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Topping D70s MQA Review (DAC)

dostapenko

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Sep 9, 2021
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Hi everyone

A question for Mac users. Have you guys tried to install a 1.30 firmware update? I downloaded the zip archive from the Topping website, but when I try to run the "Topping USB DFU" file, I always get an error (a screenshot is attached). Can anyone help with this? (I'm the only owner of this computer, so access issue shouldn't be the case)

Screenshot 2021-09-09 at 13.37.33.png
 

AshM750

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Hi All,

Need some advice, had my D70s for a couple of weeks and its been a journey, it started off sounding amazing, Bass was deep, lush Mids and Highs with no fatigue what so ever. Fast forward a week and half and now my system sounds slightly fatiguing and a bit shouty/brash, nothing else has changed, my system is the same(as below). May plug me E30 back in again and see what happens, anyone experience a long burn in or maybe its just that I need a warmer dac?

Naim Nait xs2
Dynaudio SP40s
Bluesound Node 3 with Fidelity Audio top end PSU/Interface (new a month ago)
Budget Van Den Hul RCAs
DNM Resolution speaker cable
2x BK Double Gem Subs

Im going to try a Naim Supernait 2 on Wednesday.
 

muslhead

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Hi All,

Need some advice, had my D70s for a couple of weeks and its been a journey, it started off sounding amazing, Bass was deep, lush Mids and Highs with no fatigue what so ever. Fast forward a week and half and now my system sounds slightly fatiguing and a bit shouty/brash, nothing else has changed, my system is the same(as below). May plug me E30 back in again and see what happens, anyone experience a long burn in or maybe its just that I need a warmer dac?

Naim Nait xs2
Dynaudio SP40s
Bluesound Node 3 with Fidelity Audio top end PSU/Interface (new a month ago)
Budget Van Den Hul RCAs
DNM Resolution speaker cable
2x BK Double Gem Subs

Im going to try a Naim Supernait 2 on Wednesday.
DAC's dont burn nor do competently designed ones have a signature/sound (warm, brash, etc) so if you are confident you are hearing that change, you might want to set your investigative sites elsewhere as its likely not the DAC.
 
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Hi All,

Need some advice, had my D70s for a couple of weeks and its been a journey, it started off sounding amazing, Bass was deep, lush Mids and Highs with no fatigue what so ever. Fast forward a week and half and now my system sounds slightly fatiguing and a bit shouty/brash, nothing else has changed, my system is the same(as below). May plug me E30 back in again and see what happens, anyone experience a long burn in or maybe its just that I need a warmer dac?

Naim Nait xs2
Dynaudio SP40s
Bluesound Node 3 with Fidelity Audio top end PSU/Interface (new a month ago)
Budget Van Den Hul RCAs
DNM Resolution speaker cable
2x BK Double Gem Subs

Im going to try a Naim Supernait 2 on Wednesday.
I also have a D70s and I realized that the burn in period makes a difference in the sound, just believe the words of people who have this DAC and not people who listen to numbers and graphs. In the first hours it really is softer, it even bothered me or I have other dacs with Saber 9018 and the difference was quite big in the high frequencies, after that I stopped listening and let it reach 100h on direct, I tested it again and the difference decreased but still so it wasn't to my liking, i left it on for a week and made a new comparison and i was surprised, in the D70s the details appear and they were much better compared to the old dac (Calyx 24/192). This confirms what I had already researched, the burn in time is around 200h.
If you are not enjoying the current sound, I recommend switching to filter 1 or 3, another measure is to change the placement of the speakers, this will help to adapt the sound to your personal taste.
 

AshM750

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I also have a D70s and I realized that the burn in period makes a difference in the sound, just believe the words of people who have this DAC and not people who listen to numbers and graphs. In the first hours it really is softer, it even bothered me or I have other dacs with Saber 9018 and the difference was quite big in the high frequencies, after that I stopped listening and let it reach 100h on direct, I tested it again and the difference decreased but still so it wasn't to my liking, i left it on for a week and made a new comparison and i was surprised, in the D70s the details appear and they were much better compared to the old dac (Calyx 24/192). This confirms what I had already researched, the burn in time is around 200h.
If you are not enjoying the current sound, I recommend switching to filter 1 or 3, another measure is to change the placement of the speakers, this will help to adapt the sound to your personal taste.
Thank you for this helpful reply, I defiantly felt it was softer to begin with, it must have been running for at least 100hrs now. I have moved my speakers around tonight with some better results though, im thinking my room might have something to do with this brash sound if not the amp, going to try a different amp on Wednesday and if that fails I will try some room treatment on back wall.

