Topping E30 DAC Review

[Pimmsley]

I think adding absolute polarity test might be a good thing to add to the tests for future devices, so users can decide for themselves if it matters....
fwiw
we could debate adnauseam the audibility of absolute polarity where my only concern is sample/waveform integrity at the output... we dont have the same acoustic space, amps, speakers etc, so anything we hear can not necessarily be replicated or shared without recordings.
if the bits say this is a positive edge leading waveform, I want the DAC to do that, not the inverse, doesnt matter to me if I can hear it or not. My job requires this, I don't think that's too much to ask...
inverted polarity at the oututs is a legacy of tube amps and transformer design where by their nature signals would be inverted and you neeeded to add an aditional unity gain stage to correct for this (so for the sake of cost and noise it wasn't done as often) when we entered the trasistor and IC era absolute polarity in audio could be maintained cheaply and relitively noise free not to mention transistors dont invert the signal by default as do tube amp designs. Yes some equipment inverts the signal polarity but not because it doesn't matter, maily due to limitations of the desin, cost or noise consideratios of the era.
So, absolute polarity in my opinion is not simply a nice to have, but should always be the default result objective to strive for in a modern design... mistakes in design happen but let's not suggest signal integrty is not important and doesn't matter... it does matter even if you cannot hear it, a positive leading edge is a positive leading edge.

 

[Pimmsley]

Additional:
in my experience with the E30 so far, until the ASR user that mentioned the inverted output, I did not notice and thought the E30 sounded excellent, stunning even. To my ears it's fantastic.

As i mentioned in an earlier post some claim to be able to hear absolute polarity change but multiple dbl blindfold tests have failed to confirm this... in all my years of pro audio work so far ncluding tracking, mixing and mastering work I have been able to detect all manner of acoustic anomolies, comb filtering phase coherence and cancellation issues, simple phase and other oddities, but I cannot honestly hear absolute polarity when flipped on tthe gear I have tested on.

If you stop and think about it, if a speaker or headphone perfomed adversely in the negative component of a waveform, and had increased distortion during the negative waveform component then we would be in serious trouble ...trying to reproduce anything close to a sine wave would be impossible, thanfully speakers work equally well in both directions and so we get nice clean (enough) sound reproduction.... so by their nature if absolute polarity was audible it would logically be in oppostion to physics and the very fact a speaker can work at all to fairhfully reproduce a non distorted sound that has both an equally complex positive and negative component. In short if the negative wave component was somehow reproduced with inferior quality, speakers on the whole wouldn't work so well in practice.

So I think the E30 sounds excellent with both the correct and inverted polarity output.
I thank Toppings efforts to correct the output absolute polarity
It would be great for integrity sake to have correct polarity on all inputs
I dont think it effects the sound but as stated multiple times I do think it matters

 

[yejun]

Additional:
in my experience with the E30 so far, until the ASR user that mentioned the inverted output, I did not notice and thought the E30 sounded excellent, stunning even. To my ears it's fantastic.

As i mentioned in an earlier post some claim to be able to hear absolute polarity change but multiple dbl blindfold tests have failed to confirm this... in all my years of pro audio work so far ncluding tracking, mixing and mastering work I have been able to detect all manner of acoustic anomolies, comb filtering phase coherence and cancellation issues, simple phase and other oddities, but I cannot honestly hear absolute polarity when flipped on tthe gear I have tested on.

If you stop and think about it, if a speaker or headphone perfomed adversely in the negative component of a waveform, and had increased distortion during the negative waveform component then we would be in serious trouble ...trying to reproduce anything close to a sine wave would be impossible, thanfully speakers work equally well in both directions and so we get nice clean (enough) sound reproduction.... so by their nature if absolute polarity was audible it would logically be in oppostion to physics and the very fact a speaker can work at all to fairhfully reproduce a non distorted sound that has both an equally complex positive and negative component. In short if the negative wave component was somehow reproduced with inferior quality, speakers on the whole wouldn't work so well in practice.

So I think the E30 sounds excellent with both the correct and inverted polarity output.
I thank Toppings efforts to correct the output absolute polarity
It would be great for integrity sake to have correct polarity on all inputs
I dont think it effects the sound but as stated multiple times I do think it matters

I agreed for the most part. But I disagree on that polarity is audible is against physics. Because a simple phone app can detect it easily.

 

[Pimmsley]

I agreed for the most part. But I disagree on that polarity is audible is against physics. Because a simple phone app can detect it easily.

No, thats detectable wave polarity, doesnt make it an audible artifact.

