Topping DX1 II DAC & HP Amp Review

[Bleib]

In any case....Topping is working on it. Don't jump on your units yet

 

[Pierun]

That's for an uncommon sample rate.

Since when is 48 kHz an uncommon sample rate???

For everyday usage of 44.1 kHz, it is not a problem.

Well, obviously it is not a problem, but there shouldn't be a problem with 48 kHz in the first place.

It should still be fixed but it is not what you state.

There were reported issues with distortion, clicking, optical input and even clock here. Obviously some if not most of these issues were fixed, and in the foreseeable future the 48 kHz issue will be fixed, but it shows that imo the DX1 II is in its alpha (or beta I guess?) stage due to the firmware bugs. Doesn't mean that it's an utter garbage of a product, since on paper (and on measurements) it's indeed great.

This is the price of increased software and system complexity.

Sadly this is true. also, this question might sound silly, but why didn't Topping just postpone the DX1 II in order to focus more on the software side of the things?

 

[Mike123]

why didn't Topping just postpone the DX1 II in order to focus more on the software side of the things?

That would have been a very sad decision. If Topping had followed your advice, I'd still be without a wonderful DAC. Fortunately, that's not the case. If you think internal testing reveals bugs like something happening at one frequency after several hours of continuous use, I have bad news. In most products users find such bugs. The fact that I had to spend several hours today specifically trying to find this error, and that after a week of intensive use, I still haven't encountered it, suggests that the error isn't that critical. Although it is quite serious. Expecting this product to be perfect will result in you never buying it. It won't be perfect. I, on the other hand, live with its shortcomings perfectly, or find ways to work around them, and am happy with my purchase.

 

[Janox]

That would have been a very sad decision. If Topping had followed your advice, I'd still be without a wonderful DAC. Fortunately, that's not the case. If you think internal testing reveals bugs like something happening at one frequency after several hours of continuous use, I have bad news. In most products users find such bugs. The fact that I had to spend several hours today specifically trying to find this error, and that after a week of intensive use, I still haven't encountered it, suggests that the error isn't that critical. Although it is quite serious. Expecting this product to be perfect will result in you never buying it. It won't be perfect. I, on the other hand, live with its shortcomings perfectly, or find ways to work around them, and am happy with my purchase.

A similar product, the Douk Audio K5, is completely problem-free. I see no reason to defend Topping, which released a device with a lot of bugs that may not be fixable.

 

[Bleib]

I have bad news. In most products users find such bugs.

I had DC error protection activating in DX5 II (it was overprotective), but not distorsion from hell with any DACs previously, nothing this buggy. This was clearly too rushed.

 

[Mike123]

A similar product, the Douk Audio K5, is completely problem-free. I see no reason to defend Topping, which released a device with a lot of bugs that may not be fixable.

I'm in no way defending Topping. But if I had a choice, I'd buy Topping again over Douk Audio, sorry.

I had DC error protection activating in DX5 II (it was overprotective), but not distorsion from hell with any DACs previously, nothing this buggy. This was clearly too rushed.

I'm not saying this is a minor issue. It's a serious flaw. I provided spectrograms, and there, too, the negative half-wave is cut off, resulting in a constant voltage. What I'm saying is that this flaw is rare and goes unnoticed by many who rarely or never play 48 kHz audio for several hours straight.

 

[Endibol]

If you think internal testing reveals bugs like something happening at one frequency after several hours of continuous use, I have bad news. In most products users find such bugs.

This, unfortunately, is very true!

 

[Bleib]

I'm in no way defending Topping. But if I had a choice, I'd buy Topping again over Duk Audio, sorry.

I'm not saying this is a minor issue. It's a serious flaw. I provided spectrograms, and there, too, the negative half-wave is cut off, resulting in a constant voltage. What I'm saying is that this flaw is rare and goes unnoticed by many who rarely or never play 48 kHz audio for several hours straight.

My Topping MX3s has a built in DAC. It has zero problems with anything I connect to it and it has never received a new firmware either.

