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Topping E30 DAC Review

Mart68

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Has anyone been able to tell the difference between filters 1 and 3?

I cannot perceive the slightest difference between any of the E30s filters despite trying really hard. I'm very surprised to read that there are people saying that they can.

I know, I am old and deaf and my equipment isn't resolving enough. All of which is true, but I would like to see some blind-testing of this claim nevertheless.
 

yodog

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Has anyone been able to tell the difference between filters 1 and 3?
Yeah, it seems and sounds identical except filter 3 has a thickening type of effect (hence short delay) on the mid-bass/bass notes
 

yodog

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I cannot perceive the slightest difference between any of the E30s filters despite trying really hard. I'm very surprised to read that there are people saying that they can.

I know, I am old and deaf and my equipment isn't resolving enough. All of which is true, but I would like to see some blind-testing of this claim nevertheless.

All I know is, filter 5 is a filter that sounds much different. “Less bass” would be one of the obvious effects. That and the high end isn’t as ear piercing. The main reason why I like filter 5 is the timing/perception of tempo
 

Mart68

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All I know is, filter 5 is a filter that sounds much different. “Less bass” would be one of the obvious effects. That and the high end isn’t as ear piercing. The main reason why I like filter 5 is the timing/perception of tempo

I can't say I have found the high end 'piercing' on any of the filters. swapping to some other DACs in a sighted, completely uncontrolled comparison I did think the E30 had some slight glassiness on piano chords that was not there on the other DACs (Soncoz, Soekris). But I would not describe it as 'piercing' or unpleasant in any way. That was with filter 1 engaged on the E30.

Hoping to test this finding blind and level matched at some point but of course doing that properly is not trivial and until I do that I am not attaching any weight to that finding. The brain is easily fooled.
 

yodog

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Yes I agree. Take what I say with a lake of salt. Filter 1 for me had an epic mid range presence, not exactly a piercing top end which was my mistake in description. However filter 1 although in my system it does seem to play the loudest of all the filters, it also seemed to be the most flat/2D sounding, with the exception of the midrange which is very pronounced and detailed.

If only we could get the midrange of filter 1 or filter 3, with the overall frequency response of filter 2 or filter 4, with the timing of filter 5, would we have a really epic DAC.

I do really wonder how the Topping D90 sounds. Sadly though, seems to have gone up in price or is hard to find to purchase...

The D70S seems overpriced / too close in price to do the D90. I wonder if they will ever make an E90 or E100. I hope someday they will add these new features:

-independent subwoofer(s) RCA/XLR outputs with a 0ms-30ms(millisecond) time delay adjustment and an adjustable LPF (low pass filter) with slope order configurability.
-ability to apply a HPF (high pass filter) on the main L and R channel outputs, with more than just the standard 80hz crossover setting (40hz/50hz/60hz/70hz/90hz/100hz, and slope order settings options would be nice)
-airplay 2 capability
-option to completely turn off the screen
-feature WBT/Neutrik/ETI Research connectors
-gain adjustment settings to accommodate single ended and balanced interfacing equipment
-setting to lift the ground pin on the XLR inputs
-implement a volume knob (circular) solution that is fully machined aluminum and not plastic
-create intuitive PC/MAC compatible software that allows the user to make basic crossover filter/slope adjustments and other settings adjustments
-implement a soft start circuit
-hire a different person to handle the Topping manuals in hopes to improve the layouts ease of legibility and reduce end user set-up confusion and increase brand confidence levels
-Scrap MQA implementation due failed compatibility and abilities to use MQA from all receiving inputs and outputs. (MQA is a sham and unnecessary mass extortion in my opinion anyways)
-Create a matching powerful stereo amplifier for driving floorstanding loudspeakers in a very large room with measuring specs that match the DAC and doubles in RMS output power when halving the load impedance. (120+db SNR) at a price that is unprecedented.
-Update the dull black and silver anodized aluminum finish to something more attractive and more refined
-Create a DAC that is significant and/or expensive enough that Stereophile does a full review with measurements.
-Redesign the remote to have significantly improved off-axis response, ergonomics, and most importantly intuitiveness
-Change the auto standby enabled or disabled labeling. In its current form, it says “A-O” or “A-C” which I personally believe they are meaning to say “Auto-Open” and “Auto-Closed” which needs to be corrected and simplified in terms that it’s target audience comprehends and understands the English language. Or change to universal symbols that are not language specific.
-collaborate with other audio companies to create an even more superior product such as working with Isoacoustics and creating custom low profile DAC feet or with KEMET’s EMC division and integrate their flex suppressor sheets into the Topping DAC chassis.

