Topping E30 DAC Review

[dpippel]

I have to ask, but just how much more about the E30 remains to be said that isn't going over the same old ground ad nauseam?

I'd say that this has nothing at all to do with justifying a string of off-topic posts.

 

[samsa]

My contribution for E30 owners such as myself, is not to use dirty USB power from a PC and switch to a phone charger or the like if you're using powered studio monitors. Tried both and themere's a huge difference in noise floor thru the speakers once I switched.

Sounds very plausible ... except that @amirm actually measured this in his initial review. You did read that, didn't you?

 

[Kouioui]

Sounds very plausible ... except that @amirm actually measured this in his initial review. You did read that, didn't you?

I understood that he used a laptop instead of a desktop, but I could be mistaken, often am.

 

[samsa]

I understood that he used a laptop instead of a desktop, but I could be mistaken, often am.

Laptop or desktop, the way he described his power source was:

I suspect it has to do with how it is powered. I on purpose went with the "dirtiest" source of USB input.

which is to say, it's at least as dirty as any USB power source you could come up with. And, even with the dirtiest source of USB power, he measured a SINAD of 112dB. Either you have golden ears, or the difference between "dirty" and "clean" 5V power supplies is inaudible.

 

[Kouioui]

Either you have golden ears, or the difference between "dirty" and "clean" 5V power supplies is inaudible.

Just reporting what I experienced with my desktop setup, no claims of anything except using full gain on my monitors, I heard a significant reduction in noise floor between PRE and HPA using the switch on the L30 driven by the E30 in pure dac mode. Could be something besides E30 the culprit here, I'm willing to admit I'm not an expert on power supply design. I'm sure other powered monitor owners might be using the E30/L30 stack and was wanting to save them some grief.

 

[VNV73]

Greetings. I want to share my observations.
I experimented with filters for a long time and my favorite was filter 6. With this filter there is more transparency, more subtle details, more open sound and deeper scene. I output the sound from Sotm SMS 200. With some sound sources and filter number 6, there was a skinny bass and a deficit of the lower mids. This does not happen with Sotm.

 

[samsa]

Just reporting what I experienced with my desktop setup, no claims of anything except using full gain on my monitors, I heard a significant reduction in noise floor between PRE and HPA using the switch on the L30 driven by the E30 in pure dac mode. Could be something besides E30 the culprit here, I'm willing to admit I'm not an expert on power supply design. I'm sure other powered monitor owners might be using the E30/L30 stack and was wanting to save them some grief.

Well, OK. With no audio signal present, you certainly can turn up the gain on your preamp (L30) enough so that you can hear the noise from the E30. That's just not a normal listening situation.

If you compare @amirm's dashboard

with @JohnYang1997's

you see peaks in the former that are absent in the latter. They're at -120dB, so normally inaudible. But they're also 20dB above the noise floor. So they'd be perfectly audible if you cranked up the gain enough.

 

[Atanasi]

And, even with the dirtiest source of USB power, he measured a SINAD of 112dB. Either you have golden ears, or the difference between "dirty" and "clean" 5V power supplies is inaudible.

I noticed a benefit for using a separate USB power supply. If I use a multi-port USB charger to power both a laptop (through USB PD) and E30, and connect another bus-powered DAC to the laptop, and connect both DACs to Atom Amp at the same time (one through RCA, another through 3.5mm), I get a ground loop. Using a different power supply either for the laptop or E30, or disconnecting the second DAC removed the ground loop. Using a powered USB hub port to power E30 made the ground loop worse.

 

[Strato007]

I got mine from CN directly and have been trying it for some weeks... my setup is: Android box to Smart TV connected through HMDI. Audio output via optical to E30. E30’s USB input mainly with Android and UAPP with Tidal and Pandora app.
E30’s speaker system through RCA output: Audioengie A5+. Audio output mode as DAC.
All sound pretty good. Optical input seems to be clearer and detailer than USB.
Sound in general, good soundstage and great depth!!!
Overall, very happy with my budget DAC!
Now understanding filters.

 

[raif71]

It would be nice if we could get back to discussing the E30. Just sayin'.

Yes, let's get back to E30

 

[kndy-]

No answer to my questions?

 

[Robbo99999]

Well, here's something not off-topic:

I recently acquired new speakers and a new amp.

