TOPPING D90 III Sabre DAC Review

[Robbo99999]

Part of a reason a company will produce a high-cost, SOTA product, is to underscore their product, design and production credentials. Chevy builds a mid-engine Corvette to prove it has the chops to produce a SOTA car. If Chevy can do that, a consumer may want to deduce that their mid-price offering must only benefit from all the design knowledge and expertise they have in creating and showing off their SOTA product, even though only a few consumers will buy a Corvette, and even if only a few are willing to pay for it. The Corvette is a great car, but it is not a practical car, and does not possess the most of the features that most buyers want in a car. It is a bold and widely received product statement even though only a narrow consumer base will consider purchasing it.

We have come to expect Topping to be a company that constantly churns out low and mid-priced DACs of high quality and value, getting incrementally better with each iteration, and with lots of bang-for-the-buck models. Now that they begin to push out much higher price, higher performing products, people here seem to complain. Incremental improvements cost money to produce, even when the delta is small. And high-end products have far better margins than economy priced models.

It's up to you weather you want a Honda Civic or an Acura TLX. You will not get the latter for the price of the former.

Just that there's a tangible benefit/difference to having a Corvette vs a Honda Civic, whereas there is no practical discernible difference between good measuring DACS beyond connectivity/aesthetic/(maybe interface & ease of use). Although I'm really not a fan of analogies & car analogies.

 

[Koo]

I wish Topping would stop designing these snake oil boxes and just create a DAC with parametric EQ support.

 

[KenA]

I wish Topping would stop designing these snake oil boxes and just create a DAC with parametric EQ support.

Snake oil boxes? Can you elaborate on that?

 

[olieb]

I wish Topping would stop designing these snake oil boxes and just create a DAC with parametric EQ support.

I do not see any snake oil in those boxes, but I agree that the increase of SINAD from 119dB to 123dB does not make much more difference than cable risers whereas EQ support does make a considerable difference.

 

[splitting_ears]

Wow, I did not expect such amounts of negativity here. When did everyone suddenly get bored?

Granted, another dB of SINAD won't make as much of a difference as PEQ or any other feature, but at least it performs as advertised and sets a standard (along with SMSL) for pure conversion tasks.

 

[daniboun]

I purchased it shortly after Amir's review for $169! And then coupled it with the Midgard. Very nice!

I got it too ) I ve been working in my next project with the last Sylph Audio FB100 module that also has a voltage Gain of 14dB (5V/V) so the match would be perfect -))

 

[daniboun]

I trust my ears, no one else. I was like you, I read a lot, until I realized. Unfortunately, I have lost a lot of money and time to be able to check all those things for myself, my friend. but if you want to trust what you see written on the internet, I respect that.

I learned at my expense that the ears are the least precise instruments and therefore the most subjective.... ASR measurements are a support to appreciate a coherent purchase at the right price)

 

[dogmamann]

You are wrong my friend, I am an expert in testing high-end equipment, I have a music production studio in which I spent more than $100,000, I have tested dacs from several brands, I even have an Apogee Symphony desktop, which costs $1600, It has a 9028 pro chip, and the d90se sounds much better than this one and others that I have tried. I have my control room acoustically conditioned and calibrated with a frequency response of +-3 db throughout the frequency range, and I can assure you. that not only do dacs sound very different, but even changing a cheap power cable for a more expensive one also makes a difference. Those of you who say that there is no difference, it is because you do not have adequate equipment or listening place, to be able to hear that difference my friend. These dacs are not for everyone, they are for people who have very high-end equipment. I have it and I can confirm that there is a big difference. In case you wanted to know, you can ask me whatever you want, I am at your disposal. greetings from Spain.

From what I learned here, no we have no reason to ask you anything! Unless you show us the proof of some double blind test results none of those claims would make any sense here. No thanks.

 

[daniboun]

can assure you. that not only do dacs sound very different, but even changing a cheap power cable for a more expensive one also makes a difference.

