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Topping D90LE Filter question

hifiguru

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Hi
I have just got a D90LE. It is connected to an Auralic Aries streamer via AES/EBU with the D90LE in DAC mode, and then out to a Karan integrated amp. Feeding it with both Tidal HiFi and my own FLAC files.
It is working and sounding fine but when I switch between the 7 filters there does not appear to be any change in sound whatsoever so I get the feeling they are not working correctly.

Also there is no pause in the music or click from the dac when I switch between them. I previously had a D30Pro and I'm sure the music stopped for a split second when switching between filters. And there was a clearly audible difference between the filters.

I have been through the menu and done a factory reset but no change.

Can anyone with a D90LE confirm if there should be a slight silence between changing filters or if the changes are clearly audible. Bought it on eBay so can return it if is faulty.
 

staticV3

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It is working and sounding fine but when I switch between the 7 filters there does not appear to be any change in sound whatsoever so I get the feeling they are not working correctly.
They are working correctly. It's just that the difference between filters is not really audible.
Different oversampling filters are an academic excercise more than anything else.
 
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hifiguru

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Thanks for the reply.
But on the D30pro, and other dacs I've had with filters, there has usually been a clear, if small, brightening or warming of the sound as I flick between filters?
And many of the reviews say that have a clear preference (usually Filter 3 or 4) which seems odd if as you say there is no audible change?

I'd still like for someone with a D90LE to confirm if there is any obvious click or small pause in the music when changing between filters.
 

Trell

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Thanks for the reply.
But on the D30pro, and other dacs I've had with filters, there has usually been a clear, if small, brightening or warming of the sound as I flick between filters?
And many of the reviews say that have a clear preference (usually Filter 3 or 4) which seems odd if as you say there is no audible change?

I'd still like for someone with a D90LE to confirm if there is any obvious click or small pause in the music when changing between filters.

There are differences between various filters that can be audible, like a high frequency attenuation. Not to my middle-aged ears, though. :(

The following is from the RME ADI-2 DAC FS manual showing this:

1667607782679.jpeg


Go to page 57 in the manual for more graphs and explanations.

 

Earthbound

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Glad you asked because my D90le is coming next week and that would have troubled me. I had read that it is barely a difference. Enjoy your new dac.
 
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hifiguru

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I can just about convince myself I can hear a tiny change between some of the filters but that may just be expectation bias.

Irrespective of that it sounds fabulous with amazing inner detail.
 

Earthbound

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I can just about convince myself I can hear a tiny change between some of the filters but that may just be expectation bias.

Irrespective of that it sounds fabulous with amazing inner detail.
Glad to hear. I’ve read nothing but positive reviews and can’t wait to hear. Should be fun comparing to my tube dac. My goal, with a 300b amp coming, is to have the sound be exclusively 300b. If I find it needs a bit more, then I will start looking for a dac with color.
 

majingotan

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Glad to hear. I’ve read nothing but positive reviews and can’t wait to hear. Should be fun comparing to my tube dac. My goal, with a 300b amp coming, is to have the sound be exclusively 300b. If I find it needs a bit more, then I will start looking for a dac with color.

I like running the 300B without any DAC filtering to truly maximize the 300B coloration (all the subjective gizmos associated with 2A3/300B tube are more evidently preserved per my biased listening). I use my KT88 amp with a filterless NOS DAC as you can see on my desktop chain sig.
 

Earthbound

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I like running the 300B without any DAC filtering to truly maximize the 300B coloration (all the subjective gizmos associated with 2A3/300B tube are more evidently preserved per my biased listening). I use my KT88 amp with a filterless NOS DAC as you can see on my desktop chain sig.
Nice to hear. Aric Audio also prefers to make the amp so it doesn’t require a preamp. He prefers using his 300b’s without them. So, he added the Khozmo relay for volume and 1 set of inputs. This way no coloration from more tube in a preamp. We will see. Am very excited to have all the components together.
What 300b are you using?
 

majingotan

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Nice to hear. Aric Audio also prefers to make the amp so it doesn’t require a preamp. He prefers using his 300b’s without them. So, he added the Khozmo relay for volume and 1 set of inputs. This way no coloration from more tube in a preamp. We will see. Am very excited to have all the components together.
What 300b are you using?

I don't own any 300B amp one at the moment. The one I've auditioned was ampsandsound Red October DHT SET headphone amplifier with Western Electric 300B tubes and 64-stepped relay attenuators. It was fed with Abbas 3.2 NOS DAC.