I will try those filters though, had forgotten about them.
 
Last edited:

DHT 845

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I own d70s and did not noticed any burn in changes. I still think it a great DAC and I am sticking to it without any doubts.
 

AshM750

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Sep 27, 2021
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Hi All,

Need some advice, had my D70s for a couple of weeks and its been a journey, it started off sounding amazing, Bass was deep, lush Mids and Highs with no fatigue what so ever. Fast forward a week and half and now my system sounds slightly fatiguing and a bit shouty/brash, nothing else has changed, my system is the same(as below). May plug me E30 back in again and see what happens, anyone experience a long burn in or maybe its just that I need a warmer dac?

Naim Nait xs2
Dynaudio SP40s
Bluesound Node 3 with Fidelity Audio top end PSU/Interface (new a month ago)
Budget Van Den Hul RCAs
DNM Resolution speaker cable
2x BK Double Gem Subs

Im going to try a Naim Supernait 2 on Wednesday.
Hi All,

I wanted to follow up with my findings tonight after getting hold of a Supernait 2, this has definitely improved the sound along with Filter 1 engaged.

The XS2 + D70s defiantly comes across more forward and Analytical than the SN2 + D70s, this feels a-lot more composed and smoother but still not perfect in the sense of its still a tiny bit to analytical(edgy) for me so im going to try an SMSL M400 with both amps and see if that warms it up a bit.

D70s is a cracking DAC though, cant get over the sheer detail this thing reveals, I dont want to sell it until I compare otherwise I could regret it.
 

muslhead

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I own d70s and did not noticed any burn in changes. I still think it a great DAC and I am sticking to it without any doubts.
Good to hear. you shouldn't nor will anyone else unless its imagined
 
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Hi All,

I wanted to follow up with my findings tonight after getting hold of a Supernait 2, this has definitely improved the sound along with Filter 1 engaged.

The XS2 + D70s defiantly comes across more forward and Analytical than the SN2 + D70s, this feels a-lot more composed and smoother but still not perfect in the sense of its still a tiny bit to analytical(edgy) for me so im going to try an SMSL M400 with both amps and see if that warms it up a bit.

D70s is a cracking DAC though, cant get over the sheer detail this thing reveals, I dont want to sell it until I compare otherwise I could regret it.
I think the best option for you would be a Denafrips Ares II, which has a warmer sound with smoother high frequencies than DS dacs.
The SMSL M400 from what I've researched sounds similar to the D70s, so the difference between them will be minimal.
 

DHT 845

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The higher you go with denafrips line the more precise and less muddy their dacs are. The terminator plus is almost as good as d70s...
 

Veri

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Help! How to set to 768khz I only have 384khz!?
-You need to push it directly via software, not in Windows control panel.
-Setting the maximum in Windows accomplishes nothing anyway ... Windows sucks at resampling.
God I hate marketing. 768kHz is useless. Any DAC oversamples to much higher sample rate anyway.
 

Pluss

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-You need to push it directly via software, not in Windows control panel.
-Setting the maximum in Windows accomplishes nothing anyway ... Windows sucks at resampling.
God I hate marketing. 768kHz is useless. Any DAC oversamples to much higher sample rate anyway.
Thanks. I in Jriver, to check, set 44.1kHz to play 768kHz and the display showed 768kHz.
 

OpenSky

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Hi-- i'm new to this forum... so not quite sure about the etiquette here as I have a question d70s. I stream up to 24 bit/192khz to it and love the sound of it using the D70SMQA as my preamp. But I recently bought another amp that is much higher gain (35db gain, 0.75Vinput max, 51Kohm) and more sensitive speakers, (and it's all supposed to be more transparent--and does feel more alive). I have moved the amp/dac into my bedroom and only use CDs right now, and I find myself turning the volume down on the DAC (especially in the evenings) to like -42 or -45db.

