Topping DX5II Balanced DAC and Headphone Amp Review

[Skolsj]

Okay. My left IEMs or headphones produce cracking sound. It sounds like 'grrgg grrggg' when low freq plays. It happens everytime the drum pedal or heavy riff guitar play. The noise gets more audible the more I turn the volume up. It happens to all my IEMs and headphone but only left channel. Is there anything wrong with my Topping DX5ii?
Fyi, I felt an electricity when I touch its cover. Help me.

 

[xlinknz]

Under 'Setup' -> 'Display' -> 'Theme':

Aurora
Orange
Peru
Pea green
Dark khaki
Rosy brown
Blue
Purple magic
White

What colour is "Peru"?

 

[Bauhaus]

@xlinknz it's the penultimate one
Difficult to show the proper colors

 

[ziggurcat]

Okay. My left IEMs or headphones produce cracking sound. It sounds like 'grrgg grrggg' when low freq plays. It happens everytime the drum pedal or heavy riff guitar play. The noise gets more audible the more I turn the volume up. It happens to all my IEMs and headphone but only left channel. Is there anything wrong with my Topping DX5ii?
Fyi, I felt an electricity when I touch its cover. Help me.

Your DX5 II settings? Volume level? Which HPA output or does it matter?

Hey @Bauhaus -- did you confirm that you heard the hiccup issue I mentioned to you earlier?

 

[Bauhaus]

Hey @Bauhaus -- did you confirm that you heard the hiccup issue I mentioned to you earlier?

Yeah, it appears that I’m facing the same issue. However, I’ll give it another try to be certain. I’ll attempt it tomorrow.

 

[ziggurcat]

Yeah, it appears that I’m facing the same issue. However, I’ll give it another try to be certain. I’ll attempt it tomorrow.

If you do confirm, I would then encourage reporting it to Topping -- the more people report this, the better chance they'll fix it. So far, they haven't responded with any news about them being able to reproduce, so if others report it, it at least takes it away from being a specific-to-me thing.

 

[magor34]

Okay. My left IEMs or headphones produce cracking sound. It sounds like 'grrgg grrggg' when low freq plays. It happens everytime the drum pedal or heavy riff guitar play. The noise gets more audible the more I turn the volume up. It happens to all my IEMs and headphone but only left channel. Is there anything wrong with my Topping DX5ii?
Fyi, I felt an electricity when I touch its cover. Help me.

Have you tried the headphones with another device? As well as other headphones on this unit?
Its important try different devices and headphones to rule out other hardware issues.

 

[Skolsj]

Your DX5 II settings? Volume level? Which HPA output or does it matter?

Hey @Bauhaus -- did you confirm that you heard the hiccup issue I mentioned to you earlier?

Normal setting and low gain. Volume level? I guess I played it around -20 to -14db with my IEM KZ PR 2, or lower with other IEMs and headphone. I dont know about LO since I never use the LO option to play music, so It's safe to say that I play only with HPA SE or Balance.
At first, I never heard that grrgg ggrrgg noise from left channel, but the noise is getting more audible by days. I suspected there was a problem with my IEM driver, yet it happened to all of my IEMs and headphone. Happened to BAL and SE input
Also, since the first day I bought it, I feel there is an electricity on the DX5II cover. It should be soft and smooth since it has matte finish, but I felt it coarser, like there is an electricity problem. I wonder whether the electricity feel comes from my electricity house grounding or its hardware.

 

[Skolsj]

Have you tried the headphones with another device? As well as other headphones on this unit?
Its important try different devices and headphones to rule out other hardware issues.

I dont have any other dac/amp. But all of my IEMs and headphone doesnt suffer the problem with my dongle DACs.

 

[ziggurcat]

*sigh* Topping is being Topping again...

"After further confirmation, the issue of SPDIF mode 1 working fine, while SPDIF mode 2 has problems is not actually a bug. These modes are compatibility options designed for different devices; it doesn't mean both modes should work correctly on the same device. Since different devices have different compatibility levels, as long as a compatible mode can be found in the different SPDIF modes, it's fine. Thank you for your understanding!"

It's not even the issue I reported.

 

[Morla]

Okay. My left IEMs or headphones produce cracking sound. It sounds like 'grrgg grrggg' when low freq plays. It happens everytime the drum pedal or heavy riff guitar play. The noise gets more audible the more I turn the volume up. It happens to all my IEMs and headphone but only left channel. Is there anything wrong with my Topping DX5ii?
Fyi, I felt an electricity when I touch its cover. Help me.

