Topping E30 DAC Review

[staticV3]

I bought mine the December after the review came out and it’s sadly starting to give up. The power section seems to be the culprit.

The barrel connector is no longer secure enough despite being left untouched in a cabinet for years now. I’m getting audible noise and artifacts from the poor connection and no amount of fiddling fixes it.

Time for an upgrade, I think! In the meantime, add my experience to the data set on inexpensive hi-fi longevity.

I’m not unhappy about the performance or price, although both performance standards and my budget tolerance have grown a bit in the past four years.

Have you tried another DC cable? These cost like $2 and may well restore your E30 to fully working condition.

Would be a shame to write it off completely just because of that.

 

[mikemag]

I bought mine the December after the review came out and it’s sadly starting to give up. The power section seems to be the culprit.

The barrel connector is no longer secure enough despite being left untouched in a cabinet for years now. I’m getting audible noise and artifacts from the poor connection and no amount of fiddling fixes it.

Time for an upgrade, I think! In the meantime, add my experience to the data set on inexpensive hi-fi longevity.

I’m not unhappy about the performance or price, although both performance standards and my budget tolerance have grown a bit in the past four years.

Sell it for parts or repair, many people like me love to tinker with stuff

 

[thunderchicken]

Sell it for parts or repair, many people like me love to tinker with stuff

That’s me, I like to tinker with stuff. This product isn’t really worth the time or effort for me though.

 

[thunderchicken]

Have you tried another DC cable? These cost like $2 and may well restore your E30 to fully working condition.

Would be a shame to write it off completely just because of that.

It couldn’t hurt. I don’t think it’ll help though. I’m getting DC at the outputs when I jiggle the power cord, so I think there’s a bigger issue.

 

[Ashimaru]

I have been using the Topping E30 to listen to music streaming on Spotify/Tidal via cellphone or laptop. And I currently want to start buying CD of my favorite bands. I know the E30 has spdif receiver cirrus logic problems so there is no way I can buy a CD player to pair with the E30 via spdif. So how can I listen to the CD I purchased through the E30? Should I play it on my laptop via USB? or is there a CD player that has a USB port to connect to the E30?

 

[7jm]

I have been using the Topping E30 to listen to music streaming on Spotify/Tidal via cellphone or laptop. And I currently want to start buying CD of my favorite bands. I know the E30 has spdif receiver cirrus logic problems so there is no way I can buy a CD player to pair with the E30 via spdif. So how can I listen to the CD I purchased through the E30? Should I play it on my laptop via USB? or is there a CD player that has a USB port to connect to the E30?

I was unaware of this issue when I purchased an E30 from audiophonics. I was using the dac with a sonos connect at the time, when I did try it out with my old pioneer CD player via optical it didn't work, lots of dropouts and unlistenable.
I investigated the issue and discovered it's problem. This was maybe 18 months after I had purchased it. I contacted audiophonics and their response was to the effect ' no one uses CD players anymore' which was absurd.

I didn't pursue it with them and sold on the dac ( with full disclosure). In my opinion another fail from topping.

 

[Ashimaru]

I was unaware of this issue when I purchased an E30 from audiophonics. I was using the dac with a sonos connect at the time, when I did try it out with my old pioneer CD player via optical it didn't work, lots of dropouts and unlistenable.
I investigated the issue and discovered it's problem. This was maybe 18 months after I had purchased it. I contacted audiophonics and their response was to the effect ' no one uses CD players anymore' which was absurd.

I didn't pursue it with them and sold on the dac ( with full disclosure). In my opinion another fail from topping.

Yes, that really hurts. When I first bought it, I already knew about the issue, and didn't pay attention to it because I only heard via USB. But I was wrong, a few years later I wanted to start collecting CDs and had trouble with this thing.

 

[Kane1972]

does the coaxial have the same issue or is it just the optical?

 

[Roland68]

does the coaxial have the same issue or is it just the optical?

You should try that. The CS8416 has the same inputs and the same signal, but the input ranges are wired differently.
When I tried a few things with the E30, the optical input worked perfectly on some CD players, while I had dropouts with RCA, and vice versa.

As the CS8416 in other devices has no problem with the SPDIF signal from CD players, I assume that there is a mismatch in the E30.
It is probably a bad combination of the E30's measurement jitter being as low as possible, saving on components and simple circuit design.
But you also shouldn't forget the price range and the flawless USB function.
I also suspect that the E30 works perfectly with flawless and sufficiently strong SPDIF signals. Tests on 4 different DDCs were carried out without errors or dropouts.

 

[Ashimaru]

You should try that. The CS8416 has the same inputs and the same signal, but the input ranges are wired differently.
When I tried a few things with the E30, the optical input worked perfectly on some CD players, while I had dropouts with RCA, and vice versa.

As the CS8416 in other devices has no problem with the SPDIF signal from CD players, I assume that there is a mismatch in the E30.
It is probably a bad combination of the E30's measurement jitter being as low as possible, saving on components and simple circuit design.
But you also shouldn't forget the price range and the flawless USB function.
I also suspect that the E30 works perfectly with flawless and sufficiently strong SPDIF signals. Tests on 4 different DDCs were carried out without errors or dropouts.