You can view a waveform in an audio editor, flip it vertically (polarity) and if you can hear the diference you have most remarkable hearing

(not trying to offend, just that was my whole point about not being able to hear a flipped polarity waveform delta)

 

[yejun]

No, thats detectable wave polarity, doesnt make it an audible artifact.

You can view a waveform in an audio editor, flip it vertically (polarity) and if you can hear the diference you have most remarkable hearing

(not trying to offend, just that was my whole point about not being able to hear a flipped polarity waveform delta)

I am not arguing if this is audible or not. But it's not again physics which implies not detetable in any possible way.

 

[odyo]

Not all drivers and songs are same. I think it's audible. It might be more obvious with some instruments or speakers/headphones and not obvious with others.

 

[ReaderZ]

I am not arguing if this is audible or not. But it's not again physics which implies not detetable in any possible way.

Because I can see it's written as 1/4 and not 0.25 does not mean 1/4 is not equal to 0.25

 

[Pimmsley]

I am not arguing if this is audible or not. But it's not again physics which implies not detetable in any possible way.

Ah got ya, ok cool...

fwiw my point was as the nature of sound being a complex waveform of both negative and postive components (when captured electronically) that must both be equally reproduced as faithfully as possible to allow reproduced sound as we know it.
If there were compromises in the reproduction of the negative component ,ie added distortion etc, then you could reasonably argue that inverted polarity was audible (and perhaps some speakers do exihibit poor performance in rare cases) because transient sounds like snare hits would sound different when inverted due to that added distortion artifact. As luck would have it speakers operate equally well moving in and out to recreate a complex wave, if you could detect a difference then speakers would have limited praticle use at being sound reproducing devices and we would have to look at something else to do the job... that's where the physics and limitations come in to play with cost vs performance.
I would also add that if polarity inversion of audio was negatively audble to the masses then there would be far more anecdotal evidence of this in pro and non pro circles and not just 13 hits on google of real in depth articles related to absolutle polarity in the stereo hifi fetishist circles... lol
Those are my thoughts and experiences, not trying to lecture anyone on their experiences

 

[hyperplanar]

According to this test the D50s is in phase, I can clearly hear the difference, at least with my sample of D50s.

That page is about relative polarity (the left and right channels being inverted with respect to each other), not absolute polarity, where both channels are inverted.

 

[hyperplanar]

Hi all,

Here is my attempt to capture the difference between old and new firmware. I tried my best to level match. Also there are no tone controls used - The Amp (Onkyo 9150) is running Direct Mode in both scenarios. Speakers are Dynaudio X18.

My recording gear is nothing special -- just want to demonstrate that lossy recording + lossy youtube can atleast still partially convey the difference I am subjectively hearing.

It seems I hear it more in the mid-bass/bass region. There is more richness in tone in the Positive polarity / New firmware. While the old one is clean and clear with the perception of more detail. Again, i'm not forcing this to anyone, just sharing my observations.

Thank you for taking the time to make a recording! Was the mic position completely untouched between recordings? I feel like the mic positions sound different (comb filtering at different frequencies). There is certainly more bass in the correct polarity recording which is interesting. Can I ask what your setup consists of?

In my setup, I can flip the polarity of the signal at will and I certainly don't hear any difference in the bass like that. But it's clearly audible in the recording you posted.

 

[Jarrett]

I would love to see a comparison of the detailed measurements of the new vs the original firmware, would it be interesting, would @amirm be possible?

Yeah, that might be interesting. I'm sure amir hasn't updated the firmware, so it could be done.

 

[samsa]

But it is Apple that gives the tool permission. There is a big wall there.

I have compiled and run the commandline Updater under both Linux (moOde Audio/Raspbian on a RPi3B+) and MacOSX (10.14.6). Apple is considerably more lenient than Linux.

Under Linux, sudo is required to upload/download the firmware. Under Macos, an ordinary user can do it.

FWIW, i hear no difference after the upgrade.

 

[North_Sky]

Additional; this just came in ...
▪ https://theaudiophileman.com/e30-pre-amp-dac-review-topping-2/

 

[jae]

Does the D90 have the polarity issue?

 

[NgxHS7]

https://theaudiophileman.com/e30-pre-amp-dac-review-topping-2/

Has been posted already. Doesn't look good for me. Preamp is no good. Subjective I guess

 

[mykeldg]

Additional:
in my experience with the E30 so far, until the ASR user that mentioned the inverted output, I did not notice and thought the E30 sounded excellent, stunning even. To my ears it's fantastic.

As i mentioned in an earlier post some claim to be able to hear absolute polarity change but multiple dbl blindfold tests have failed to confirm this... in all my years of pro audio work so far ncluding tracking, mixing and mastering work I have been able to detect all manner of acoustic anomolies, comb filtering phase coherence and cancellation issues, simple phase and other oddities, but I cannot honestly hear absolute polarity when flipped on tthe gear I have tested on.

