Topping E50 Review (Balanced DAC)

[Gradius]

New driver is out, it says november, but it was released on 08/15/2025:

undefined - Topping audio

Topping_UsbAudio_v5.74.0_2025-08-15_setup.exe

Revision History

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V5.74.0 (20 December, 2024)
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* Chg: changed plugin API (DspPreGetProperty function added)

* Chg: removed old Win7/8 workarounds

 

[Vlad Soare]

I apologize if this has already been discussed, but I can't go through 98 pages right now. I started to, but it will take me a while to get there.

How well does the automatic start feature of the E50 work in real life? Are there any hiccups, or delays, or anything like that?
I'm thinking of getting one, which I would use with a CD transport connected to its coaxial input.
With the auto on/off setting activated, can I rest assured that when I hit the play button on the CD player, the DAC will wake up and start playing immediately without missing a beat?
My current DAC sometimes misses the first half second or so of playback after power-on, which I find annoying. I won't buy the E50 if it does the same, even if just occasionally (unless 'occasionally' means, say, once in six months, which I could live with). But if it doesn't, then I'll seriously consider it.

Any other issues you've had with it, which I should be aware of?

 

[Stopeter44]

I never noticed anything untoward, tbh, I wish other more expensive products had the auto sensing feature. I haven't used mine in a while, but if you want a used one, mine is for sale. PM me if you are interested (EU only).

 

[Bleib]

I have mine connected to the PC and the DAC is on before Windows has started.
Haven't really used for TV or CD player.
After shutting down the PC it takes 30 seconds for the DAC to go into standby mode.

 

[WiFiHiFi]

I apologize if this has already been discussed, but I can't go through 98 pages right now. I started to, but it will take me a while to get there.

How well does the automatic start feature of the E50 work in real life? Are there any hiccups, or delays, or anything like that?
I'm thinking of getting one, which I would use with a CD transport connected to its coaxial input.
With the auto on/off setting activated, can I rest assured that when I hit the play button on the CD player, the DAC will wake up and start playing immediately without missing a beat?
My current DAC sometimes misses the first half second or so of playback after power-on, which I find annoying. I won't buy the E50 if it does the same, even if just occasionally (unless 'occasionally' means, say, once in six months, which I could live with). But if it doesn't, then I'll seriously consider it.

Any other issues you've had with it, which I should be aware of?

I use primarily with the optical connection from my tv. Hasn’t “missed a beat”. Always on before my amp fires up. No experience with the coax.

 

[Blew]

How well does the automatic start feature of the E50 work in real life? Are there any hiccups, or delays, or anything like that?
I'm thinking of getting one, which I would use with a CD transport connected to its coaxial input.
With the auto on/off setting activated, can I rest assured that when I hit the play button on the CD player, the DAC will wake up and start playing immediately without missing a beat?
My current DAC sometimes misses the first half second or so of playback after power-on, which I find annoying. I won't buy the E50 if it does the same, even if just occasionally (unless 'occasionally' means, say, once in six months, which I could live with). But if it doesn't, then I'll seriously consider it.

Any other issues you've had with it, which I should be aware of?

I think it depends on the CD player. The DAC will take a second or two wake from sleep. If the CD player initialises the coax output before playing a CD then you *should* be fine. I don't use coax on the E50 as I only use the E50 with USB on a Windows laptop but, on my Topping E30 II Lite in another room that uses coax to a Blu-ray player, the it will wake up as the player boots, then the half a second it takes the player to seek and play the first CD track is enough time to sync the sampling frequency and output audio in time.

I've had issues on the E50 where, after a long period of use (all day during workdays for about a month), the E50 would stop waking up and require a hard boot to reset it (pull power and USB cables). However, I'm not certain whether that's the laptop's USB driver/hardware or the E50. Also, I haven't noticed it in quite a while now, so it may have been fixed by either the most recent E50 firmware update or a Windows driver update.

 

[Toku]

I apologize if this has already been discussed, but I can't go through 98 pages right now. I started to, but it will take me a while to get there.

How well does the automatic start feature of the E50 work in real life? Are there any hiccups, or delays, or anything like that?
I'm thinking of getting one, which I would use with a CD transport connected to its coaxial input.
With the auto on/off setting activated, can I rest assured that when I hit the play button on the CD player, the DAC will wake up and start playing immediately without missing a beat?
My current DAC sometimes misses the first half second or so of playback after power-on, which I find annoying. I won't buy the E50 if it does the same, even if just occasionally (unless 'occasionally' means, say, once in six months, which I could live with). But if it doesn't, then I'll seriously consider it.

Any other issues you've had with it, which I should be aware of?

The E50 switches between wake and sleep mode depending on whether an input signal is present. It does not switch when a song starts or stops playing. So it wakes when the CD player is turned on, and goes into sleep mode when the CD player is turned off.
The phenomenon where about 0.5 seconds of the beginning of a song are cut off when it starts playing is caused by the operation of the connected DAC and is common with SMSL products. This is because a fade-in function is built in to prevent pop noise that occurs when a song starts playing or when switching songs. The E50 does not have such a function built in, so playback begins immediately.