What CD player do you use that works with the E30 optical input?

So is there a way for the SPDIF signal to be stronger so it can work on the CS8416?

 

[Roland68]

What CD player do you use that works with the E30 optical input?

So is there a way for the SPDIF signal to be stronger so it can work on the CS8416?

I'll have to look in my documents next week, but that wouldn't be much use to you. Because even with 3 players of the same type, the behavior was very different. That also shows how sensitive the E30 is in this regard.
Even with the Cambridge CXC drive, I had slight interruptions at the beginning after switching it on, which stopped when the devices were warm.

However, I have never had any problems with other DACs with any CD player.
Even my old Cambridge Dacmagic 1, built in 1994, so 30 years old and not yet serviced, works perfectly with all CD players.

I can give you a very simple piece of advice: if you need a DAC that doesn't just work well via USB, buy one with the AK4118 transceiver chip, which is now being produced again.

 

[voodooless]

So is there a way for the SPDIF signal to be stronger so it can work on the CS8416?

It’s it not about stronger, it’s probably particular types and amounts of jitter that the receiver chip is too sensitive about. It basically means that it either works, or it doesn’t. Electronics other than some reclocking device would be able to fix that.

 

[antcollinet]

It’s it not about stronger, it’s probably particular types and amounts of jitter that the receiver chip is too sensitive about. It basically means that it either works, or it doesn’t. Electronics other than some reclocking device would be able to fix that.

I"m unconvinced it is jitter - the data from the CD should be clocked into the buffer with the disc speed adjusted by PLL, so the buffer can be read with a stable clock. I suspect a clock running outside of spec, and therefore the discrepancy is outside of the range the E30 clock can lock onto.

 

[voodooless]

I"m unconvinced it is jitter - the data from the CD should be clocked into the buffer with the disc speed adjusted by PLL, so the buffer can be read with a stable clock. I suspect a clock running outside of spec, and therefore the discrepancy is outside of the range the E30 clock can lock onto.

True, it could also be an out of spec clock. In that case, something that does a reclock only works when ASRC is applied.

 

[dont_listen_to_me]

Wondering if anyone here can help me on this. I have one of these and it worked great for some active monitors I had for a while, but now I use it for streaming Tidal from my M1 MBA to my old Denon AVR but I have to really crank my amp up and the noise floor is super audible, it's unlistenable. anything I play with the internal DAC (bluetooth or HDMI inputs) it works great, but not when I'm using this externally. I find that the DAC works great if I were just listening on headphones (although the output is quieter than the headphone out on my MacBook). I have a phono preamp that also works great with the Denon, so I'm wondering if it's the DAC, or if I'm just doing something terribly wrong.
Thanks in advance

 

[PyramidElectric]

Wondering if anyone here can help me on this. I have one of these and it worked great for some active monitors I had for a while, but now I use it for streaming Tidal from my M1 MBA to my old Denon AVR but I have to really crank my amp up and the noise floor is super audible, it's unlistenable. anything I play with the internal DAC (bluetooth or HDMI inputs) it works great, but not when I'm using this externally. I find that the DAC works great if I were just listening on headphones (although the output is quieter than the headphone out on my MacBook). I have a phono preamp that also works great with the Denon, so I'm wondering if it's the DAC, or if I'm just doing something terribly wrong.
Thanks in advance

Have you set the volume to something less than full output on the E30? (if you were using this with Actives previously then I'm guessing the volume was set quite low on the DAC).

 

[antcollinet]

Have you set the volume to something less than full output on the E30? (if you were using this with Actives previously then I'm guessing the volume was set quite low on the DAC).

This.

 

[SgtPepper]

I have been using the Topping E30 to listen to music streaming on Spotify/Tidal via cellphone or laptop. And I currently want to start buying CD of my favorite bands. I know the E30 has spdif receiver cirrus logic problems so there is no way I can buy a CD player to pair with the E30 via spdif. So how can I listen to the CD I purchased through the E30? Should I play it on my laptop via USB? or is there a CD player that has a USB port to connect to the E30?

I don't know if this helps, but it's first discussed quite extensively here and onwards:

Topping E30 DAC Review

Any reason to get E30 over D10s if I only need usb in? I wonder how does digital volume of the E30 vs windows volume and would that be a factor? here is my take since i have both DACs. you only get the E30 if you need and will use its preamp function, otherwise both of them sound immaculate...

audiosciencereview.com

 

[rcstevensonaz]

I don't know if this helps, but it's first discussed quite extensively here and onwards:


https://audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/topping-e30-dac-review.12119/post-812142

Especially Comment #4,494

 

[dont_listen_to_me]

Have you set the volume to something less than full output on the E30? (if you were using this with Actives previously then I'm guessing the volume was set quite low on the DAC).

Thanks for the response! yeah it's up all the way (to 0.00). I've even tried turning the volume down and back up again to no avail.