So my installation is : PC (Creative X-Fi titanium soundcard) ==> RCA ==> Cyrus One feeding my Monitor Audio Silver 100.
I also have a gaming Sennheiser headphones plugged to my soundcard.


First, would this DAC be a good step-up over my X-Fi?

Second, when I push the volume above ~50% of my amp, I get a really annoying noise, audible both through my speakers and my headphones while plugged to my amp.
It came with a UK plug, so I had to buy an adapter (French here). This noise is only present when I select the PC source, not Bluetooth. Do you think it comes from my soundcard?

I noticed you didn't get a reply so I'll try to give my best one! For your "annoying noise" you get when you push your amp above 50% volume, is that like a hum sound? It sounds like it might be a ground loop problem, so try running everything that is physically connected together from just one electrical outlet, which should hopefully remove any ground loops.

Regarding E30 being better than Creative X-Fi, well it depends whether you're talking about music or gaming. I'm assuming your Creative card has virtual speaker simulation capabilities, and if that's the case then you won't get that with the E30, but if your Creative card doesn't have virtual speaker creation then there's not much point in having a gaming sound card and then the E30 would likely outperform it in every audiophile measurement I would expect - therefore you could say that the E30 would be an upgrade.

 

[kndy-]

I noticed you didn't get a reply so I'll try to give my best one! For your "annoying noise" you get when you push your amp above 50% volume, is that like a hum sound? It sounds like it might be a ground loop problem, so try running everything that is physically connected together from just one electrical outlet, which should hopefully remove any ground loops.

Regarding E30 being better than Creative X-Fi, well it depends whether you're talking about music or gaming. I'm assuming your Creative card has virtual speaker simulation capabilities, and if that's the case then you won't get that with the E30, but if your Creative card doesn't have virtual speaker creation then there's not much point in having a gaming sound card and then the E30 would likely outperform it in every audiophile measurement I would expect - therefore you could say that the E30 would be an upgrade.

Thanks for the answer, sadly I can't plug it to a different outlet yet so I'll stick with it as it's not that annoying.

For the gaming part, I've never used any "gaming enhancements" provided by Creative, I think they suck so yeah, I think I'll go for this little DAC, thanks!

 

[Robbo99999]

Thanks for the answer, sadly I can't plug it to a different outlet yet so I'll stick with it as it's not that annoying.

For the gaming part, I've never used any "gaming enhancements" provided by Creative, I think they suck so yeah, I think I'll go for this little DAC, thanks!

You can't plug everything into one electrical outlet? Just buy some extension cords that give you more plugs then literally run everything that's physically connected together off that one outlet (from the extension cords), unless of course you're going over your safe amp rating (or Watts) for your electrical outlet.

Yes, if you don't use any of the gamer features then it makes sense to get a quality audiophile USB DAC, it's the best you can get, not gonna get much better than the E30.

 

[kndy-]

You can't plug everything into one electrical outlet? Just buy some extension cords that give you more plugs then literally run everything that's physically connected together off that one outlet (from the extension cords), unless of course you're going over your safe amp rating (or Watts) for your electrical outlet.

Yes, if you don't use any of the gamer features then it makes sense to get a quality audiophile USB DAC, it's the best you can get, not gonna get much better than the E30.

I went ahead and pulled the trigger. Will give my feedback this week

 

[Axaion]

Random question, does usb class 2 not support low latency audio outside of ASIO?, with the drivers i can set 1.17ms/1.50ms, but that only applies to ASIO obviously.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/audio/low-latency-audio
https://github.com/miniant-git/REAL Program to see/have it use the lowest it will go all the time for all sounds

If anyone has managed to make that show less than 10ms, id love to know how \o

 

[Jair]

Topping e30 or d10s?

 

[rajapruk]

Any thump, pop or crack at startup, shutdown, sample-rate-change, or loss of power of this dac?

 

[Kobayashi Maru]

Anyone got the e30 working with an iPhone? I have a iPhone XR with an original Apple camera adaptor (not usb3) and I’m getting the err error when trying to connect. Setting I’ve missed?

 

[Toku]

Any thump, pop or crack at startup, shutdown, sample-rate-change, or loss of power of this dac?

I have two E30s, but I have no such symptoms.