Topping E30 DAC Review

[ouimetnick]

If he wants to retest a newer one with Cirrus Logic CS8416, I’ll send him mine to test. @amirm can even chose black or silver.

 

[serendipitydawg]

Apart from the fact that it won't "play nice" with my motley selection of DVD players via SPDIF, I really like my E30 (complete with Cirrus Logic CS8416 ) because it "plays nice" with my ancient Sony BDP-S5100 cheapo Blu-ray player.
SORRY HAVEN'T GOT 30 POSTS YET. ANYONE IN THE UK WANT TO SELL ME ONE WITH AN AKM RECEIVER CHIP ?

 

[ShinMolina]

Thank you. Wow, there are a lot of differences. In fact a lot more than just a swap of receiver chips. There are even quite visible differences to the output stage. No wonder it sounds different to earlier versions. The power supply stage has also severely changed.

I don't have as precise measuring equipment as Amirm does, but for what I have seen with my Scarlett Solo the Cirrus Logic version looks identical as the AKM version as far as THD+N, jitter and frequency response measurements go.

In my honest opinion, the differences between both versions should be only related to compatibility with SPDIF devices and such, the main signal path variances applied to the CS version seem to have no effect on audible aspects.

 

[serendipitydawg]

only related to compatibility with SPDIF devices

Still mystified why 2 DVD players have issues but a cheapo second-hand Blu-ray doesn't. Anyone have a plausible explanation?

 

[ShinMolina]

Still mystified why 2 DVD players have issues but a cheapo second-hand Blu-ray doesn't. Anyone have a plausible explanation?

No idea, I had some problems with my Volumio running Raspberry via coax and a generic ES9038Q2M.

That's why I bought the E30, had no problems with my Samsung TV and my Raspberry Pi.

 

[slartibart]

When I was using piCorePlayer and using this Udev rule my E30 would come out of standby when I turned on the piCorePlayer from Logitech Media Server and go back into standby when I powered off the piCorePlayer. I have just started using MoOde player and the same Udev rule wakes up the E30 when I play music and it goes into standby as soon as music stops playing. This is probably OK but I would prefer it if there was a delay before the DAC entered standby so it wouldn't go into standby until my listening session was over rather than every time the music stopped. Is this possible?

Never mind I found a way to delay standby.

 

[sandymc]

Still mystified why 2 DVD players have issues but a cheapo second-hand Blu-ray doesn't. Anyone have a plausible explanation?

Probably the DVD players are just transmitting the audio stream as it comes off the disk, so with significant jitter, which CS chip in the new E30 can't handle. Blue-ray players are typically a lot more sophisticated to cope with differing format's etc, so first buffer to internal storage, then output from internal storage. So audio is reclocked - no jitter, much as would be the case if you ripped the disk to your hard drive and then played it from there.

 

[Jimmy]

I don't think that the Cirrus receiver is the culprit, there's plenty of gear available using it with zero problems.

I would suggest to try a 75 ohm cable to see if it makes any difference, if that's the case then it may indicate where the problem lies.

 

[JohnYang1997]

I don't think that the Cirrus receiver is the culprit, there's plenty of gear available using it with zero problems.

I would suggest to try a 75 ohm cable to see if it makes any difference, if that's the case then it may indicate where the problem lies.

Any examples?

 

[ShinMolina]

I don't think that the Cirrus receiver is the culprit, there's plenty of gear available using it with zero problems.

I would suggest to try a 75 ohm cable to see if it makes any difference, if that's the case then it may indicate where the problem lies.

Is it always needed to use a cable with an specific impedance (50 or 75 Ohm) when connecting via coaxial?

I always make my own cables and for coaxial cables I use a common shielded wire with no specific impedance.

 

[Jimmy]

In theory yes, read here, for example : https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-why-are-spdif-cables-specified-75o

In my experience, no, I just suggested it to see if it made any difference, but the designers should know better.

Regarding the Cirrus receiver, it's an old chip and it's seen in plenty of gear , even in Cirrus DAC evaluation boards, Topping's own D30 (I owned one and it didn't have any compatibility problems with CD players or any stuff), it died on me eventually and that was it, but up to that point it never gave me any problems :

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/hardware-teardown-of-topping-d30-dac.2230/

https://www.bc-acoustique.com/en/el...12-integrated-amplifier-2x45w-wireless-detail

http://lampizator.eu/lampizator/LAMPUCERA/CD DAC Lampucera lampizator.html
...

lots of dyi stuff, f.e.:

http://www.pavouk.org/hw/modulardac/en_cs8416spdif.html

I also have a 20 year old DAC using an older variant, cs8414, and never had any problems with it.

 

[ShinMolina]

Good to know. I asked because I had some problems using a coaxial cable I made between my Volumio running Raspberry Pi and a generic ES9038Q2M DAC board.

I bought the E30 because of that and haven't had any problems using my no-impedance coaxial cable. I will try getting a 50/75 Ohm coaxial to see if I can get my other DAC working.

 

[JohnYang1997]

In theory yes, read here, for example : https://www.soundonsound.com/sound-advice/q-why-are-spdif-cables-specified-75o

In my experience, no, I just suggested it to see if it made any difference, but the designers should know better.

