Happy to lose switches if it means being able to control everything with a remote or dial.
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Topping D90SE Review (Balanced DAC)
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
Happy to lose switches if it means being able to control everything with a remote or dial.
A90 Discrete presumably uses discrete volume control, that is, resistor ladder like Pre90?? Nice!
Will this unit benefit from a usb to spdif converter?This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping D90SE flagship balanced USB DAC. It was sent to me by the company for testing and I believe costs US $899.
The D90SE comes in the same clothes as current class of Topping products which is just fine with me:
View attachment 135755
We have the usual inputs and outputs including Bluetooth:
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The architecture here is based on ESS ES9038PRO DAC instead of AKM silicon. Hopefully this means better availability of parts and DACs.
Topping D90SE DAC Measurements
Out of box output voltage is our standard 4 volts but there is also a setting to adjust that to 5 volt (see test of that later). Let's start with USB input and balanced XLR output:
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Oh wow! We have a record breaker here when it comes to SINAD:
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The Audio Precision analyzer puts severe strain on getting such high numbers due to its own self-noise so I was surprised to see 123 dB limit broken. Distortion is down to an incredibly low -140 dB!
Switching to RCA output, we naturally lose some performance:
View attachment 135761
Noise level is kept to absolute minimum producing some of the best dynamic range numbers I have seen:
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Temporarily switching to 5 volt output we get:
View attachment 135764
So not a major change but if you have an amp that can accept it, you can push your noise floor down a bit more. Remember, while distortions are hard to hear, hiss from speakers or headphones is not.
Intermodulation distortion (really the noise aspect) sets a new benchmark:
View attachment 135765
There was a time when DX3 Pro was the benchmark. See how much the D90SE beats it by. It is almost left in the dust!
Courtesy of resampling in ESS DAC, jitter is a forgotten word with either input:
View attachment 135766
Combined with the ultra noise floor, we can clearly resolve the low order bits of the 250Hz square wave at 24 bits! I had to remove the ASR logo to reveal them!
Linearity locked in and ran so perfectly, I had to scratch my eyes to believe it:
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You have a choice of 7 filters and I was happy to see thee of them producing the correct filtering for 44.1 kHz sampling:
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Attenuation was so good that I had to lower the bottom of the scale to show where they bottom out.
The only puzzler was THD+N versus frequency:
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Seems like there is some kind of ESS signature going on with some filter setting. Getting the best performance required selecting filter #7 which has a bit of roll off in frequency response.
Multitone is nailed so hard that you could almost hear it nail screaming from being hit so hard:
View attachment 135770
Conclusions
It is 3:00am but I had to stay up and post this review. It is not every day that every barrier we have seen in DACs gets shattered to new levels. We are seeing extreme attention to every aspect of this design to squeeze this much performance out of this ESS DAC. Just when we though the race was over, here comes one more over achiever! Those of you who have made it a hobby to upgrade the latest and greatest, here is another one for you!
At the risk of stating the very obvious, it is my absolute pleasure to recommend the Topping D90SE.
Note: this is a new product. If you are not an early adopter type of person, you may want others to go before you. My testing is focused on performance only, not reliability or functionality.
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No, both have the same inputs.
Hello, has anyone downloaded & installed the latest software for the D90SE yet?
Yes! Two new options and some unknown fixes. Maybe placebo effect (a bit sick) but the sound seems more tight and textured.
Can anyone measure for potential audio quality updates?
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I have downloaded the software for Mac. How do I download it to the D90SE?
First you need to have an Intel Mac. After that you connect your Mac to the USB on the DAC and run the app you dowloaded and choose from the app the .bin file you also downloaded.
Yeah! Wish I didn't now!! Even the new additions I could find absolutely no difference in sound.
AlephAlpha001
Member
Golden Rule for firmware updates: Sit back for a month or three and let Other People download and find the problems.
Someone told me here the firmware only affects the use of USB input. No clue if that's correct but that's what I was told when asked if I should always download the latest firmware on my Topping DACs.
Probably right! Mine is plugged in USB but now only indicates PCM and that it's not compatible MQA !!!
Why did they not see this??! I will try to revert back to previous version if I can
Well, I was one of the first to jump onboard with the firmware v1.86. Other than the non-display of the MQA logo, it does play my MQA files. The sampling rate changes from 44.1khz to 176khz indicating the MQA is working.
Anyway, the latest firmware v1.87 was just available and the MQA logo came back.
For what it's worth, been playing around with the sound tuning, they do change the sound, not as clean but do have some interesting effect. Could be fun having to change the tuning once in while to experience music playback. Been listening with the Valve tuning for the time being. Really do reminds me of how my LP Vinyls sounded like on my father's old valve hifi set with all the distortions LOL.
Anyway, the latest firmware v1.87 was just available and the MQA logo came back.
For what it's worth, been playing around with the sound tuning, they do change the sound, not as clean but do have some interesting effect. Could be fun having to change the tuning once in while to experience music playback. Been listening with the Valve tuning for the time being. Really do reminds me of how my LP Vinyls sounded like on my father's old valve hifi set with all the distortions LOL.
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