Topping E30 DAC Review

[Jarrett]

@odyo, I might as well comment on #5

I owned the D10 for 4 months:

- The D10 has a crisper / more outlined treble, less midrange, warm bass tone (which bothered me), rather muted/honky sounding, and good detail as I remember it. The ESS in it is about 6 years old.

- The E30 highs sound like they are coming from an actual space and not as outlined/crisp. It has a neutral tone - I am better able to hear differences from recording to recording. The midrange is huge. Fairly forgiving of recording flaws (seems to highlight the good), such as too much compression. Sounds colourful and expansive. Detail - I'm not sure; that's like comparing detail between two photographs - you don't end up caring about it. The AKM in it is only 2 years old.


The filters all sound the same to me. I left it at the default - short delay, sharp rolloff

 

[Veri]

That means electricity via an external power supply?
sorry for my english.

That's what is meant, but it's bullshit. typical audiophile bullshit.

 

[fosi]

That's what is meant, but it's bullshit. typical audiophile bullshit.

I don't understand whats bullshit. I also read somewhere that the E30 is extremelly sensitive and it's performance highly depends on the power source used: usb, powerbank or mobile charger.

So I shouldn't be concerned regarding this issue?

 

[Zek]

I won't even go into the audio performance.

Isn't that the first priority?

 

[BDWoody]

""Power it with a dirty USB port, as it was in my case and depth will be polluted, offering a grainy sound with close to zero soundstage. Go with cleaner power and windows will open towards music, grain will disappear and depth information will become noticeable. ""

Have anyone experienced any problems regarding this????

You can disregard any of these 'reviews' that don't including listening controls...which means basically all of them.

 

[fosi]

I've used 3 different power supplies to feed the E30.

1. An ordinary Samsung 5V USB cell phone charger and cable that was supplied with the E30.
2. An inexpensive but very well built Jerome Industries linear psu modified to output 5V.
3. A stock Squeezebox Touch 5V switching wall wart.

ZERO perceptible difference with my E30 hooked to SMSL SP200. Denon AH-D5000 headphones @ 25 ohms. E30 is connected to Acer V5 laptop with 8 inch un-fancy USB cable.

I have tested max volume and high gain with all 3. Totally black silent background. Impressive to say the least.

Ok cheers for the responses guys

 

[odyo]

According to @amirm, these two devices will compare very favourably from an audio performance standpoint. Aside from the multi-tonal test, they measured very similarly. And even with the multi-tonal test, it's unlikely that most listeners would be able to distinguish them.

I agree, though, that factors like display size and functionality, remote quality, etc., can play a significant factor in whether one person will be satisfied by a particular device.

Best part of sanskrit is you need only one usb cable for both power and connection and it has no usb problem. E30 has 2 usb cable and one of them for power and one review says it's noisy.

 

[Seraph21]

Ive been following this thread and had everything going fine but my E30 started not being recognized by my computer every time I restart the computer. It flashes the USB lights like its not connected then goes into the Auto Shutdown. And to add insult to injury, the driver wont re-install now. I get it to the reboot portion but when I restart, I get the no recognize and no install of driver catch 22 im currently in. And I uninstalled the driver and re-downloaded from this thread page as well as the firmware update but I cant get them to stick. Also, when I unplug my E30 from the USB port and move it to another one, itll flash a bunch of stuff, then get recongnized (without driver support) but if I put it into the same USB port I rebooted on, it wont recognize. Did something happen the the E30 itself? Things two days new to me and its a bit frustrating tbh.lol

 

[odyo]

@odyo, I might as well comment on #5

I owned the D10 for 4 months:

- The D10 has a crisper / more outlined treble, less midrange, warm bass tone (which bothered me), rather muted/honky sounding, and good detail as I remember it. The ESS in it is about 6 years old.

- The E30 highs sound like they are coming from an actual space and not as outlined/crisp. It has a neutral tone - I am better able to hear differences from recording to recording. The midrange is huge. Fairly forgiving of recording flaws (seems to highlight the good), such as too much compression. Sounds colourful and expansive. Detail - I'm not sure; that's like comparing detail between two photographs - you don't end up caring about it. The AKM in it is only 2 years old.


The filters all sound the same to me. I left it at the default - short delay, sharp rolloff

Thanks. D10 has Sabre 9018 right ? it's slightly above my current soundcard's dac 9016. I definitely want AKM this time.

 

[odyo]

That's what is meant, but it's bullshit. typical audiophile bullshit.

Yeah i thought same but he actually reviewed the Sanskrit MK2 as well and it didn't do any noise according to him.

