Topping D70s MQA Review (DAC)

[direstraitsfan98]

D70...

 

[SHENZHENAUDIO]

D70...

Does the issue still exist after you change other players? Or pls try to change USB-port, USB cable.

 

[kkeretic]

does anybody have an issue with their d70 where occasionally, while opening and closing programs (happens when I close mpc media player usually after fininshing a video or movie) something will mess up, windows 10 wont recognize the dac anymore and you'll need to turn the dac off and on to reset?

Happened to me maybe 2-3 times in almost a year of use.

 

[nighteagle]

does anybody have an issue with their d70 where occasionally, while opening and closing programs (happens when I close mpc media player usually after fininshing a video or movie) something will mess up, windows 10 wont recognize the dac anymore and you'll need to turn the dac off and on to reset?

Have you tried installing the latest drivers? V4.86 driver for E30, D10, D10s, D50, D50s, D70, D70s, D90, DX3 Pro, DX7 Pro.-TOPPING (tpdz.net)

 

[Atanasi]

Here you go

How do you like the UX? Are controls responsive etc.?

 

[nighteagle]

How do you like the UX? Are controls responsive etc.?

Its responsive. No problems with that. Sound is excellent for my ear. I have not had enough time to play with it yet to talk fully about it.

It looks good. Feels like good quality. It's heavy.

I love that you can set it to turn off the display after 30 seconds.

Also thanks to SHENZHENAUDIO for fast delivery

The manual could have been much better. A good manual would have answered the thing I wonder about below.

It could have had one buttons named options/settings with access to settings on the device. Maybe there is one with a dual function (not looked for it yet (used the remote so far). I have not figured out how to disable bluetooth yet. Or if it's disabled by default. But again not had enough time to look for it

Also the remote could have had buttons with names.

When choosing modes the device could have told me that Mode 3 was default. It just says Mode 1 - 6 (the manual said 3 was default). Maybe had a name after. F example Mode 1 Name, Mode 2 Name, Mode 3 Default, Mode 4 Name, Mode 5 Name, Mode 6 Name.

 

[Rottmannash]

Its responsive. No problems with that. Sound is excellent for my ear. I have not had enough time to play with it yet to talk fully about it.

It looks good. Feels like good quality. It's heavy.

I love that you can set it to turn off the display after 30 seconds.

Also thanks to SHENZHENAUDIO for fast delivery

The manual could have been much better. A good manual would have answered the thing I wonder about below.

It could have had one buttons named options/settings with access to settings on the device. Maybe there is one with a dual function (not looked for it yet (used the remote so far). I have not figured out how to disable bluetooth yet. Or if it's disabled by default. But again not had enough time to look for it

Also the remote could have had buttons with names.

When choosing modes the device could have told me that Mode 3 was default. It just says Mode 1 - 6 (the manual said 3 was default). Maybe had a name after. F example Mode 1 Name, Mode 2 Name, Mode 3 Default, Mode 4 Name, Mode 5 Name, Mode 6 Name.

Do u mean the filters? If so there's a description in the manual. It's a personal preference thing, although most can't hear an audible difference between any of them.

 

[nighteagle]

Do u mean the filters? If so there's a description in the manual. It's a personal preference thing, although most can't hear an audible difference between any of them.

Found it thx. Also found how to turn of bluetooth. Have to press and hold the sel button while powering the device on to enter the setup menu. Well turns out what I said about the manual was wrong. All is good then

 

[SHENZHENAUDIO]

Its responsive. No problems with that. Sound is excellent for my ear. I have not had enough time to play with it yet to talk fully about it.

It looks good. Feels like good quality. It's heavy.

I love that you can set it to turn off the display after 30 seconds.

Also thanks to SHENZHENAUDIO for fast delivery

The manual could have been much better. A good manual would have answered the thing I wonder about below.

It could have had one buttons named options/settings with access to settings on the device. Maybe there is one with a dual function (not looked for it yet (used the remote so far). I have not figured out how to disable bluetooth yet. Or if it's disabled by default. But again not had enough time to look for it

Also the remote could have had buttons with names.

When choosing modes the device could have told me that Mode 3 was default. It just says Mode 1 - 6 (the manual said 3 was default). Maybe had a name after. F example Mode 1 Name, Mode 2 Name, Mode 3 Default, Mode 4 Name, Mode 5 Name, Mode 6 Name.

Thanks for your feedback, as well.

 

[marsboer]

Is volume regulation via USB supported (for DAC volume adjustment from OS) on D70S or are there still a compatibility issue with the XU216 chip as mentioned in the D90 MQA thread.

 

[Gerryh]

Hi there, has anyone had issues with this dac and MQA streams? I am using Roon for playback with an ethernet wired Pi4 running the latest version of Ropieee XL. USB in to the dac.

Setup is : Pi4 4gb with RopieeeXL (Latest release version) wired ethernet in -> Topping D70s MQA Dac via USB -> XLR to power amp -> Speakers.
The issue I’m having is that the dac does not seem to lock onto the MQA stream properly, resulting in the following:

• Pressing play can result in the playback slider advancing, but no sound
• advancing or rewinding the playback slider stops sound, while slider continues to advance from placed position
• Left or Right channels will sometimes not work (playback from one channel only)
• Pausing and restarting will result in no sound, while playback slider advances
• track advance or rewind will often result in no sound but playback slider advancing.

