Topping E30 DAC Review

[Morpheus85]

With headphones?

yes

 

[Morpheus85]

They sell an aluminium remote:
View attachment 59542

mine is made of plastic.

 

[Toku]

They sell an aluminium remote:
View attachment 59542

This optional remote control is very good. It is heavy and has a luxurious feel. I bought two.

 

[JohnYang1997]

yes

Just tested it. There's absolutely no pop sound to be heard when using headphones from switching sampling frequency.
How to test it?
Set digital volume on PC or e30 to -50 or lower. Make sure there's still sound playing so you know the output is not turned off.
Then test replay, change sampling rate etc
If you don don't hear the pop anymore it means it's not the pop sound we all were referred to.

The pop you heard is the transient caused by cutting of audio signal. The edges in time domain has a lot of energy and high frequency content so you can hear it. It's an issue since like forever. The solution is simply fade in and fade out. It's in foobar, Spotify or majority of players. In ASIO mode foobar can't process the fade in fade out. Hence the pop.

 

[Morpheus85]

Okay, I didn't know that. It really pops as soon as there is no signal.

Incidentally, the topping d10 does not have this problem.

 

[Daverz]

Just tested it. There's absolutely no pop sound to be heard when using headphones from switching sampling frequency.
How to test it?
Set digital volume on PC or e30 to -50 or lower. Make sure there's still sound playing so you know the output is not turned off.
Then test replay, change sampling rate etc
If you don don't hear the pop anymore it means it's not the pop sound we all were referred to.

The pop you heard is the transient caused by cutting of audio signal. The edges in time domain has a lot of energy and high frequency content so you can hear it. It's an issue since like forever. The solution is simply fade in and fade out. It's in foobar, Spotify or majority of players. In ASIO mode foobar can't process the fade in fade out. Hence the pop.

It may be an issue since forever, but my other DACs don't exhibit the behavior.

 

[JohnYang1997]

It may be an issue since forever, but my other DACs don't exhibit the behavior.

This particular issue is not immune to any dac. The original actual pop is only audible directly connected to power amp. This issue is only not present on ESS dac or DACs with ASRC in the front.

 

[Veri]

Incidentally, the topping d10 does not have this problem.

D10 with ESS chip does not suffer from this problem. It's an AKM issue that is difficult to resolve, especially in this price range (~$129)

This particular issue is not immune to any dac. The original actual pop is only audible directly connected to power amp. This issue is only not present on ESS dac or DACs with ASRC in the front.

BTW does that mean that AKM chips have a different kind of ASRC, or none at all?

 

[JohnYang1997]

D10 with ESS chip does not suffer from this problem. It's an AKM issue that is difficult to resolve, especially in this price range (~$129)


BTW does that mean that AKM chips have a different kind of ASRC, or none at all?

AKM is not asynchronous. Thus it needs to change the internal logic for different sampling rate. Modulator will have noise as output during that period. The time is short hence it's only a pop. ESS has ASRC in the front hence changing sampling rate does not affect the operation of the dac. chips like 9038 can run in synchronous mode in which the issue should still be present.

 

[Veri]

AKM is not asynchronous. Thus it needs to change the internal logic for different sampling rate. Modulator will have noise as output during that period. The time is short hence it's only a pop. ESS has ASRC in the front hence changing sampling rate does not affect the operation of the dac. chips like 9038 can run in synchronous mode in which the issue should still be present.

I see, thanks for the explanation

 

[facboy]

Just received this, it's my first USB DAC. I must be thick, how do I get foobar to output DSD? I downloaded and installed the drivers from toppings website, and I've added foo_input_sacd, foo_out_wasapi and foo_out_asio to foobar.

Whatever I do, there is never any sound out of the DAC unless I set SACD to output DSD+PCM. Then it appears to just be using PCM, as if I use one of the "DSD : ASOI/WASAPI" outputs then I get no sound again. The DAC panel always shows PCM, regardless.

EDIT: ah, it's because it was in DirectSound mode to begin with and nearly blew my ears, so I'd turned down the volume. It won't work in DSD mode unless the "Output Volume" is set to 100 (0dB in "Topping USB Audio Device Control Panel"). Nearly blew my ears again. I don't seem to have this DSD64 issue, at least not after a short period of playback.

 

[fosi]

This particular issue is not immune to any dac. The original actual pop is only audible directly connected to power amp. This issue is only not present on ESS dac or DACs with ASRC in the front.

Considering buying the E30 and hooking it up to my S3000Pro. Should I be concerned regaring this pop issue???

 

[kkeretic]

Whatever I do, there is never any sound out of the DAC unless I set SACD to output DSD+PCM. Then it appears to just be using PCM, as if I use one of the "DSD : ASOI/WASAPI" outputs then I get no sound again. The DAC panel always shows PCM, regardless.

I am using DSDTranscoder plugin as an Asio output (DSD : ASIO : DSD Transcoder (DoP/Native)) in combination with a Super Audio CD Decoder plugin configured to output DSD.

 

[JohnYang1997]

Considering buying the E30 and hooking it up to my S3000Pro. Should I be concerned regaring this pop issue???

It should be fine as you have volume control after E30.

 

[facboy]

@JohnYang1997 a newbie question (posted here too, but perhaps the E30-specific thread is better), can I connect my Grado SR60s to the RCA outs while waiting for L30 or will I blow it up? I have 80ohm Beyerdynamic DT250s as well if that's better?

 

[JohnYang1997]

Not recommended.
1, E30 won't break
2, You will suffer from frequency response change due to the high output impedance.
3, DT250 will be better but still not recommended.
You can just use what you have been used and wait for L30. Or try it out, you may like the change in frequency response who knows. The output opamp is not very powerful but it's still better than some of the diy amps happened a decade ago.

 

[facboy]

Not recommended.
1, E30 won't break
2, You will suffer from frequency response change due to the high output impedance.
3, DT250 will be better but still not recommended.
You can just use what you have been used and wait for L30. Or try it out, you may like the change in frequency response who knows. The output opamp is not very powerful but it's still better than some of the diy amps happened a decade ago.

ah that's great, thank you. yes, it sounded unpleasantly boomy, but i mostly only wear headphones at night when gaming and then i have all sorts of spacial sound junk on, so i can live with suboptimal sound as long as it won't break.

 

[fosi]

It should be fine as you have volume control after E30.

Thanks for your response. Altho it stil not clear for me in what cases does this pop occur, could you elaborate on that please???

 

[JohnYang1997]

Thanks for your response. Altho it stil not clear for me in what cases does this pop occur, could you elaborate on that please???

Just don't worry about it..

 

[Toku]

I received my E30 from Apos yesterday and I can confirm that DSD (including DSD64) works for me. It was a pain in the butt to set-up foobar, but it would have been much easier if I downloaded Topping's driver and instructions from the beginning. So far, I really like this little guy!

Excuse me,
Please tell me the first 4 digits of the E30 serial number you received.
The serial number can be found on the white sticker on the right side.
feg 1911 ******