too many things they could and should be doing. I still wonder why they don’t and haven’t. Seems to me like a no brainer considering the huge shift in increased home audio demand due to public fear of covid, whether that assessment of fear is correct or not is not appropriate for me to say but what is pretty certain is that more, and significantly more people across the world have been and will be staying home more often and as a result have an increased desire to create their own space to listen to music and watch movies. So my list of suggestions for Topping though sounds far fetched by a long shot, in reality I would wager would be quite beneficial if said suggestions are indeed further looked at and at least attempted to be incorporated into their future products for the expanding demand of high quality, in-home audio and video.
 

paulvan302

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Hello all,
The improved E30 arrived from Topping yesterday and is now testing the operation.
The S / N of the E30 I purchased is 191173 ****, and the S / N of the E30 that I received from Topping this time is 191173 ****, which seems to be the product of the same production lot. The firmware version was the same as V1.06.

The test files were randomly switched using PCM44.1kHz to PCM768kHz and DSD2.8 to DSD22.5.

The test was first done with the firmware still at V1.06, then updated to V1.07 and retested. Below are the results so far.

1. Sound is frequently interrupted when playing DSD2.8
Completely improved.

2. Previously reported pop noise when stopping playback
It was improved.

3. Strange display when switching songs
It has been improved, but in rare cases, the Err display may appear for a moment.

4. When DSD is played after E30 is factory reset, a big pop noise occurs at the same time as the playback starts.
Not improved.

5. On rare occasions, when DSD is played after the PrE <> DAC switching operation, a large pop or noise occurs for a moment when the song starts playing.
Not improved.

6. In rare cases, when switching songs to PCM <> DSD, continuous noise is played at high volume.
Not improved.

7. It reacts to the remote controls of other companies.
It was improved.
Previously, the E30 also responded when operating the SMSL or SONY remote control nearby.

Although 1 was the biggest problem, it has been completely improved, and now you can purchase E30 with confidence. However, many ASR members have reported that the DSD2.8 problem has not occurred, and it is possible that the improved E30 is already on the market. Problems 3 to 6 in the back are minor defects, and I think they will be further improved in the future.

From the explanation of Topping so far, it seems that the problem of E30 this time is due to the program written in the MCU (Micro Control Unit).
The MCU is an IC that controls all the operations of the DAC. In the E30, STM8S005C6T6 from STMicro is used as the MCU.
The program is written in the EEPROM inside the MCU chip. I imagine that Topping rewrites the program by connecting a special tool to the board. Now you can understand what Topping said that if you send your E30 to China, we'll fix it and send it back immediately.

Hey I was wondering how you managed to dissemble the topping e30 dac, needing to replace some caps so just curious.
 

paulvan302

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Thank you very much for your review, Amir!

This product is not so easy to disassemble. You need to heat the glass and then tear it off. Then you can see the screws on the front panel. In this process, the glass is relatively easy to damage.

Hey I'm looking to dissemble the e30 as I'm needing to replace some caps. Would you advise any particular tools to remove the front glass and any specific techniques to do so?
 

yodog

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Hey I'm looking to dissemble the e30 as I'm needing to replace some caps. Would you advise any particular tools to remove the front glass and any specific techniques to do so?

how did you break your e30?
 

AdamG

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Jimbob54

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companyja

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Not a single word about how it sounds? Measuring does not tell the whole story IMHO.

