The DX5 II is also a pre-amp with PEQ capability. Some may buy it that reason alone and never plug a pair of headphones into it.Thought this was kind of mandatory?
-
Welcome to ASR. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!
Topping DX5II Balanced DAC and Headphone Amp Review
- Thread starter amirm
- Start date
I did. And its a fantastic improvement over my old graphic equalizer.
ziggurcat
Major Contributor
I apologize, I'm not certain what the question is.
No xover ability to drive a sub means a "meh, fine" from me. I'll never ever be interested in a DAC that lacks that feature these days.
ziggurcat
Major Contributor
It doesn't have a sub out, so shy would you expect it to have a LPF/HPF setting?
Exactly. I regard a sub out as a mandatory feature in any DAC that is intended to perform in my main system these days. I find it a bit silly that both Topping an SMSL have hundreds of DACs out yet not a single one of them has that feature - makes them useless to me. And yes, I am perfectly aware others may not share my preferences.
That's like complaining that a car is bad because it can't fly.
DX5 II is a headphone DAC/Amp combo (and intended as such).
ziggurcat
Major Contributor
What you're looking for is a preamp:
It is billed as "Topping DX5 II Smart DAC and balanced headphone amp". It's simply not "smart" enough for me. Like I said, I know others may not share my preferences, nor have I to accept others'. I was just explaining why to me, it's just "fine".
Amir called it that not Topping themselves.
ziggurcat
Major Contributor
OK this is getting silly. Check out the first post in this discussion. Sorry you are personally offended because I didn't vote "great". I cast my vote and am out of this discussion.
ziggurcat
Major Contributor
I assure you there is no offense taken.
You are expecting something that DACs simply aren't designed to do -- I looked for DACs with sub outs, and there's none (unless you can cite a specific brand/model). Only the devices that are all-in-one DAC/HPA/AMPs have a sub/pre-out (the Topping MX3s or SMSL AO300, for example), and not all of them do.
Edit: And it's been pointed out that the "Smart" moniker was Amir's, not Topping's. There is nothing in Topping's marketing materials for this device that says it's a "Smart DAC" (see the provided link)
Last edited:
I would say it's a toy feature. its bs2b mode only has one intensity, compared to 5 intensities in RME ADI-2 DAC, and fully configurable settings in JDS Element IV. also it only works for 44.1 and 48 khz, not for higher resolutions. technically bs2b does not consume a lot of resources and should be able to go to 192.
Also it lacks the loudness feature I need.
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2024
- Messages
- 86
- Likes
- 108
I had responded to their email requesting to look at adding loudness compensation as well. It may not be the best crossfeed implementation but would still be a nice feature to have rather than not.
you can ask them to improve crossfeed by having user configurable intensity and supporting higher sample rate. it's trivial to implement those in bs2b. convolution is harder and may have computation limitations.
ziggurcat
Major Contributor
I had no idea that crossfeed was even a thing that was missing -- I wouldn't have noticed anything if this hadn't even been mentioned.
My understanding from the previous post is that it's an as yet released feature.
Do you have source for why you only believe it will be one intensity?
If they're working on crossfeed for the next Fw release, does anyone know if they've been made aware of the short one-side +20dB volume increase when switching profiles in Topping Tune?
I'm not even sure if this is a Topping Tune issue, or a Fw issue, because switching profiles on the device itself doesn't cause this one-sided volume increase.
I'm not even sure if this is a Topping Tune issue, or a Fw issue, because switching profiles on the device itself doesn't cause this one-sided volume increase.
What is this? Is QC really that bad?
Similar threads
- Poll
- Poll
