Topping E30 DAC Review

[companyja]

Awesome, thanks for the answer.

Does anyone know what the explanation could be for that test above though? I expect it to sound exactly the same and was kind of surprised I could tell the difference. It's most obvious with the K712 but I also heard it on Shuoer Tape and my cheapo speakers (but the speakers were by far the hardest to tell and I would always get 8 or 9/10 which is not 100% conclusive). I also tried two sources - my K5 Pro and my old Creative X-Fi Titanium soundcard. What's going on there? I doubt I'm actually hearing inverted polarity, what else could be happening there? Is the test on the website bogus?

 

[Rottmannash]

There's the pure dac mode that enables it.

How does one enable pure DAC mode?

 

[voodooless]

How does one enable pure DAC mode?

Read the manual.. it’s all in there. Basically if you don’t have volume control it is already enabled.

 

[Hernanaqp25]

Read the manual.. it’s all in there. Basically if you don’t have volume control it is already enabled.

why show always 0.0 db in dac mode?, and why not the khz =/

 

[samsa]

why show always 0.0 db in dac mode?, and why not the khz =/

Because, if that's what you're seeing, then you're in PRE mode, not DAC mode.

 

[Hernanaqp25]

Because, if that's what you're seeing, then you're in PRE mode, not DAC mode.

oh, pre amp right?, sorry for my Doubts, my e30 is comming soon

 

[Pdxwayne]

@JohnYang1997 , may I know after I use the remote to turn off the E30 DAC, would the board still being charged?

I am asking because Gustard x16 have no power off option via remote. The reason given was that using remote to power off is not full power off and the board is still being charged. Thus it is basically the same as keeping the DAC on all the time.

Thanks.

 

[v5cvbb]

@JohnYang1997 , may I know after I use the remote to turn off the E30 DAC, would the board still being charged?

I am asking because Gustard x16 have no power off option via remote. The reason given was that using remote to power off is not full power off and the board is still being charged. Thus it is basically the same as keeping the DAC on all the time.

Thanks.

Off is 4W, on is 4.5W. I don't think much is shutting off other than the display.

 

[Frio]

Yep can confirm. The stack amp had the same issue, in standby mode the same power consumption like a Monolith 887 blazing at full throttle. Maybe a switch is not the worst idea

 

[Robin L]

Go ahead and tell me this is a dumb question. Finally figured out how to get the E30 into DAC mode rather than Pre mode. The display sez '48k'. Some of what I'm playing comes from my 44.1 Redbook transfers of CDs to Apple Lossless files. The source is a tiny 512 gb flash drive plugged into an ACER Aspire 5 [Windows] computer and I'm using the APO PEQ. Is there some sort of conversion going on, and where?

 

[threni]

Go ahead and tell me this is a dumb question. Finally figured out how to get the E30 into DAC mode rather than Pre mode. The display sez '48k'. Some of what I'm playing comes from my 44.1 Redbook transfers of CDs to Apple Lossless files. The source is a tiny 512 gb flash drive plugged into an ACER Aspire 5 [Windows] computer and I'm using the APO PEQ. Is there some sort of conversion going on, and where?

It's not dumb. There is conversion going on as 99.999% of my music is 44.1 and that's what I saw (although in pre-amp mode you don't see the rate very often, as it prefer to show you the volume). I couldn't tell you exactly where but it's in your PC somewhere, so maybe poke around in the driver config or maybe in the EQ software.

 

[voodooless]

There might be some more info here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...nding-the-windows-audio-quality-debate.19438/

 

[Jimbob54]

Go ahead and tell me this is a dumb question. Finally figured out how to get the E30 into DAC mode rather than Pre mode. The display sez '48k'. Some of what I'm playing comes from my 44.1 Redbook transfers of CDs to Apple Lossless files. The source is a tiny 512 gb flash drive plugged into an ACER Aspire 5 [Windows] computer and I'm using the APO PEQ. Is there some sort of conversion going on, and where?

It's your settings for the dac in Windows Audio properties. Windows resamples everything to a defined setting. Can be bypassed using WASAPI /asio from various software players but not if you are using EAPO. With E30 on and plugged in, dig into settings, sounds, playback devices, properties and I think advanced.

 

[Robin L]

Larger question: does this affect sound quality?

 

[companyja]

Theoretically, yes. It can be measured and some have, albeit on earlier versions of Windows 10 and earlier. Earlier upsampling in directsound allowed a fair bit of aliasing. Can you hear it? No, not really, this isn't Windows XP levels of audio mixing anymore. Then again there is no need to upsample anyway, so I'd just set it to 44,1khz in Windows if that's the majority of your music and call it a day

 

[Robin L]

Theoretically, yes. It can be measured and some have, albeit on earlier versions of Windows 10 and earlier. Earlier upsampling in directsound allowed a fair bit of aliasing. Can you hear it? No, not really, this isn't Windows XP levels of audio mixing anymore. Then again there is no need to upsample anyway, so I'd just set it to 44,1khz in Windows if that's the majority of your music and call it a day

The music provided by Amazon Music or YouTube, is it usually 48 khz?

 

[companyja]

Oh I don't know, I'd imagine Amazon would go for 44,1khz, not sure what Youtube Music goes for - my guess without googling would also be 44,1khz if they're not literally doing the same codecs as their video stuff, which would be very dumb.

If you mean listening to music on youtube videos, it is going to be 48khz. Most video content will be in 48khz due to very old standardization practices. For music though, unless you're going hires or ripping vinyl, it's going to be 44,1.

Also if you're listening to music on youtube videos, they cut everything above 16khz anyway so don't even worry about ultimate audio quality

 

[Yoyop]

Sorry to ask the question again but i didn't find the answer, but what S/N has fixed the polarity issue please ?
I'm going to buy it but I want to ask for the S/N to the seller before buying it.

 

[Vladetz]

Sorry to ask the question again but i didn't find the answer, but what S/N has fixed the polarity issue please ?
I'm going to buy it but I want to ask for the S/N to the seller before buying it.

2004+

 

[Jarrett]

You probably won't even run into an old serial number anymore.