Regarding the Cirrus receiver, it's an old chip and it's seen in plenty of gear , even in Cirrus DAC evaluation boards, Topping's own D30 (I owned one and it didn't have any compatibility problems with CD players or any stuff), it died on me eventually and that was it, but up to that point it never gave me any problems :

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ds/hardware-teardown-of-topping-d30-dac.2230/

https://www.bc-acoustique.com/en/el...12-integrated-amplifier-2x45w-wireless-detail

http://lampizator.eu/lampizator/LAMPUCERA/CD DAC Lampucera lampizator.html
...

lots of dyi stuff, f.e.:

http://www.pavouk.org/hw/modulardac/en_cs8416spdif.html

I also have a 20 year old DAC using an older variant, cs8414, and never had any problems with it.

I get what you are saying. It's not really/necessarily CS8416's fault. But after lots of effort in investigating this issue. What I can say is there are way more DACs that don't pass the compatibility test. We found one CD player that works with AK4118(old D90, D70s, early E30), LC89091(D90se, smsl su8s) but not CS8416(Old D30, E30, D30pro), ESS's own receiver(we topping, smsl have used this in various products), XMOS's receiver(Fiio uses this), and other Cirrus logic chip(Gustard X16 uses one of these).
I have always been saying this is edge case but the end result is many of users have their cd player working fine with other devices previously (based off AK4118), but not with our new devices. And many go as far as we don't do our testings or lacks QC.
I get both sides. But one thing is that I'm probably the only one openly talks about this issue.

 

[proud]

So I should say, thanks for the kind and detailed feedback. We are going to carefully consider your request and hopefully 48khz dsd playback will be supported in newer models and be supported via firmware update.

I will repeat the question for JohnYang1997, has this bug been fixed and now there is support for DSD with a frequency of 48 kHz? I am converting PCM files to DSD512 from HQPlayer and have a lot of music in 48-96-192 kHz format. I want to use in DAC / direct DSD mode, and the values of 24.57 should be correctly displayed on the indicator and not play at a slow pace

 

[JohnYang1997]

I will repeat the question for JohnYang1997, has this bug been fixed and now there is support for DSD with a frequency of 48 kHz? I am converting PCM files to DSD512 from HQPlayer and have a lot of music in 48-96-192 kHz format. I want to use in DAC / direct DSD mode, and the values of 24.57 should be correctly displayed on the indicator and not play at a slow pace

No. It's not a bug and it will not be supported.

 

[proud]

No. It's not a bug and it will not be supported.

I now have SMSL Sanskrit 10 MK2 and it supports multiples of 48 without any problems. To do this, you need to make minimal changes in the AK4493 control register. I need direct DSD mode but SMSL does not have it. That's why I wanted to buy Topping E30. But without 48kHz support, it is not interesting. These are your words too

We are going to carefully consider your request and hopefully 48khz dsd playback will be supported in newer models and be supported via firmware update.

 

[Jimmy]

Thanks for the detailed explanation, the idea that I got is that the problem was more widespread, but it may be just a few cases with certain players, and nowadays optical is more common with modern gear so it may be even less common in practice.

I get what you are saying. It's not really/necessarily CS8416's fault. But after lots of effort in investigating this issue. What I can say is there are way more DACs that don't pass the compatibility test. We found one CD player that works with AK4118(old D90, D70s, early E30), LC89091(D90se, smsl su8s) but not CS8416(Old D30, E30, D30pro), ESS's own receiver(we topping, smsl have used this in various products), XMOS's receiver(Fiio uses this), and other Cirrus logic chip(Gustard X16 uses one of these).
I have always been saying this is edge case but the end result is many of users have their cd player working fine with other devices previously (based off AK4118), but not with our new devices. And many go as far as we don't do our testings or lacks QC.
I get both sides. But one thing is that I'm probably the only one openly talks about this issue.

 

[mongobot]

I'm having issues with my E30 and DSD playback. It's serial is 2011xxxxxx.

Oddly, it was initially fine but recently it chocked during playback of a .dsf file. The display of the E30 switched from 2.8 2 DSD > 176.4 PCM and there was no audio output.

Powering off the E30 and the host device (iMac late 2015) didn't resolve it until I changed the output in Audio MIDI Settings back to 32/192.
I could then playback .dsf files again but now find that sometimes it will still have trouble with playback. I'll start to hear dropouts and will see the display on the E30 flickering with a variety signal types: 2.8 2 DSD > 176.4 PCM > 96.0 PCM > 705.6 PCM, etc
When it gets into this state, the "fix" is the same. Quit playback, open Audio MIDI Settings and manually select a setting and resume playback.

I bought it from Apos and they've agreed to accept it as a return but frankly I wish it was working properly rather than having to go through an exchange / return.

 

[proud]

mongobot
You are not using as a player Roon + HQPlayer?

 

[mongobot]

mongobot
You are not using as a player Roon + HQPlayer?

Roon is not part of the equation for me. I first encountered while using JRiver MP 28 and then with HQPlayer4.