NTTY discovered pretty quickly that many CD-players didn't work at all with DX1 II, it shouldn't be quite this hard for Topping to discover such huge problems before they start selling these.

 

[Dreamic]

"I had to spend several hours today specifically trying to find this error, and that after a week of intensive use, I still haven't encountered it, suggests that the error isn't that critical."
"What I'm saying is that this flaw is rare."

USB input at 48kHz for merely an hour or two, so what probably 95% of people using Windows will be doing when not in exclusive mode, and the issue will happen.
People using 44.1kHz in shared mode don't know what they're doing. 44.1kHz to 48kHz resampling is also extensively discussed elsewhere and how it's essentially fine.
As someone else said, this is advertised as a Gaming DAC, any guesses what 95% of games use for audio sampling rate? (48kHz).

 

[Mike123]

95% of people using Windows

Resampling to a another frequency in Windows is done with 4 mouse clicks.

 

[Dreamic]

Resampling to a another frequency in Windows is done with 4 mouse clicks.

When you put bread in toaster it becomes toast.
What does this have to do with anything?
I didn't say there wasn't a temporary easy to do workaround.

 

[Mike123]

As someone else said, this is advertised as a Gaming DAC, any guesses what 95% of games use for audio sampling rate? (48kHz).

How it's advertised and who will actually buy it is a matter of marketers guessing. I don't play games. Why Windows with EqualizerAPO needs an DAC with an equalizer is completely unclear. I bought it for my TV to get room correction from the optical input. Well, let's repeat ourselves. I'm not defending Topping. It's a bad mistake and should be corrected. I'm just saying that it's easy to get around it under Windows. It's sad and unpleasant. But it's easy and possible.

 

[Dreamic]

Why Windows with EqualizerAPO needs an DAC with an equalizer is completely unclear.

You reminded me this is supposed to work with consoles like the PS5 which it's also marketed for, which is where its PEQ is more relevant.
This brings a new concern, can you even choose a sample rate besides 48kHz from PS5? Or is this device actually unusable with it currently?
The PS5 doesn't offer optical so you must use USB, and you can't rollback to the previous firmware because the most recent firmware also states it adds:
"UAC 1.0 compatibility, now supports Switch 2, PS5, and other devices".

Also there's more reasons to buy such a cheap device for PC besides PEQ. Never said there wasn't a workaround, just that most PC users will encounter the issue.

 

[sphenicstands]

If you think internal testing reveals bugs like something happening at one frequency after several hours of continuous use, I have bad news. In most products users find such bugs. The fact that I had to spend several hours today specifically trying to find this error, and that after a week of intensive use, I still haven't encountered it, suggests that the error isn't that critical. Although it is quite serious.

There's a software testing technique called soak testing which is to exercise a product under simulated production load for an extended period of time, precisely to catch errors such as performance degradation over time. They're often left running overnight or for longer, depending on the nature of the system, with the captured results analyzed at the end of the run or sooner if the product completely fell over. Coupled with the other concept of boundary-value analysis, IMHO it's perfectly reasonable for a customer to expect Topping to have conducted sufficient soak testing as to detect performance degradation for each common sampling rate, 44.1, 48, 96, 192 or whatever and for each input and output combination, as well as UAC1 vs UAC2 and at different gain and volume settings over extended periods of time, reflecting anticipated real world usage. Automating these tests is nicely facilitated by the USB protocol that supports Topping Tune and Web HID control of the device. OTTOMH, the only potentially difficult situation to automate testing for is specific input devices such as game consoles. Unless they have dev kits for them which might not be worth the expense, automation is probably not possible. But for these, let an employee take a test console home for the week and let them play games on it as a real consumer. I'm pretty sure most employees would be happy to oblige

I had DC error protection activating in DX5 II (it was overprotective), but not distorsion from hell with any DACs previously, nothing this buggy. This was clearly too rushed.

IIRC, weren't there a lot of problems reported by other users with the DX5 II? I didn't pay that close attention at the time because it was a device outside my budget and I don't have time to extensively search the threads but for example, one user reported the potential for heavy distortion with some of the FW versions.