 

[Vlad Soare]

Thanks, guys.

So it wakes when the CD player is turned on, and goes into sleep mode when the CD player is turned off.

I think that's the question - does the DAC actually know that the CD player has been turned on?
The CD player will send a stream of bits down the coaxial (or optical, for that matter) connection when playing music. But will it output anything at all if it's just waking up but not playing? Like, a quick control signal or something?
I guess this depends on the CD player, so no one can probably answer this question until I try and find out for myself.

 

[Jazigo]

Hi everyone!

Is it correct that this DAC has the digital volume control placed between the oversampling stage and the delta sigma modulator?

If so, does that mean that it won't help to turn down the volume on on DAC to mitigate intersample over 0db?

 

[nagster]

I measured the intersample over of the TOPPING E50.
1, Normal 997 Hz sine wave: 0 dBFS
2, Normal 11025 Hz sine wave: 0 dBFS
3, The IS-Over test signal was looped back from the AP digital output to the AP digital input.
4, The IS-Over test signal was attenuated when output from the AP. (0 / -1 / -2 / -3 / -4 / -5 dB)
The E50 volume remained at 0 dB.

 

[nagster]

For this IS-Over test, I adjusted the TOPPING E50 volume. (0 / -1 / -2 / -3 / -4 / -5 dB)
The AP volume remained at 0 dB. That's it.

 

[Jazigo]

For this IS-Over test, I adjusted the TOPPING E50 volume. (0 / -1 / -2 / -3 / -4 / -5 dB)

Absolutely beautiful! Thank you for the measurements

 

[Vlad Soare]

I got my E50 today and was delighted to find that it wakes up as soon as the CD player does, and prepares to go to sleep as soon as the CD player has done. So, it does indeed know what the CD player is doing, irrespective of the music stream. Marvellous. Just as I wanted. It's perfect.

I'm still curious as to how it does that. I don't have an oscilloscope, I only have a digital multimeter, so all I can do is measure the voltage across the coaxial connector. I can see an extremely quick, just a flicker of, 2mV when the CD player wakes up, and the same when it goes back to sleep. Otherwise it's zero. So it does appear that the CD player is sending some control bits down that line. Maybe the S/PDIF standard allows for some extra codes, apart from the music stream itself, which the two devices can use to synchronize to one another?

 

[staticV3]

I got my E50 today and was delighted to find that it wakes up as soon as the CD player does, and prepares to go to sleep as soon as the CD player has done. So, it does indeed know what the CD player is doing, irrespective of the music stream.

The E50 only knows about what the CD Player does, based on the CD player's music stream.

That the E50 wakes up with the CD player, even if nothing is playing, simply means that the CD player is sending empty music stream data as soon as it starts up.

This is picked up by the E50 as activity, even if the data does not correspond to any audible music.

 

[Vlad Soare]

But it also knows when the CD player goes to sleep.
Does this mean the CD player is always sending a continuous, empty music stream while it's turned on, which the DAC takes as an indication that the line is now 'live'?
If that were the case, shouldn't I be able to see a voltage across the connector? Or maybe I'd need an oscilloscope to see that, not a multimeter? Maybe the frequency of that signal is too high for my multimeter to pick up?

 

[staticV3]

But it also knows when the CD player goes to sleep.
Does this mean the CD player is always sending a continuous, empty music stream while it's turned on, which the DAC takes as an indication that the line is now 'live'?

Yes.

If that were the case, shouldn't I be able to see a voltage across the connector? Or maybe I'd need an oscilloscope to see that, not a multimeter?

Correct.

The voltage pulses are too quick for multimeters to pick up.

 

[nagster]

This shows the behavior and signal voltage of the E50 when connected coaxial to a CD player. Measuring voltage requires a MHz bandwidth, so it may be difficult to do with a typical handheld DMM.
Impedance matching was ignored in this measurement, so the waveform is rough.
As far as I know, a silence signal will be output from the digital output as long as the CD player is turned on, regardless of whether a disc is inserted. (This does not apply to CD players with a digital output ON/OFF function.)
I have no experience with CD players with a sleep function. I think what happens will depend on the CD player.

edit: For some reason the order of the images got messed up, so I rearranged them. Hopefully it works.

 

[DVinylfan]

The Topping E50 is now discontinued.
Is there a similarly priced and performing DAC out there with S/PDIF input and balanced output?
I can't see an equivalent in the current Topping or SMSL range, and fear I may have missed out not purchasing an E50 when it was available new.
Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[Jazigo]

I saw some pictures of a E50 II on the Topping Mini 300 slides, so a refresh might be around the corner.

 

[BeeKay]

Maybe …

Post in thread 'Topping’s new amplifier - Mini300'
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ng’s-new-amplifier-mini300.67036/post-2441438