If you stop and think about it, if a speaker or headphone perfomed adversely in the negative component of a waveform, and had increased distortion during the negative waveform component then we would be in serious trouble ...trying to reproduce anything close to a sine wave would be impossible, thanfully speakers work equally well in both directions and so we get nice clean (enough) sound reproduction.... so by their nature if absolute polarity was audible it would logically be in oppostion to physics and the very fact a speaker can work at all to fairhfully reproduce a non distorted sound that has both an equally complex positive and negative component. In short if the negative wave component was somehow reproduced with inferior quality, speakers on the whole wouldn't work so well in practice.

I dont think it effects the sound but as stated multiple times I do think it matters

Why do you think the effects are very audible in my setup? Its not the greatest but I like to think the speakers are more than decent (Dynaudio, which are also used in Studios). One thing I can think about is my living room is very small (condo) and the room gain greatly amplifies the effect. I feel that the most noticeable change is using dynamic and bass-heavy songs where dynamics are required for the woofer to work on. I recorded it here:
My video clip

 

[North_Sky]

https://theaudiophileman.com/e30-pre-amp-dac-review-topping-2/

Has been posted already. Doesn't look good for me. Preamp is no good. Subjective I guess

I don't read all the audio threads of the Internet; that'll be the day.
And 8/10 score is subjective I agree.
It's the same with movie reviewers rating movies.

The essence here is that the Topping E30 DAC measured very very good and is extremely affordable for just over hundred bucks.

* I did check back till yesterday to see if that short article was posted; I didn't see it, so I posted it...only for fun, for the nice pics, for the additional on topic interest.

Edit: I went back again, and this time further; I didn't see any link to that article.
Are you sure? In this very thread?

 

[samsa]

Preamp is no good. Subjective I guess

Nonsense.

1. As has been noted numerous times already, the preamp can be bypassed (pure DAC mode).
2. Since the preamp operates in the digital domain, it works better than any analogue volume attenuator ever could. The only issue is that it doesn't attenuate the "pop" when switching bitrates. This was discussed endlessly in this thread and IMO, is not an issue. Others may disagree but, in any case, the "pop" was not mentioned by the reviewer (one indication that it's not really an issue). His actual complaints:

   Firstly, let’s look at the E30 as a pre amp. To test this, I connected it to a pair of YU4 powered speakers from Kanto and played Bob Marley’s Jamming via an Astel&Kern AK120. Output was rather unbalanced, bass heavy with rather bloomy bass at that. Mids were claustrophobic, treble was rolled off while the soundstage was restricted and stuffed full of cotton wool. In pre-amp mode? No. Don’t go there.

   are complete bull@#$%.

 

[mykeldg]

Thank you for taking the time to make a recording! Was the mic position completely untouched between recordings? I feel like the mic positions sound different (comb filtering at different frequencies). There is certainly more bass in the correct polarity recording which is interesting. Can I ask what your setup consists of?

In my setup, I can flip the polarity of the signal at will and I certainly don't hear any difference in the bass like that. But it's clearly audible in the recording you posted.

Yes I was wondering as well why the effects are more than subtle on mine. The speakers are Dynaudio X18, amp is Onkyo 9150, its quite a revealing speaker and I would think its decent enough not to have any design anomalies. The songs I selected are dynamic ones with lots of instruments & dynamics which can work the woofer more. In the blind test posted earlier of one acoustic guitar, I could also not hear the difference.

The recording of the old firmware was from a week ago when I unboxed it and compared the sound to a Schiit dac. Maybe its not 100% identical but I tried to make it similar conditions as possible. My thoughts on this is, if a hastily prepared video using subpar recording + streaming compression can convey the difference I hear in person, maybe its not just in my head. You can guarantee that my intention is not to prove a point but to also discover if what i'm hearing is placebo (if you take a look at my channel, its filled with lots of experiment comparisons because im OCD like that)

 

[NgxHS7]

I don't read all the audio threads of the Internet; that'll be the day.
And 8/10 score is subjective I agree.
It's the same with movie reviewers rating movies.

The essence here is that the Topping E30 DAC measured very very good and is extremely affordable for just over hundred bucks.

* I did check back till yesterday to see if that short article was posted; I didn't see it, so I posted it...only for fun, for the nice pics, for the additional on topic interest.

Edit: I went back again, and this time further; I didn't see any link to that article.
Are you sure? In this very thread?

Sorry, I was referring to you having already posted it.