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Topping D900 DAC Review

Rate this DAC:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 4 1.7%

  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 14 5.9%

  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 83 34.7%

  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 138 57.7%
  • Total voters
    239
Why are people hating on the Topping D900? You may not like it and thinks its overpriced, but lets not act like Topping doesnt offer EXCELLENT value propositions with their lower tier stuff. Which are already resolving enough, if thats what you are after. People here really need to take a step back and relax for a change.
 
NEDM said:
Why are people hating on the Topping D900? You may not like it and thinks its overpriced, but lets not act like Topping doesnt offer EXCELLENT value propositions with their lower tier stuff. Which are already resolving enough, if thats what you are after. People here really need to take a step back and relax for a change.
Click to expand...
The poll suggests most people think it’s great. What have been people been saying?
 
Jcrow said:
The poll suggests most people think it’s great. What have been people been saying?
Click to expand...
Are you some kind of stalker or something? Dont reply to me! I dont want to engage with you any further.
 
Jcrow said:
Um, that was purely by chance. I didn’t even look at the poster name.
But you need to chill out friendo. Also who are you to tell me what to do
Click to expand...
You are belligerent and accusatory. Why should I engage with someone like that? I wont. And thats that!
 
NEDM said:
You are belligerent and accusatory. Why should I engage with someone like that? I wont. And thats that!
Click to expand...
That’s cool friendo. You can can do whatever you want.
Personally, I think the d900 is about 1000 bucks (AUD) too expensive. So I gave it a ‘fine’ rating.
 
NEDM said:
You are belligerent and accusatory. Why should I engage with someone like that? I wont. And thats that!
Click to expand...
You can't stop someone replying to you. But if you want to you can use the ignore button.
 
@NEDM
Please take your frustration elsewhere—this forum isn't the right place for it.
 
Robbo99999 said:
What are the PEQ options, would have been to have been included in the review. I'll read the thread to see if that's answered. Expensive DAC I suppose, so who cares about the 1bit advertising aspect, but the PEQ is interesting.
Click to expand...

PEQ built-in is really a game changer. This presents allow you, e.g when the recorded album is "bright", to change it to your taste with two clicks on remote control.

I hope SMSL/others will also provide such functionality. It is possible in every DAC when a digital signal is routed through xmos XU316.
 
Add some "room equalization for everyone" - doing this properly with e.g. REW is not that easy.

The RoomFit is what makes the WiiM products so special. And it's absolutely "manageable" for everyone.
The Pro Plus is a streamer that just works flawlessly. It has a decent DAC, RoomFit and on top of the RoomFit PEQs you can apply very flexible equalizing to adjust the tonality to your taste.

I haven't tried the sub yet and I don't know the current status, but I'm optimistic that WiiM together with this the community in the WiiM forum will achieve a flawless and flexible integration.
 
Last edited:
amirm said:
This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping D900 discrete "1-bit" balanced smart DAC with PEQ. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $1,799.
View attachment 517828
The D900 comes in the most prestigious clothing Topping uses. It gives a feeling of luxury which I like. Touch screen UI is provided for manipulation of setting (as well as a remote which I did not need to use). Back panel shows elimination of RCA output which I am totally fine with:
View attachment 517829
Instead, we get variable and fixed outputs. Dual optical and coax inputs are provided for those of you with many such inputs. Trigger is now standard seemingly on all Topping products which is much appreciated. It allows one button turn on of your entire system.

As specified, the incoming PCM samples are upsampled to one bit which can then be converted to analog using a simple low pass filter. Parametric EQ completes the picture.

Topping D900 DAC Measurements
The D900 benefited by the tune of 0.5 dB after a few minutes of warm up to produce some of the best noise+distortion numbers I have measured:
View attachment 517830
View attachment 517831

The D900 has copious amount of drive, going as high as 12.3 volts!
View attachment 517832
This allows you to use your power amp at its lowest gain setting, boosting overall system signal to noise ratio. Speaking of that, the dynamic range is excellent:
View attachment 517833
It goes up about 1 dB at max volume (not shown).

Multitone shows state of the art levels of distortion:
View attachment 517834

As well as with a 50 Hz signal into 600 ohm load, per stereophile protocol:
View attachment 517835

Slight error seen at very low amplitude in our IMD sweep:
View attachment 517836
But then becomes noise dominated and quite low at that.

We see the same small blemish in our linearity test:
View attachment 517837

The noise floor is extremely low and clean in jitter test:
View attachment 517838
Which then shows up a couple of inconsequential tones at -140 dB. The spikes on the left are part of the signal and are resolved incredibly well down to 24 bit LSB.

Filter attenuation is excellent:
View attachment 517839

With the tiniest bit of droop at 20 kHz (0.2 dB):
View attachment 517840

Wideband noise+distortion shows elevated levels considering what we have measured so far:
View attachment 517841

But that has an explanation in the form of ultrasonic noise shaping:
View attachment 517842

So not an audible concern.

Conclusions
As custom DAC implementations go, the D900 is the most perfect I have seen. It represents a heroic effort to near match state of the art, integrated DAC silicon. In other words, you get the buzzword of "discrete 1 bit" DAC with almost no penalty. Getting this level performance out of huge number of individual components is not easy and shows excellent engineering prowess.

Price is up there with respect to IC based solution. But is a "bargain" compared to high-end DACs with similar architecture but usually with worse performance.

I am going to recommend the Topping D900. If you want a custom DAC, this is it.
-----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Click to expand...
@amirm Thanks Amir for another great review.
I have a question about the 2 graphs showing filter performance. One shows the response to white noise, the other one is a frequency sweep. What is the difference between the two? Why don't they show the same level of attenuation? It's clear I don't get it.. Please explain, thanks!
 
Endibol said:
@amirm Thanks Amir for another great review.
I have a question about the 2 graphs showing filter performance. One shows the response to white noise, the other one is a frequency sweep. What is the difference between the two? Why don't they show the same level of attenuation? It's clear I don't get it.. Please explain, thanks!
Click to expand...
With a sine sweep you can see tiny variations in frequency response, perfect for assessing 20Hz to 20kHz flat-ness.

With noise you can assess the out-of-band filter performance down to -100dBFS and beyond.

Different test signals for assessing different aspects of frequency response, but in the end they both show the same attenuation (just displayed at different scales).
 
sunny7day said:
So sorry!

I forgot that I changed the power cord of my power amp. After i changed back to the old one, everything is fine now. I have to say it's a great DAC.
Click to expand...
what power chord are you using that cause such a drastic change from "sound absolute shit" to great dac. I want to buy that power chord.
 
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