB, it is Atoll for "flavor" or Vidar and Benchmark for clean.
I love my NAD C298. It's clean as a whistle.
 

tvrgeek

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Thanks. A bit mire than I wanted to pay, but was the first class D where the reviewer had nothing to say. No flavor, just an amp. Compared to all the previous class D I have heard, that is a huge advance! It was well reviewed by Amirm's bench measurements.

Applying something close to the Walker Curve has proved it is more a matter of the room and eq than DAC. Not completely but largely. The right answer may be adding a choke to the tweeter. Give me a first order LP @ 4000 or 6000. Maybe switchable. 4-5-6 and forgo the host based mess. The LF corrections were al less than a couple DB. Audible but hard to say which is correct.

Digging into FOOBAR to test WASAPI on the D30. Found out everything is add-ins. It may do what I want if I can dig deep enough.
Another thread said post Vista/7, Windows does not screw up the audio path, so using the default or Topping driver and APO is fine. No reason to load the WASAPI or ASIO plugins for Foobar/Jriver/ etc. with Voicemeter. But still contradictory if I should say 16 , 24 or 32 bits to give Windows the "room" to play. Pretty consistent on picking the correct sample rate. I THINK, WASAPI makes that correct dynamically.

Waiting to see if it stutters again. So far today has been fine. The files it failed on the other day played fine. I don't want to blame the DAC if it was the PC.

No one has piped in with what I don't get if I run the generic Windows driver. In reality, for CD and maybe some HD files, what is the D30 buying me? Through cans, I can hear a tiny difference in super low level detail, but not through the speakers and that is what I want it for. I do get remote volume. Don't need the Schiit as a preamp, but lose it as a head amp. Don't listen to cans anyway except on my desk for Y-tubes in the morning when the wife is asleep. Maybe I am wrong, but all the super duper features only apply if I go to some streaming services for insane bit and sample rates or the ugly MPQ. Whatever the DSD something is.

If I never need past 24/96, does it matter?

Is the volume done in the digital domain, or is it a chip in the analog?


I think I am still confirming, once one reaches a "decent" DAC, differences sonically are tiny. Would a Gustard or Cord actually sound different through speakers? An R2R? Granted, there are a lot that do sound different. Worse. And some are very expensive!

Well, I need to listen some more. Maybe another Brown Betty Heff. Interesting ale, not the usual Heff. Strong wheat note on the nose, but not in the flavor. I want something crisp but not as sweet as Blue Moon or as dry as Hoppium.
 

Veri

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If I never need past 24/96, does it matter?

I think I am still confirming, once one reaches a "decent" DAC, differences sonically are tiny.
A conclusion many audiophile spenders fear to admit. So, kudos. About using the Windows driver, you need ASIO to interface with professional/studio applications, so that's one reason one might want to install the driver. The "general purpose" windows drive is, well, meant for general purpose :D
 

Gradius

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The D30 Pro is a nice DAC, but it does not accept digital in from my CD players and CD transport (Audiolab CDT6000) without skipping. These all work perfectly with my other DACs.
Perharps the culprit here is the copy protection from SPDIF/Toslink.

Try a cheaper chinese toslink to coax adapter, or the inverse. Those normally disable all copy protection present on SPDIF.

They did the same for HDMI (yeah, it's ilegal, but they did it anyway). This is why is posible to capture videos from HDMI from some time now.
 

tvrgeek

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Never heard of copy protection on CD, only SACD. It can be defeated on a PS-3. I doubt it would cause dropouts, just not work at all. I can't imagine a physical layer converter to magically supply the key. It might fix whatever level or quality problem is being had. If it works with other DACS, then Michaelc has a bad one. I will test tomorrow as I need it for the OPPO output. If SACD is protected, then there is no reason I am keeping my OPPO. It also means I would never buy one because I could not rip it into my music server.

So, the reason to keep the Topping is DSD which has to be done in the DAC or else it does not make sense. Looking at various libraries of DSD. Sony has some titles that I might want. But $45 for a CD won't fly, so I can see why it failed along with SACD. Sony greed killed them both. If a CD was $12, and a SACD was $15, it would have taken off. Give me a break, U4K movie does not cost that much! I have read enough I don't want to fool with MQA. Add to the list of other grievances I have with Sony.