I have tried a few albums (96k MQA, 88 and 44k MQA) and have had the above issues. I have set the resynch delay to 50ms from 0 and the above issues are still occurring. There are no issues streaming CD quality FLAC. Using the Pi + Ropieee in Airplay mode results in no issues in playback with either MQA or CD FLAC files - hence my suspicion its a dac / signal issue. Is the resynch delay too low? Any thoughts?

Thanks in advance. G

 

[CJH]

V5.0 driver available on the website. May have fixed the problem D70 has with losing signal lock at 768Khz. Try it.
CJH

 

[RMFG]

What is best X16 or SMSL su-9 or topping D70s ?..

 

[ninetylol]

What is best X16 or SMSL su-9 or topping D70s ?..

Look at price for your answer.

 

[RMFG]

Look at price for your answer.

Price?.? Must be a thecnical comparisation

 

[ninetylol]

Price?.? Must be a thecnical comparisation

They are audibly all the same and measure the same, but one is cheapest

 

[samshaver]

Hi there, has anyone had issues with this dac and MQA streams?

The issue I’m having is that the dac does not seem to lock onto the MQA stream properly, resulting in the following:

• Pressing play can result in the playback slider advancing, but no sound
• advancing or rewinding the playback slider stops sound, while slider continues to advance from placed position
• Left or Right channels will sometimes not work (playback from one channel only)
• Pausing and restarting will result in no sound, while playback slider advances
• track advance or rewind will often result in no sound but playback slider advancing.

Any thoughts?

Yes, I have experienced the same behaviors streaming from Tidal on my D70s. I don’t for sure if it’s just a problem with MQA, or if it occurs with any rapid changing of the sample rate. I have not tried this with any non-MQA sources, as Amazon Music HD upsamples everything to 192kHz sample rate for me.

 

[Gerryh]

I am only having issues with MQA streams. Regular FLAC/AIFF in CD and 24/192 quality and upsampling to DSD 512 (as as test) through Roon show no problems.

I have been in touch with Topping service and they have confirmed issues with MQA files from Mac OSX Tidal app -> USB into the D70s - pause and replay result in long times to resynch to the stream (they find it to be 4 seconds, on mine it was longer to indefinite - sometimes it never played as the counter advanced). They seem to be a big more sanguine and ok about their experienced 4 second gap than I am but that may be my interpretation of the email.

I've tried RopieeeXL and VitOS with a wired Pi4 going usb into the dac - basically the setup does not work for MQA files. Apparently RopieeeXL logs show RoonBridge reporting buffer underrun errors and USB input/output errors. It results in the 5 points from my post above.

Works great as a non- MQA dac though

 

[Shampton]

I am only having issues with MQA streams. Regular FLAC/AIFF in CD and 24/192 quality and upsampling to DSD 512 (as as test) through Roon show no problems.

I have been in touch with Topping service and they have confirmed issues with MQA files from Mac OSX Tidal app -> USB into the D70s - pause and replay result in long times to resynch to the stream (they find it to be 4 seconds, on mine it was longer to indefinite - sometimes it never played as the counter advanced). They seem to be a big more sanguine and ok about their experienced 4 second gap than I am but that may be my interpretation of the email.

I've tried RopieeeXL and VitOS with a wired Pi4 going usb into the dac - basically the setup does not work for MQA files. Apparently RopieeeXL logs show RoonBridge reporting buffer underrun errors and USB input/output errors. It results in the 5 points from my post above.

Works great as a non- MQA dac though

I’ve been constantly going back and forth between purchasing D70S, SMSL SU9 and DX7Pro or just stretching the budget on the D90 as I love the versatility of these units. They also seem to test nearly the same (Probably close enough for a casual listener to tell a difference by ear).

I have been following this review and the reviews of the other DACs mentioned (thanks for the studies Amir, always interesting to watch the battle between industry leading dac manufacturers).

@Gerryh any resolution to your MQA playback issue? I see somebody else in this thread might have been experiencing this same issue. I’ve also seen your post in another forum. Do you think it has something to do with the dac itself or could it potentially be a faulty usb or at the fault of the music playback software? As someone who was very intrigued by this product, I would hate for the MQA playback feature to not work.

Thanks! Hopefully you get the MQA running smoothly.

 

[Gerryh]

Well the one constant with the issues was the dac. I will be returning the unit.
It seems to work ok with Audirvana direct from my MacBook, but using theTidal app on OSX has issues and the Raspberry Pi was a complete no go. Topping support said that they don't test with linux at all. Tried different cables, Pi OS's and OSX playback software - didn't get to a satisfactory solution.

So maybe the issue is with the Pi or maybe not. While not ubiquitous, I don't think that a pi with whatever OS people choose is a bespoke or unique solution, so it's odd that it hasn't been tested by them.

Anyways its a new product so maybe there will be a firmware update that addresses the issues. If you are looking at the dac, just make sure there is a decent return policy if it doesn't work correctly with your streaming chain.

G