Hi mate, there are things where measurements will not tell the whole story, such as speakers and headphones. However, for DACs and AMPs, the standard suite of measurements will pretty much tell you what to expect. If you want subjective impressions, you can definitely find them at head-fi, SBAF (probably, I haven't been here forever) and other places where they discuss such things. Otherwise, from an engineering standpoint, there are only so many factors you can design for and that are known to be audible, and they all have their own thresholds of audibility. Luckily, analyzers are far more sensitive than the best human ears and the measurements you see, as long as they are competent, just mean that to the end-user, the amplifier or DAC will sound the same, or transparent.\

This is why I'm disappointed that there have been several pages here of users discussing audible differences between....AKM filters. Using descriptions of things like pre-ringing and post-ringing in a general sense and applying it to a low-pass filter is just the kind of audiophile connect-the-dots that creates confusion and is used to confirm untested subjective impressions. The ringing, lack of ringing, and otherwise, as long as we're cutting around 22-24khz, is going to concern frequencies close to 22-24khz. The frequencies in the audible range are unaffected. The pre or post ringing is not going to be audible to a human because the frequencies that will ring are near the nyquist limit for the sampled signal. Unless you're using a 22.05khz sample rate, the shape of the filter will be irrelevant in terms of pre or post-ringing. So a short delay cannot create "more poweful notes" or whatever - the "notes" themselves are unchanged, exactly the same. The AUDIBLE difference comes from the speed of the filter. You can easily test this yourself - use this simple tone generator, set the tone to 16000hz or higher depending on how good your hearing is atm, and play it fairly loudly so that you can clearly hear it. Then switch the filters. The fastest filters 1 and 3 will be the loudest (although the difference is incredibly slight), the slower filters will be quieter, and the super slow filter number 5 will sound like multiple tones, not a pure sine wave - this is presumably because it aliases frequencies above nyquist back into the audible range, thus producing audible information that was not in the original signal - needless to say, this is typically unwanted if we're talking about high fidelity reproduction of audio.
 

Navlefnuller

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When I listen to hifi, I always fall for equipment with a tight bass, warm midband and airy treble (some prefer to call it sweet), but how do you measure that? Isn’t this exactly where measuring equipment falls short? The small nuances, which makes hifi a fun hobby.
 

companyja

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When I listen to hifi, I always fall for equipment with a tight bass, warm midband and airy treble (some prefer to call it sweet), but how do you measure that? Isn’t this exactly where measuring equipment falls short? The small nuances, which makes hifi a fun hobby.

You can definitely talk about these differences in speakers and headphones. We are especially not that great at measuring headphone frequency responses reliably - and if you look at a headphone mesuarement, there are all these peaks and valleys and shapes on the frequency response - that determines how dark or bright the headphone is, and also elusive things like soundstage are correlated to the frequency response but can't be 100% determined just from looking at the graph. This is where the fun in the hobby lies. For equipment such as DACs or AMPs, you can have extremely reproducible measurements because you're not dealing with microphones and fittings and acoustic properties of the room you're measuring in and larger unit-to-unit variances - if you look at frequency response measurements of an amplifier or a DAC, you're 99% of the time going to see a flat line going from 20hz-20khz - if this is flat, then the DAC or amp is not coloring the sound, so it can't be darker, warmer, less or more bass or airier treble, it's simply rendering the file as-is. Additionally, if the linearity and distortion figures are low enough, there won't be additional garbage information coming to you as a bi-product of digital-to-analog conversion, meaning you're only going to hear what's in the original recording. As long as these parameters align, there's nothing to suggest that the piece of gear can sound any different to another piece of gear that measures similarly.

This is at least my understanding of it, and I understand that this takes away some of the "magic" out of the hobby, it's not like going into a hi-fi store in the 70s and seeing 5 different amplifiers and recievers from Japan and being lucky to have any basic measurements from the COMPANY themselves, not an indepentent evaluator, and just sitting down and listening to hear if you like the sound or not. Thanks to analyzers, we've been able to pinpoint the parameters that influence the fidelity of the sound and measure them more precisely than the human ear. If there are parameters that we are not measuring that influence the sound, firstly someone would have to prove the difference exists with proper ABX testing, and then spend a long while isolating what exactly is making the difference. The reason I personally am confident in the testing methodology, and people here generally are, is that I haven't seen research that confirms that measurably transparent gear can be discerned by a listener in an experimental ABX test. Remember, people will hear differences in cables, different surfaces they put the amplifier on, 44.1khz and 192khz files, etc - we are very easily fooled with biases and our audio memory is way worse than we'd like to admit. In an incomplete testing, we can hear all kinds of things we want to hear unless we take a proper listening test.

