Topping DX3 Pro+ Review (DAC & Headphone Amp)

[Staxxx]

Thank you for your inputs. I am getting it through a friend with the power supply. I have heavily downsized my system so am a little worried that it might be lightweight. Crossing my fingers that it will work well. I will be using a Teknik audio Memory Player as a source so the signal it will be fed should be very good.

 

[Palladium]

The DAC market as it stands currently I see no reason to settle for anything priced between the Jcally USB-C dongles and the D50 III, unless you need SPDIF or buy used (like my $60 E50).

 

[amanieux]

I basically agree, but the resale value of budget DAC should be next to zero and I don't expect that many improvements in such devices in the future.

i agree, dac tech dont improve that much but price do drop, plus reselling loss is lower on cheaper devices

 

[Limopard]

Another slight issue appeared today - I tested the bluetooth connection, using a Fiio BT11 dongle. The devices "agreed" on LDAC as a codec. Pairing was apparently successful, but no sound was playing. It worked when I disabled LDAC in the Fiio BT11, the codec was switched to aptx and sound was there.

It's not the dongle's fault, LDAC works well when a SMSL DL100 or Fiio BTR17 is on the receiving end. No big deal, but still a headscratcher. Anyone experienced similar things?

 

[Mordor]

Just to inform i have it connected to my TV, more than one year, and 0 problems.

I just dont understand sometimes why it conects the BT, despite optical glass is selected...

 

[Rick63]

Just to inform i have it connected to my TV, more than one year, and 0 problems.

I just dont understand sometimes why it conects the BT, despite optical glass is selected...

If you aren't using BT you can turn it off in the menu.

I've had mine for over 2 years and I've had zero issues as well (using only opt & coax inputs).

 

[Limopard]

I deleted every BT connection in the Fiio dongle and connected the DX3pro+ only. Now LDAC works properly, although the range is rather poor. Aptx works more stable.

 

[staticV3]

Now LDAC works properly, although the range is rather poor. Aptx works more stable.

As expected:

Source

 

[BradC]

just in case some of you use this for gaming, I've been running some latency tests after trying to play metal hellsinger and being off the beats a lot of times, and then seeing huge delay at the calibration options between the image and the audio.

USB: about between 95 and 110ms of audio latency, tested on 2 boards and a laptop on usb 2.0 + 3.x ports and 3 different cables.

optical cable: 70/75ms of audio latency, same computers

Integrated audio of the motherboards straight headphones to them skipping DX3: 70/75ms of latency, same as optical + dx3


so, if you plan to use this dac for tight gaming like competitive fps or just rythm games, be sure of use it with the optical input. 25/50 ms of extra latency is HUGE

It's a nonsense we still have to deal with latencies like that on windows and 99.9% of the games when humans are much faster at auditory reaction times than visuals, and at the same time we have monitors with a latency of 2ms on processing + showing it on the display

completely nonsense, but it is what it is. At least knowing that, you will be able to lower the latency a good 30/40% which is huge.

Out of curiosity did you ever have a chance to test latency more recently?

I heard some 2024 windows builds had some updates to the audio stack supporting lower latencies.

As a fellow gamer I am curious if this improved (i.e. was it windows), or if the dx3 itself is adding significant latency? It would be nice to pipe games through this device too....