Checkout..... Do not trust your ears again)

GR Research B24 AC Cord Review

This is a review, listening tests and measurements of the GR Research B24 AC cable. I purchased it from the company direct. It costs US $349 in the 4 foot section I purchased. As the British saying goes, the B24 "looks the part" with the thick cabling and such. But fails in actual construction...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[AudioSceptic]

My only real issue with Pis are the lack of quality cases that are good looking.

you can get cheap aluminum cases that work well at protecting the pi and keeping it cool. However they don't look that great, have poor fit and finish, or incorporate plastic components in weird ways.

nice cases exist but some of them cost more than the pi does.

Raspberry Pi 4 Aluminum Case - Mechatronics Art

This aluminum case for Raspberry Pi 4 from Mechatronics Art acts as a passive heat sink that improves the single board computer performances.

www.mechatronicsart.com

Raspberry Pi Case

Raspberry Pi 3, 3B+, and 4 cases.

desalvoinc.com

Yes, cost becomes an issue for the nicer ones. We have an Argon One for the Pi4, which was good value when I bought it <https://argon40.com/>

 

[AudioSceptic]

I wonder if we haven't already surpassed the human possibility of perceiving improvements. Perhaps these new models are useless for those who already own a recent DAC model

I think we've been past that point for a while. IIRC Amir uses 116 dB SINAD as the human limit but I don't know where that comes from. Is there any evidence that anyone can perceive better than, say, 100 dB, in real world conditions. Factor in other limitations, especially transducers (speakers, phones), and is even that more than anyone needs?

 

[AudioSceptic]

A friend here told he bought eleven (11) DACs at the 100-1100 euro price range the last 3 years and they all sound the same.
What's sad is that even last year's DACs at this price range have literally no reselling value,at all, after this race.

And it makes sense,who would pay 400-500 for an 800 euro last year's DAC when it's (inaudible) performance is lower than a 200 euro one?
They even look alike!

Now tell me about cost through time,which is the only meaningful metric.

That's no surprise but why did he buy so many? What's he done with them?

 

[Sokel]

That's no surprise but why did he buy so many? What's he done with them?

Let's say that he translated the measured performance as potentially audible and followed a rather popular trend about the newest and better.
No blame on that,I was him before I learn (big grain of salt) how to measure myself and did the right tests about what is audible or not (to me,my room and my gear) .

 

[AudioSceptic]

Let's say that he translated the measured performance as potentially audible and followed a rather popular trend about the newest and better.
No blame on that,I was him before I learn (big grain of salt) how to measure myself and did the right tests about what is audible or not (to me,my room and my gear) .

I wasn't clear: I'm surprised that anyone would spend so much (11 devices!) just to check on something like that. Surely 2 would be enough: one at the "top of the charts" and another for a fraction of the price but still in the 'excellent' category.

 

[Guilherme_BR]

D70 pro seems to have better results in multitone (closer to a real music scenario) and thd+N noise vs frequency tests, has better display and costs less...

 

[Rottmannash]

That is for audio return channel. Standard (push) audio samples are embedded in video.

I know this is OT but does that mean the audio sent from my Roku Ultra to the RZ50 is embedded in the video signal??

 

[Rottmannash]

A friend here told he bought eleven (11) DACs at the 100-1100 euro price range the last 3 years and they all sound the same.
What's sad is that even last year's DACs at this price range have literally no reselling value,at all, after this race.

And it makes sense,who would pay 400-500 for an 800 euro last year's DAC when it's (inaudible) performance is lower than a 200 euro one?
They even look alike!

Now tell me about cost through time,which is the only meaningful metric.

A quick search on Google informed used prices of the D90SE (which I have) are between $400 and $749. Not exactly giving them away.

 

[dogmamann]

May be he is delusional like all audiophiles even though he learns from here, his inners are not accepting to jump from the life he had been living for a long time. Like you said it’s insane to spend money on 11 devices to test the differences. Ideal would have been to get the best measuring one and the worst of the lot(still within inaudible level of differences) and then test them and call it a day

 

[dogmamann]

A quick search on Google informed used prices of the D90SE (which I have) are between $400 and $749. Not exactly giving them away.

400 is a good drop in terms of percentage considering their original price. Not exactly giving away but not retaining much value either

 

[SMc]

I wish Topping would stop designing these snake oil boxes and just create a DAC with parametric EQ support.

I'll guess PEQ will be widely available when it is built into OEM DAC chips.