So, it looks like the D30 is a really good DAC full of features I don't need. Dropouts among them. I'll use it a couple more days listening for a dropout. If so, it is toast. If not, I have to decide if I like it's convivence and want my Schiit on my desk where I do use headphones. It is a nice bit of kit and sounds pretty good. That is what it is supposed to do.

Again: Is the volume done in the digital domain, or is it a chip in the analog?
 

MCH

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Yes, copy protected CDs exist, and no, the problems with CD players and D30pro are independent of the CD being copy protected or not.
 

tvrgeek

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Amir, I know you measured at 4.148 Vrms for consistency, but does it go higher? This is useful info when considering using it with an amp that prefers a bit more. And thanks for the review.
Industry specs for both SE and balanced. If you need more, get a preamp with more overhead. Maybe, are you driving 100 feet of cable? As the DAC is the source, they have an advantage of knowing what the maximum input is, so they make the amp based on that. With a preamp, they do not know so more gain is usual.
 

tvrgeek

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Topping instructions for ASIO for FOOBAR are missing a couple of steps. That is going into the ASIO panel and making several selections. Most were a guess as again, no instructions. Sure, a professional recording engineer knows these things, but not consumers.

Anyway, running ASIO output from FOOBAR. Still fighting the FOOBAR UI but at least I can download some sample files to see if all this stuff works. Figured out you have to run ASIO to run DSD. WASAPI does not. I think.

BTW, like to give a shout out to the supplier from Amazon: AOSHIDA. They seem quite concerned with the dropout-stutter. Most resellers are " Eh" I am hope it was a Windows glitch as it happened only a few times and has not reoccurred, though my PC is stripped down, no background updates, scans etc. My MUSE, NAD, OPPO, and SCHIIT never once stuttered. Even doing security scans and application background updates. Microsoft does to things that don't show up in the process list. I will say "sneaky bastards" but what I really would like to say is inappropriate for this forum. Really thinking I should have built a Raspberry PI server. It has been a long time, but I used to be able to make UNIX sing and dance. If I could find the drivers, I guess I could put Ubantu on the thing. Another project I don't have time for. No, not a Mac. I hate Apple almost as much as I hate Sony.
 

tvrgeek

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Swapped my new cap bank old MOSFET back in the chain. 90% fix for the harshness. I think I'll leave the Topping in the stereo and put the Schiit on my desk as a big headphones upgrade. Now if I can just get FOOBAR or JRiver UI to make sense, I can run WASAPI and bypass the Windows resampling and re-dithering. The D30 IS cleaner and more detailed than the Schiit Asgard/AKM DAC, and walk by better than the old Wolfson, so for a cheapskate engineer who also believes in subjectivism I think the Topping is a winner. A year ago I would have believed no difference.
 

tvrgeek

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I am sad to say I am returning it to Amazon. No question it is sonically supurb. It comes down to two issues
A couple of skips/stuttering that I could not blame on the host computer
An incompatibility between the WMP ASIO plug in from Source Forge and the Topping driver. It will not run ASIO. It will with the Winyl player. It does to my Fosgate. What would be a small problem I would overlook turns out to be the exact use I need. I have spent about 20 hours on this bug and need to move on.
 

MaximXXL

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I may have missed this information - does the Topping d30 pro have a galvanic isolation of the usb input?
 

MaxBuck

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I am sad to say I am returning it to Amazon. No question it is sonically supurb. It comes down to two issues
A couple of skips/stuttering that I could not blame on the host computer
An incompatibility between the WMP ASIO plug in from Source Forge and the Topping driver. It will not run ASIO. It will with the Winyl player. It does to my Fosgate. What would be a small problem I would overlook turns out to be the exact use I need. I have spent about 20 hours on this bug and need to move on.
Sorry you encountered what seems like a fatal flaw for your use of this DAC. Hope you're able to find a good replacement.
 

tvrgeek

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Sorry you encountered what seems like a fatal flaw for your use of this DAC. Hope you're able to find a good replacement.
Very disappointed as it DOES sound very nice. I am giving JRiver one last try before I drop it off. If I am not stuck with WMP and the driver incompatibility, I would rather keep it. So Schiit for now. That Denafriz and Gustard are both tempting as well as Bifrost. but moving on for now.
 
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