This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Topping DX5 II Smart DAC and balanced headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $299.
The DX5II is beautiful to look at especially due to its very high contrast and bright display. Love the extra buttons so that you don't have to remember how to change the settings just by clicking the volume control. Nice set of visualizations are including a highly responsive/fast spectrum display. Alas, its lowest frequency is 50 Hz and I wish it would go down to 20 Hz. Likewise, there is nice VU meter but only shows one channel (or is it a sum). Wish there was a stereo version even if it is one meter with two needles.
I call this DAC "smart" as it has full set of parametric EQ allowing you to correct the response for either your speaker/headphones, your room or your taste.
Love that despite the compact size, the power supply is built in, and we have trigger in and out:
A remote control is also provided (my sample is early and is missing that).
Topping DX5II Measurements
In the interest of brevity and my sanity
, I am only going to measure the XLR output for the DAC. For the headphone data, I do show both outputs. So let's start with the pre-amp XLR out:
Distortion and noise are vanishingly small as we have learned to expect from Topping, landing the DX5II in our top-20 best ever DACs:
Dynamic range is exceptional:
As is IMD:
There is tiniest bit of jitter with USB but is audibly beyond negligible at -140 dB:
Multitone showcases the incredibly low distortion:
Linearity is ever so imperfect at the start:
Default filter shows off how good the out of band attenuation is above 24 kHz:
50 Hz output into 600 ohm load shows exceptional performance:
Wideband distortion is very low:
Topping DX5II Headphone Output Measurements
Topping advertises very high output power and we see that in the balanced outputs:
It is amazing to see so much power coming out of this little box. The unit is also very resilient down to the lowest impedance of 12 ohm:
Finally, residual noise is very low but just short of state of the art:
Topping DX5 II Listening Tests
I connected my everyday Dan Clark E3 headphone to the DX5II and started to listen. I must say, I was not ready for the experience. I had so much headroom despite the relative insensitivity of the E3. At about -10 dB, I would start to worry about my hearing. Push a bit more and I could feel my inner ear resonating. 
Clarity and overall fidelity was so good that I melted in my chair and didn't want to get up to take pictures of it for the review! Such incredible performance from such a small package...
Conclusions
No matter how many times Topping produces exceptional audio products, testing their new offerings always puts a smile on my face. They are constantly competing with themselves, upping the performance in every category possible. They now bring extra features in the form of DSP and delightful look and feel. Measured performance is essentially without fault although leaves a tiny space for higher end models to fill. My wish is that you all can afford to save up and buy at least this level of performance for your audio system.
It is my pleasure to recommend the Topping DX5 II DAC and Headphone Amplifier.
------------
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/
The DX5II is beautiful to look at especially due to its very high contrast and bright display. Love the extra buttons so that you don't have to remember how to change the settings just by clicking the volume control. Nice set of visualizations are including a highly responsive/fast spectrum display. Alas, its lowest frequency is 50 Hz and I wish it would go down to 20 Hz. Likewise, there is nice VU meter but only shows one channel (or is it a sum). Wish there was a stereo version even if it is one meter with two needles.
I call this DAC "smart" as it has full set of parametric EQ allowing you to correct the response for either your speaker/headphones, your room or your taste.
Love that despite the compact size, the power supply is built in, and we have trigger in and out:
A remote control is also provided (my sample is early and is missing that).
Topping DX5II Measurements
In the interest of brevity and my sanity
, I am only going to measure the XLR output for the DAC. For the headphone data, I do show both outputs. So let's start with the pre-amp XLR out:Distortion and noise are vanishingly small as we have learned to expect from Topping, landing the DX5II in our top-20 best ever DACs:
Dynamic range is exceptional:
As is IMD:
There is tiniest bit of jitter with USB but is audibly beyond negligible at -140 dB:
Multitone showcases the incredibly low distortion:
Linearity is ever so imperfect at the start:
Default filter shows off how good the out of band attenuation is above 24 kHz:
50 Hz output into 600 ohm load shows exceptional performance:
Wideband distortion is very low:
Topping DX5II Headphone Output Measurements
Topping advertises very high output power and we see that in the balanced outputs:
It is amazing to see so much power coming out of this little box. The unit is also very resilient down to the lowest impedance of 12 ohm:
Finally, residual noise is very low but just short of state of the art:
Topping DX5 II Listening Tests
I connected my everyday Dan Clark E3 headphone to the DX5II and started to listen. I must say, I was not ready for the experience. I had so much headroom despite the relative insensitivity of the E3. At about -10 dB, I would start to worry about my hearing.
Push a bit more and I could feel my inner ear resonating. Clarity and overall fidelity was so good that I melted in my chair and didn't want to get up to take pictures of it for the review! Such incredible performance from such a small package...Conclusions
No matter how many times Topping produces exceptional audio products, testing their new offerings always puts a smile on my face. They are constantly competing with themselves, upping the performance in every category possible. They now bring extra features in the form of DSP and delightful look and feel. Measured performance is essentially without fault although leaves a tiny space for higher end models to fill. My wish is that you all can afford to save up and buy at least this level of performance for your audio system.
It is my pleasure to recommend the Topping DX5 II DAC and Headphone Amplifier.
------------
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/
