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Topping E30 - first miliseconds are cut short, pops after playback stops

maxwsc

Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2021
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Hey there - forgive me, if that's not the right place to post, let me know where I should post my issues!

Topping E30 + L30 stack:
E30 - 2103 batch,
L30 - 2012 batch.

Topping Control Panel says revision v2.10 for E30, using driver 5.20, which should be the latest as of now.

Problem:
First, when I bring my Windows Volume Control up and click on the notch you change the volume with, Windows should make a sound. It does it with my E30, but it sounds like the very first 0.5s is cut, like E30 isn't fast enough to pick it up and you can hear it's chopped off. That alone is just a symptom of my problem, although pretty annoying, as no other interface did that to me and I had Scarlett 2i2, have Arturia Minifuse 1 now and onboard audio.

Second, most important one - I hear a small pop most of the time a playback of any sort stops. Be it closing the game, closing the MPC player, closing Chrome with YouTube video still playing. Sometimes I can hear it when I'm switching tabs in Chrome, but there's no playback on any tab.

The playback itself - absolutely gorgeous and problem free. When the song starts to play, it's beautiful from 1s onwards because of the cutoff at the beggining til the end, when it finishes and I hear the pop.

Troubleshooting I have done:
- sent E30 to a service center, they had it playing on speakers, didn't notice any pops or anything wrong with it, got it back, still has same issues
- tried three different USB-B type cables for data transmission
- tried to power E30 with Xiaomi 5V mobile phone adapter (that's how I run it) and my realme Fast Charge adapter
- tried to power E30 with the USB slot from my motherboard
- tried to power it straight from wall socket, straight from
- tried to run it without drivers, with 5.20 driver, with one version before that (I got the stack few months prior 5.20 driver)
- tried to run it on a different machine that's never seen a device like that, without drivers it still has cutting out issues
- tried to furiously change volume on my L30 to rule out the issue being in an amp
- tried the preamp mode and DAC mode, both have the same problem, I run it daily on DAC mode, L30 on headphone amplifier mode

What's most important to my troubleshooting is that if I play a totally silent music file, I mean total silence - the issues go away. I don't hear anything, but the silence is still playing - when it is, I can click on the volume notch and it plays beautifully, it doesn't get cut off at the beggining, there are no pops. I can play music over the silent music file, it starts and finished beautifully, just like on any other audio device, no pops, absolute bliss. Surely, easiest fix is to write a script for Windows to play silence all the time, but that's a bandaid for the issue, I want to get to the root of this. I am a newbie in audio world, but that looks like the DAC chip has issues engaging and disengaging audio?

I already messaged Topping service about this, but they went silent on me after two mails with general troubleshooting questions, such as does this happen when the song plays or not, does this happen after every song playback and such. I sent a YouTube video showcasing my problem: (I cut the beggining where I show my serial numbers, the rest is what I sent Topping, you can hear it clearly at the very end of the video if you have issues picking it up throughout:
)

Although it might be harder to pick it up, my smartphone mic can only record much and I only use headphones with Topping stack, so I can't really test that with speakers. I answered all their questions, I haven't gotten an answer for a week.

I have also messaged JohnYang1997 a few hours ago showcasing this problem, haven't gotten a response yet and I don't believe I will til next week, it's weekend soon.

My original ticket to Topping:
Ever since I owned E30 I had two issues:
- when there's no playback and for example I want to hear my volume, I
open up the volume mixer and click it so Windows makes a sound, it
doesn't play fully - it cuts out like very first 0.1 sec of the sound
- when the playback is stopped and there's nothing playing on the
computer, I can hear a small pop that I have to look for to hear it,
most of the times it's small enough that I don't notice but it is
there and it's easy to replicate it

This has to be drivers or hardware related, because I had two E30s in
my hands and both of them produced the same issue, I also tried that
on other computers and it does the same thing. Is there a driver fix
coming for these issues?

I think that's all there is to it, if I remember anything else that might help I'll post, in the meantime, anyone of you, L30 + E30 owners have an issue like that? What have you done to solve the problem? Has it been like that since you owned the device? For me it have, can't help but say it does take quite a bit of joy to use those and I'm thinking of selling those and get JDS Labs stack instead, purely because of this.
 
OP
M

maxwsc

Member
Joined
Oct 28, 2021
Messages
7
Likes
2
Alright, since nobody's been responding to me for the past 2 weeks from Topping and neither here, I tried the only option I had and flashed V1.08 firmware that Topping provided on their site here: https://www.tpdz.net/newsinfo/391293.html on my 2103 batch E30 that had V2.10 firmware. It's really funny that you spend that much money on a device and have to troubleshoot that stuff yourself, take the risks and the responsibility if something goes wrong, just because support is slow. It's not a great PR for Topping, L30 + E30 were my first products from them and I'll beware and do a tons of research beforehand should I purchase their product again.

The downgrade from V2.10 to V1.08 has been a breeze and so far I haven't had a single pop upon stopping the playback. Not sure about the long term effects yet, I didn't notice anything out of ordinary upon flashing yet, but then again, it's been like an hour maybe since I have done it. I think the 0.5s cut at the beggining issue improved as well, I tried to look for this issue forcefully and it wasn't there, randomly popping into Windows volume and it plays perfectly. So far, so good, all my headaches are gone at the moment of writing this. I'm leaving this thread to forever ingrain this issue within the internets, should any other poor soul with absolutely no hope stumble upon the same kind of issue.
 

izbit

Member
Joined
Nov 12, 2020
Messages
15
Likes
5
I've had similar issues in the past, and disabling "Exclusive Mode" in the unit Properties (Advanced tab) from the Sound control panel made it go away for me.
 
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