I'm wondering if the DAC at such an attenuation is missing detail? I'm new at all this and not an experienced listener yet. One person mentioned to me in an email that with the high gain amp and the sensitive speakers I'm using that he had to turn his DAC down so much "it was loosing a lot of bits" and "loosing detail". With the Topping D70sMQA WOULD SETTING THE VOLUME DOWN TO -40 to -45db ACTUALLY BE LOOSING RESOLUTION OR DETAIL? Yes the volume is down but I don't hear any noise. This same audio person suggested I might want to buy an expensive pre-amp or passive pre-amp to use to adjust the gain to the amp rather than directly driving it with a DAC. Right now I'm using the D70s as my preamp and volume control and have wondered if I should add a 10 or 12db attenuator and increase the volume of the DAC into somehow a better volume/resolution level? Or is the SNR and quality of the DAC such that I shouldn't need an attenuator after the DAC and I can simply run the DAC at whatever attenuation I need to for volume control? -- again-- I 'm sorry I'm a newbie and not sure if it's okay to post this amidst the discussions going on about this DAC-- I'd appreciate your thoughts on the matter or suggestions as to where to ask this question. Thank you.
 

nhs

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Hi-- i'm new to this forum... so not quite sure about the etiquette here as I have a question d70s. I stream up to 24 bit/192khz to it and love the sound of it using the D70SMQA as my preamp. But I recently bought another amp that is much higher gain (35db gain, 0.75Vinput max, 51Kohm) and more sensitive speakers, (and it's all supposed to be more transparent--and does feel more alive). I have moved the amp/dac into my bedroom and only use CDs right now, and I find myself turning the volume down on the DAC (especially in the evenings) to like -42 or -45db.

I'm wondering if the DAC at such an attenuation is missing detail? I'm new at all this and not an experienced listener yet. One person mentioned to me in an email that with the high gain amp and the sensitive speakers I'm using that he had to turn his DAC down so much "it was loosing a lot of bits" and "loosing detail". With the Topping D70sMQA WOULD SETTING THE VOLUME DOWN TO -40 to -45db ACTUALLY BE LOOSING RESOLUTION OR DETAIL? Yes the volume is down but I don't hear any noise. This same audio person suggested I might want to buy an expensive pre-amp or passive pre-amp to use to adjust the gain to the amp rather than directly driving it with a DAC. Right now I'm using the D70s as my preamp and volume control and have wondered if I should add a 10 or 12db attenuator and increase the volume of the DAC into somehow a better volume/resolution level? Or is the SNR and quality of the DAC such that I shouldn't need an attenuator after the DAC and I can simply run the DAC at whatever attenuation I need to for volume control? -- again-- I 'm sorry I'm a newbie and not sure if it's okay to post this amidst the discussions going on about this DAC-- I'd appreciate your thoughts on the matter or suggestions as to where to ask this question. Thank you.
I found an interesting article about this topic here https://www.soundstageultra.com/ind...311-what-s-wrong-with-digital-volume-controls
 

OpenSky

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THANK YOU nhs for the link. Very very interesting read. I wish they had a table for 16 bit sources but 32bit digital volume control. I'm not totally sure about how my DAC does volume control. It is supposed to allow up to 32 bits of data on USB input but typically up to 24 bit data on RCA. I'm not sure if when I input 16 bit data (a CD), then is it operating as a 32 bit volume control? THANK YOU... I'll do more research on it. Great article.
 

OpenSky

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Again thank you "nhs" for the reference about using a DAC as a digital volume control. I did some more digging and from head-fi.org thread entitled: effective-number-of-bits-or-why-you-have-to-keep-software-at-full-volume-is-nonsense.671220/ is a post from elsdude (2013) that includes two more references in addition to the one you already referenced. The welltempered computer article reference in that post (included below) has more references at the bottom of the article that I thought were helpful.

It's starting to sound to me like if I use a dac that has 32 bit processing (like the Topping D70s MQA) and 16 bit data and even 24 bit data I can attenuate a lot (perhaps -48db) and probably not be truncating the data resolution... (that's a vague statement but I don't know enough right now to say more). In other words-- direct digital volume control will probably maintain very good quality at high attenuation (low volumes) that perhaps only a very superb analog pre-amp might be able to better in term of sound and SNR (but the analog pre-amp may do some nice things to the synergy with the amp and resulting sound perhaps?).The two added articles referenced in the head-fi post are:
http://www.thewelltemperedcomputer.com/Intro/SQ/VolumeControl.htm
http://blog.szynalski.com/2009/11/17/an-audiophiles-look-at-the-audio-stack-in-windows-vista-and-7/

Maybe Amir or someone more familiar with the Topping D70s might be able chime in as to what level of digital attenuation could we utilize when inputting 16 bit data or 24 bit data with a Topping D70s MQA before we start loosing bits and distorting the signal?

Thanks all!!!
 
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