I'm still very much excited about headphones and speakers, but as long as I have enough power and a transparent enough DAC, I am absolutely confident that I don't need to touch anything with the source chain.
 

pieterv1

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I've been running the E30 for a while now as my first DAC for TV & music. I paired it with the Breeze Audio BA25W linear psu (build quality is awesome btw).

My whole amp setup + DAC is powered through one smart plug. As much as I love how the E30 performs sound-wise, I feel like it's auto power-on feature is somewhat broken... When music is already playing and then I turn on power to my amp & DAC, it won't automatically turn on. So each time we're going to watch TV or listen to music, we need to make sure that nothing is already playing before turning on the amp. This wouldn't be such a big deal if the remote worked a little better :)

Ideally for my setup, the E30 would turn on automatically as soon as it receives 5v DC. I already emailed Topping if they could add this in future firmware, but they're not planning to do so. Maybe others could try contacting them about this as well?

Leaving the DAC powered on all the time is not an option for me with the linear psu.
 
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pieterv1

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Struggling to run this device with an 12v trigger switched outlet.
  • Auto power mode works as described in the manual.
    • When the device is in standby, a source playing will turn the dac on.
  • When I first power the device on, it STAYS in standby mode whether or not a signal is being fed.
    • If I plug and unplug the signal cable, the device will turn on and start playing music.
@JohnYang1997 this seems like a bug?
Same here - I'm running it in a setup that's powered on/off by a smart plug (see previous post). For me it'd be best if the Topping would just power on when it receives 5v DC.
 

Rottmannash

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I've been a little COVID bored, so I started tinkering with my home audio. I have an aging AVR (Onkyo TX-NR1010) and a nice set of (also aging) Martin Logan electrostatics in a 5.1 config. Nothing too crazy, Aerius i, Cinema Center, Scripts in the back. It's always been really wonderful sounding to me. Many years ago I ripped all my CDs to a lossless format and have used a Sonos Connect to play my library. I've owned DVD Audio and SACD players, so I had a handful of those disks. I like the idea of higher resolution digital, but the multi disk players I owned (NAD & Denon) both broke in less than two years, so I kind of gave up on it. Neither format made it anyway. Thanks to this board, I decided to try an alternative to Sonos in my system. I had an Intel i5 based mini-pc gathering dust so I loaded Volumio on it and attached an E30. I ripped my DVD Audio discs and graduated to higher resolution audio. I have 3 SACD disks and I think I'm going to have those ripped for me rather than adding to my junk equipment collection.
I have to say, I don't believe I can hear a difference between Sonos and the E30 on regular CD audio, though I'm still listening. So far, I don't really think I hear much difference with the higher resolution stereo content either but I have so little content. The quality of the recording and engineering seems to make much more difference than the digital resolution and the DAC. I must also confess I'm addicted to the Onkyo's multi-channel stereo mode. It really does a great job of spreading out the sound stage and adding depth. I will write an update after I do more critical listening.

Two things I do want to report and praise.
The e30 certainly sounds great and functions flawlessly on a intel based Volumio installation.
What it offers is an amazing amount of flexibility in high resolution PCM and DSD formats. It is low cost, measures exceptionally and sounds great. Many thanks to this board, Amir and his reviews.

Next, Volumio is the bomb! What a terrific application. I do hope that someday there will be multi-channel 5.1/7.1 DACs and Volumio will be enhanced to support multi-channel content and DACs. In the meantime, I remain addicted to the Onkyo multi-channel mixing magic. I can also play the few 5.1 tracks I have directly through the Onkyo's DAC. Clearly, engineering good 5.1 content is much harder than Stereo. There are so few fine examples. A shining example remains the Eagles Hell Freezes Over DTS. I wish there were more multi-channel content of that quality.
Try David Gilmour's recent DVD at Pompeii. It's in DTS and sounds truly incredible.
 
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