You reminded me this is supposed to work with consoles like the PS5 which it's also marketed for, which is where its PEQ is more relevant.
This brings a new concern, can you even choose a sample rate besides 48kHz from PS5? Or is this device actually unusable with it currently?
The PS5 doesn't offer optical so you must use USB, and you can't rollback to the previous firmware because the most recent firmware also states it adds:
"UAC 1.0 compatibility, now supports Switch 2, PS5, and other devices".

Also there's more reasons to buy such a cheap device for PC besides PEQ. Never said there wasn't a workaround, just that most PC users will encounter the issue.

UAC 1.0 for PS5 was definitely one of the reasons I was interested in it so the fact they only added PS5 UAC 1.0 compatibility in 2.69 was pretty shocking to me, although luckily the already reported bugs were already enough for me not to buy it so I avoided that rude surprise. Prior to that, I was also surprised by the following change in 2.53, albeit they've withdrawn that firmware so the change log is no longer publicly available:

"Changed: Volume adjustment enabled for UAC 1.0"

 

[Mike123]

There's a software testing technique

You're telling us how to test software. That's great. What's the reality? Unfortunately, it's not nearly as rosy. Or as cheap. There's a thread on the forum about a wonderful DAC that I'm sure has passed all the necessary tests: the RME ADI-2 Pro EX. But there's a small drawback. Its price is exorbitant. Due to the country's poverty and the war, I'm seeing a lot of technic from China. Believe me, Topping is still the best. But the fact that he won't thoroughly test a $120 DAC is no longer an assumption, but a reality. Both because it's expensive. And because companies like Topping don't have enough sales volume to support qualified programmers and testers.

 

[sphenicstands]

companies like Topping don't have enough sales volume to support qualified programmers and testers.

Writing firmware to perform signal processing is complex. I would sincerely hope Topping very much does have qualified programmers in the same way I'd very much hope they have qualified electrical engineers for the hardware. If they don't, then I definitely would be even more hesitant about buying any of their products. IMHO, testers are more optional within reason, as long as you have decent programmers. The notion programmers can't test their own code is a mixture of reality and myth. Poor or less experienced programmers can't test their own code but decent ones can to at least a competent degree and should have come across basic testing concepts like the ones I highlighted.

I concede it's possible or perhaps even more likely their programmers come from an electrical engineering, physics or math background. Although I would expect decently competent staff from any of those fields to be able to learn the fundamentals of programming at least competently if not expertly. I think some programming skills are often required for all three fields, although varying with specialization.

In any case, all of this is speculation and pretty pointless. In a way it's much more important how they react to feedback and whether they try to learn from it to improve future products. That's really the point of why I bother commenting. In the event they actually read this forum and take the feedback on board and improve their future products, I'd happily reconsider purchasing from them.

I would also suggest there's a potential escape hatch. Supposing what you allege is actually true, they could take a kickstarter type approach and up front communicate the initial batch is alpha and early adopters are expected to conduct testing. By setting expectations, they would completely eliminate buyer friction whilst gaining an enthusiastic group of testers. Based on my impression of happy ASR Topping customers, I'm sure they would find enough early adopters with such an approach.

 

[Jimster480]

Pretty incredible performance for the money, except for the issues with the ground loops in RCA it seems.

 

[Hapo]

...it seems like they are still getting earlier devices sorted...

 

[Soundproof]

A similar product, the Douk Audio K5, is completely problem-free. I see no reason to defend Topping, which released a device with a lot of bugs that may not be fixable.

Fail to see how that product is similar beyond it's basic functionaility. A different spieces.

 

[amirm]

Since when is 48 kHz an uncommon sample rate???

Since the CD was invented?

48 kHz is a TV broadcast sampling rate standard. While it is also used for music that is only available from a high-res music service. Even there, it is rare.

By far, the most common application for a desktop DAC is to listen to CD rate music. Everything else is an exception, not the rule. As I said, this must be fixed but the notion that the DX1 II is useless right now is absurd and out of control hyperbole. Just say it can't reliably play youtube video, and some high-res content and you would be OK.