Any chance to give the unit back and get another one? In germany that's your right (within 30 days)

 

[ziggurcat]

Normal setting and low gain. Volume level? I guess I played it around -20 to -14db with my IEM KZ PR 2, or lower with other IEMs and headphone. I dont know about LO since I never use the LO option to play music, so It's safe to say that I play only with HPA SE or Balance.
At first, I never heard that grrgg ggrrgg noise from left channel, but the noise is getting more audible by days. I suspected there was a problem with my IEM driver, yet it happened to all of my IEMs and headphone. Happened to BAL and SE input
Also, since the first day I bought it, I feel there is an electricity on the DX5II cover. It should be soft and smooth since it has matte finish, but I felt it coarser, like there is an electricity problem. I wonder whether the electricity feel comes from my electricity house grounding or its hardware.

It could be that you got a defective unit, but I would bring the unit to a different location, and test there if possible. Since you're using headphones, you could even just bring it and a laptop to a coffee shop without disturbing anyone. It'll look weird to everyone else, but this would at least rule out an environmental issue if it carried over.

 

[ziggurcat]

I do have to say that with v1.91, this issue:

"*Fixed: The occasional unintended wake-up of the device when in standby mode."

Was not even something I considered to be one, I just thought my computer kept waking up the device all the time because it's been a thing with every DAC I've used in the system. Now, it doesn't really come out of standby mode unless I physically do it (either by clicking my mouse button or doing it with the remote). As a result, my DX5 II has been running noticeably cooler (not that it was running hot at all, but there's a definite, quantifiable drop in temperature).

And because they've completely misunderstood the hiccup problem I presented to them, I now have to make a 2-hour video tomorrow.

 

[Bauhaus]

Was not even something I considered to be one, I just thought my computer kept waking up the device all the time because it's been a thing with every DAC I've used in the system. Now, it doesn't really come out of standby mode unless I physically do it (either by clicking my mouse button or doing it with the remote). As a result, my DX5 II has been running noticeably cooler (not that it was running hot at all, but there's a definite, quantifiable drop in temperature).

It still waking up on it's own with macOS Tahoe 2.2. I think it’s related to notifications or the Mac regularly checking something on the internet.

 

[ziggurcat]

It still waking up on it's own with macOS Tahoe 2.2. I think it’s related to notifications or the Mac regularly checking something on the internet.

I have that turned off, so perhaps that's why for me?

 

[Bauhaus]

I have that turned off, so perhaps that's why for me?

Yes it should be this.

 

[ziggurcat]

So I sent Topping a 1h41m video showing them the hiccup issue. I did the workaround before recording, and showed them 42 minutes of continuous playback with no hiccup, I then showed them the step of pressing the C button to select a save preset (which "resets" the issue), then about 10 or so minutes of playback where the hiccup occurs 4 times. I then finally showed them the workaround, and played another 42 minutes of continuous playback with no hiccup.

If that doesn't get through their heads, I don't know what will.

Edit:

They got back to me on the video, and they said it provided them with "valuable information to accurately identify the issue." They said they are going to get a team on it, and try figure out a fix. We'll see if there's another beta FW in my future...

 

[Bauhaus]

So I sent Topping a 1h41m video showing them the hiccup issue. I did the workaround before recording, and showed them 42 minutes of continuous playback with no hiccup, I then showed them the step of pressing the C button to select a save preset (which "resets" the issue), then about 10 or so minutes of playback where the hiccup occurs 4 times. I then finally showed them the workaround, and played another 42 minutes of continuous playback with no hiccup.

If that doesn't get through their heads, I don't know what will.

Edit:

They got back to me on the video, and they said it provided them with "valuable information to accurately identify the issue." They said they are going to get a team on it, and try figure out a fix. We'll see if there's another beta FW in my future...

1 hour and 41 minutes ??

 

[Morla]

Very valuable customer

 

[ziggurcat]

1 hour and 41 minutes ??

Yeah, I needed to show them two long playback sessions in order for them to really understand the problem because they thought I was reporting that one SPDIF mode works while the other doesn't, which is normal behaviour, and was not the issue at all.

They got the issue after that, worked on a fix, and sent me a new test FW within 36 hours of sending them the video. I can confirm that the issue was fixed, so I bet they'll be sending out a new FW soon after I let them know it's good.

Very valuable customer

Just dedicated in helping getting this device to the best possible place it can be. Believe me, I was not happy about spending nearly two hours of my day doing that, but I was off doing other things for about 1h30 of that time. It was important to show them that it was not because I misunderstood how the SPDIF mode works.