The one I use to power my Aeon X is the ampsandsound Forge (their most entry level SET headphone amp) and I use my Schiit Bifrost 2 in NOS mode. I A/Bed it with the OS filter (Schiit's OS filter) but lost some of the qualities of the SET sound (holographic soundstage and sweet midrange). With the NOS, my unreliable subjective listening experience aligned with what is commonly described with SET amp magazine subjective reviews. In technical terms, I let the tube stage of the SET headphone amp filter out the aliases from the filterless DAC rather than rely on digital filters.
 

Streamc

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Hi
I have just got a D90LE. It is connected to an Auralic Aries streamer via AES/EBU with the D90LE in DAC mode, and then out to a Karan integrated amp. Feeding it with both Tidal HiFi and my own FLAC files.
It is working and sounding fine but when I switch between the 7 filters there does not appear to be any change in sound whatsoever so I get the feeling they are not working correctly.

Also there is no pause in the music or click from the dac when I switch between them. I previously had a D30Pro and I'm sure the music stopped for a split second when switching between filters. And there was a clearly audible difference between the filters.

I have been through the menu and done a factory reset but no change.

Can anyone with a D90LE confirm if there should be a slight silence between changing filters or if the changes are clearly audible. Bought it on eBay so can return it if is faulty.
No sound changes. Also there is measurements of them. But only aliens can hear differences on alien speaker. Also fast roll of linear is flattest mode 5. I found at least 2 measurements of them. Hifistudio79.nl have measured SE version.
I forgot second link.
I own LE.
 
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Hamrin

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Thanks for the reply.
But on the D30pro, and other dacs I've had with filters, there has usually been a clear, if small, brightening or warming of the sound as I flick between filters?
And many of the reviews say that have a clear preference (usually Filter 3 or 4) which seems odd if as you say there is no audible change?

I'd still like for someone with a D90LE to confirm if there is any obvious click or small pause in the music when changing between filters.

D90 is an ESS based dac and this chip allows you to swap filters "on the fly".
This happens also with other version of the ES9038.
D30Pro has 4 Cirrus chips and there is a "skip" between each change, I can confirm that here the filter's contribute is slightly more listenable.

Anyway... In my case all filters from these dacs are almost impossible to be heard through speakers.
You need (resolving) headphones to spot differences... But in this case too other factors could "cover" the subtle change.
To my ears the most "notable" changes are made by Brickwall (with ESS) and NOS (with Cirrus).
 

Rover

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Topping has a known problem, there is not much difference between PCM filters.For comparison, SMSL has a very noticeable difference.
 

Dunring

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I have the D90SE and the only difference I've heard on filters is with bright headphones and a bright track like heavy metal and listen for the treble rolloff. I just use 6 for best performance as in the review. On the SMSL M300 the filters and color settings can be noticed, just go for the lowest distortion setting measured for it. I just updated to 1.88 firmware and it's still the same thing.
 

Earthbound

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Just received the Topping and was wondering if anyone could tell me the best input to use on the Topping from the streamer? I see the Topping uses spdif. I read that the bandwidth of Apple Music lossless files may be too wide and not be good to use. AES/Toslink good for music?
 

majingotan

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Just received the Topping and was wondering if anyone could tell me the best input to use on the Topping from the streamer? I see the Topping uses spdif. I read that the bandwidth of Apple Music lossless files may be too wide and not be good to use. AES/Toslink good for music?

I use toslink to my DAC completely eliminate grounding issues and full galvanic isolation. However, I don't have Apple Music and primarily use Roon as my streaming service since my DAP/source supports Roon endpoint. Toslink can do 24/192 without any issues as well

IMG_6147.JPG
 

Rja4000

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Just received the Topping and was wondering if anyone could tell me the best input to use on the Topping from the streamer? I see the Topping uses spdif. I read that the bandwidth of Apple Music lossless files may be too wide and not be good to use. AES/Toslink good for music?
As per Topping D90LE's user manual, the 3 traditional digital inputs support up to 192kHz/24 bits signal.
So just pick the one that suits you best.
 

Earthbound

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I’m not sure if the higher bandwidth is referring to high resolution files. I assumed that’s what it meant and did not refer to typical files. I don’t know a whole lot about these things. The audio world has changed significantly since I last bought equipment 25 years ago!
 
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