Topping D90 Preliminary Impression/Measurment

[Tks]

Video is timestammped, just press play to see a bit about the upcoming D90 (I'm really excited to see the products based on this very different chipset).

 

[VintageFlanker]

Video is timestammped, just press play to see a bit about the upcoming D90 (I'm really excited to see the products based on this very different chipset).

SINAD is ≈118db at 4.15V. Excellent performance for the first 4499 desktop implementation!

 

[Tks]

I sure hope they manage to reach the 120db metric by the time it releases. As I doubt it's going to succeed the D70 in tier placement, thus will be more pricey.

Granted I can imagine the work involved in building around a completely new chip design is probably daunting, and a few more iterations within other devices would aid in getting more out of it (golden standard demonstration of this would be the RME vs other devices with better chips, yet the RME performs better and came out ages ago, and is more feature packed).

I'd really like to see the sort of thing someone like Matrix Audio or RME could do with this chip.

 

[Rja4000]

I'd really like to see the sort of thing someone like Matrix Audio or RME could do with this chip.

Me too. Especially RME.
When is RME ADI-2 Pro fs II coming ?

 

[Eirikur]

Blegh, MQA - it's a nasty virus.
As it's apparently not built into the AK4499 DAC chip, Topping made a deliberate choice here.

 

[Tks]

Me too. Especially RME.
When is RME ADI-2 Pro fs II coming ?

Whenever it does happen, companies should duck. If any indication of their approach to audio is translated and carried over within the design and engineering language to their next generation products -as I've mentioned a few times on this forum- they're going to instantly make many devices almost totally irrelevant. The RME ADI-2 line has been on the market for how long now? Yet I'm still looking around wondering what's taking companies so long to come out of hibernation and release products that come within fractions of the featureset available on the ADI-2 line of products...

 

[VintageFlanker]

Me too. Especially RME.
When is RME ADI-2 Pro fs II coming ?

Well... It's already here:

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...-adi-2-dac-and-headphone-amp.7546/post-264702

More likely an ADI-2 DAC rev2 with AK4493. I guess we've to wait for the next generation to see AK4499.

 

[Category 5]

Wow. I am very surprised that RME have updated ADI-2. I can only imagine this is a forced hand, due to low supplies of the 4490 chip, otherwise I'd have expected the 4497 or 4499 in a new model with a different name.

I wonder what the price will be, and what this will do to the price of existing stock. This may provide a good entry price for the original model.

 

[VintageFlanker]

Wow. I am very surprised that RME have updates this unit. I can only imagine this is a forced hand, due to low supplies of the 4490 chip, otherwise I'd have expected the 4497 or 4499 in a new model with a different name.

I wonder what the price will be, and what this will do to the price of existing stock. This may provide a good entry price for the original model.

As RME clearly says, this is not a new product at all. It is a revision. The 4499 doesn't have to be there since this is a much higher end chip. As you pointed, I guess as well this is due to the 4490 being revised to 4493, and probably out of production.

 

[JohnYang1997]

I got this from topping, d90.

 

[Veri]

I got this from topping, d90. View attachment 38789

Wow! Big if true

 

[murraycamp]

Whenever it does happen, companies should duck. If any indication of their approach to audio is translated and carried over within the design and engineering language to their next generation products -as I've mentioned a few times on this forum- they're going to instantly make many devices almost totally irrelevant.

I'm a bit confused by this statement. Since a number of dacs on the market are already audibly transparent, how are they going to be rendered irrelevant? Is it the feature set? Not taking issue with it, just trying to understand. Thanks.

 

[777]

I got this from topping, d90. View attachment 38789

A-weighted ?

 

[Hemi-Demon]

When is the release date? Single or Dual AK chip?

 

[Category 5]

When is the release date? Single or Dual AK chip?

4499 is a 4 channel DAC, so likely a single chip but still 2 channels summed per side. If it's 2 actual chips then it would be similar to DX7 Pro which is using an 8 channel DAC, 4 channels summed per side.

 

[Tks]

I'm a bit confused by this statement. Since a number of dacs on the market are already audibly transparent, how are they going to be rendered irrelevant? Is it the feature set? Not taking issue with it, just trying to understand. Thanks.

It's in the rest of the post?

It's precisely because they all measure well, the RME will overtake them by another mile, on top of the mile already it has them all beat.. The secondary and tertiary features. What other devices comes with the wealth of function, and features the RME has? None even remotely close, and nowhere near close to the clean execution/customization presented.

Imagine simply expanding the PEQ to 10, or 20 bands. That alone would instantly be enough. But if you care to see the current feature set, so you can imagine what a proliferation and upgrades to such would even look like. They have a manual written in human English that outlines it all perfectly.

 

[pozz]

A-weighted ?

Not A-weighted. The FFT would show the rolloff of the filter.

 

[Noob]

The most important thing he said in that whole video is “Your @nu$ has outstanding tuning.” Never forget that.

 

[maxxevv]

SINAD is ≈118db at 4.15V. Excellent performance for the first 4499 desktop implementation!

View attachment 38542

Looks like Topping didn't "lobby" hard enough/ if at all. Compared to their own published measurements, this is dismal, almost 5dB lower !

 

[Jestercow]

But he mentioned that their products have excellent measured performance...I thought mentioning such things was verboten????