 

[odyo]

I've used 3 different power supplies to feed the E30.

1. An ordinary Samsung 5V USB cell phone charger and cable that was supplied with the E30.
2. An inexpensive but very well built Jerome Industries linear psu modified to output 5V.
3. A stock Squeezebox Touch 5V switching wall wart.

ZERO perceptible difference with my E30 hooked to SMSL SP200. Denon AH-D5000 headphones @ 25 ohms. E30 is connected to Acer V5 laptop with 8 inch un-fancy USB cable.

I have tested max volume and high gain with all 3. Totally black silent background. Impressive to say the least.

Did you tried powering it with pc ?

Edit: Another review, head-fi this time

USB Power

One thing became readily apparent as I did my testing. The E30 is as good or bad as the power it is fed. I tried using my laptop as the power source and it was markedly worse than using a separate USB (1.4A), which was in turn not as good as using the iFi Ipower. I would highly recommend you not judge the E30 based on using the provided power cable plugged into a laptop or wall-wart without some form of power conditioning as it does the E30 a great disservice to do so.

Reviewer really likes the dac a lot except the usb power.

 

[Palladium]

Once again, these are not legitimate reviews. Please read the last few pages again. This has been covered ad nauseam.

The irony is those Head-Fi jokers would probably spend less money proving their claims of USB power with an oscilloscope or such than keeping up with their street cred on FOTM placebo junk.

 

[1025QW]

Please stop confusing the public; I'm in the market for a new DAC and I followed your advice by looking this SMSL up on Amazon. These two dacs don't compare if you look at the design quality and screen sizes. I won't even go into the audio performance.

Sorry for the inconvenience I caused，I forgot to mention that I live in China，the price difference is about 35 dollars in the Chinese online market，which really means a lot of money to me.

 

[aabman]

No idea if USB power supply caused noise or not, since I connected my E30 with the 5V LPS supply. It was dead silent.

 

[odyo]

-The default is a bog standard linear phase sharp filter.
-L30 is finished and should start production sometime soon but who knows given corona situation, can take some time..
-No cables included, you need a set of RCA cables.

Thanks. Can you recommend cable for me ? Short and good one since dac and amp will be on top each other.

Just tried it. Dead silent at high gain, max volume. E30 + SP200. Denon AH-D5000 @ 25 ohm ..... 106dB/mW sensitivity. Acer laptop plugged directly into wall socket. SP-200 directly plugged into wall socket.

These Denon's are very powerful with the SP-200 and the volume is very loud on low gain @ 10 o'clock. Talk about a black silent background!

I am currently traveling and just using my Logitech Touch switching wall wart. 5V @ 3 amps. It's light and zero noise as mentioned earlier.

Thank you!

 

[Veri]

Thanks. Can you recommend cable for me ? Short and good one since dac and amp will be on top each other.

You can buy a nice set like the A01 here
http://www.ghentaudio.com/part/list-rca.html

I'm also a really big fan of 'WORLDS BEST CABLES' using Mogami 2964 wire but they seem to disappear from amazon right now, probably because they are not a priority item in these corona-virus times. I had bought this 1 foot cable some time ago. I see there's 0.5foot pricier ones in stock, still.

 

[jannek]

I'm also a really big fan of 'WORLDS BEST CABLES' using Mogami 2964 wire but they seem to disappear from amazon right now, probably because they are not a priority item in these corona-virus times. I had bought this 1 foot cable some time ago. I see there's 0.5foot pricier ones in stock, still.

Why using a coaxial 75 Ohm digital cable as an analog connection?
I prefer good old Mogami 2534 for all analog connections.

 

[Veri]

Why using a coaxial 75 Ohm digital cable as an analog connection?
I prefer good old Mogami 2534 for all analog connections.

Oh it's definitely overkill. 2964 is one of the best single ended wire there is see MC_RME's post here which is what convinced me to go with them for a short cable it won't matter though! But it's reassuring none the less.
- only 57 pF capacitance per meter (the StarQuad is a whopping 185 pF)
- 75 Ohms impedance, means it is very controlled and also a perfect SPDIF cable.
- The Mogami 2964 is an astonishingly thin and flexible cable.

 

[jannek]

Pretty interesting topic, thank you very much for the link.

 

[BDWoody]

Reviewer really likes the dac a lot except the usb power

Did you happen note whether he used a level matched blind listening process for his comparison?

He didn't?

Ahhh...another salesman selling the FOMO, with zero credibility. Matched blind tests, or its simply not reliable as a method.