Topping E50 vs D50S - help me decide?

[A Surfer]

Oh. That's good too - coming into this I don't really know what sites are reputable and what are bs, so I value your feedback.
Also that was the first review that popped up when I googled it, but there are many others from different sites and people, and the consensus is always the same. Like I haven't seen another piece of equipment where literally everyone says holy shit this is amazing across the board.

Oh that is very common, the hype train is always rolling at purely subjective sites. Kind of a shared delusion thing. It takes one person to start the train down the tracks and everyone else pumps the engine.

 

[Megaken]

Do you think there's a substantial difference between $3 monoprice RCA cables and $50 mogami?

 

[A Surfer]

Less is usually more and in my experience

Do you think there's a substantial difference between $3 monoprice RCA cables and $50 mogami?

I would be shocked unless there are manufacturing issues. I used a printer USB cable to hook up a $3000 DAC to my laptop. Literally grabbed the cable off the printer and never looked back. For me it is all about the quality of the construction and with cables well constructed and with perfectly adequate materials does not require any great investment at all.

 

[GeorgeWalk]

There is nothing wrong with the D50s coax or USB. I have a d50s and have used it in both modes. No problems observed. Now if you have some specific citations you would like share I would be very interested in reading them. I have a D50s, D90, and d10s I have tried them all with different sources (Mac, PC, iPhone, Raspberry PI) and I can't hear any sound difference. I bought each one due to different use feature requirements. (Also I am a gadget nut and like having them.)

 

[Megaken]

There is nothing wrong with the D50s coax or USB. I have a d50s and have used it in both modes. No problems observed. Now if you have some specific citations you would like share I would be very interested in reading them. I have a D50s, D90, and d10s I have tried them all with different sources (Mac, PC, iPhone, Raspberry PI) and I can't hear any sound difference. I bought each one due to different use feature requirements. (Also I am a gadget nut and like having them.)

Here's a citation

 

[Megaken]

Also, is darko legit?
I like PS Paul..

 

[A Surfer]

I find Darko to be entertaining and sometimes informative, but he is certainly part of the hype train industry without a doubt.

 

[Megaken]

I find Darko to be entertaining and sometimes informative, but he is certainly part of the hype train industry without a doubt.

Yea that's what I started to suspect.

 

[GeorgeWalk]

TL;DR: This about Paul's video only. Wow, that video is a hot mess. There may be a problem with the D50s and clock jitter on the coax, but he certainly made a hot mess out of this.

According to Paul, from Topping, the D50s has and issue with an unstable/jittery coax signal due to and issue in the Cirrus Logic receiver chip. Topping does not make that chip and doing a redesign is probably not feasible (doing a hardware spin to replace a part like that is expensive and time consuming).

He spends time trying to get info on the chip by calling Cirrus Logic headquarters all over the world – predictably, with no response – then he realizes that the chip data sheet is online! Miracle! The internet! Also, then proceeds to not review the errata sheet on the part. Every part manufactured has an errata sheet that discusses issues and work arounds for chips after they are released. Is he really a HW engineer and he doesn't know this?!?!?! (I did a quick search and found an errata sheet that did describe clock lock and jitter problems on this part. I am not a good enough engineer to know if these are the problems on the Topping.)

I am surprised by Paul's confusion on this; I thought he was an engineer and would understand this. Also, he seems to conflate the DAC chip (from AKM) with the Currus Logic receiver chip they are two different things.

I was going to turn it off when he tried reversing the digital cable. He plays with everything except the source CD transport. So he eventually figures out that the cable may be bad.

Wow what a systematic trouble shooter. He tries everything without any rhyme or reason, something changes and he can't figure what or why because he has no systematic approach to troubleshooting.

Ok then we get "burn-in" oh no.

That was the most disjointed, random pile of verbiage I have heard yet. There may be a problem, there may not be a problem, it may be a bad cable, it may not be a bad cable, it my be burn in, it may be warm up. If the problem happens just try random shit and it might go away? Yes, this is definitely a D50s problem.

Just wow.

 

[Megaken]

O haha speaking of burn-ins, when I said I like Paul I meant this Paul

 

[A Surfer]

The thing about measurements, is that while we can measure and detect extremely small differences, that doesn't conflate to audibility. We have seen the snake oil sales industry measure differences with their premium priced cables for example but it only matters when things reach the level of audibility. That is the only threshold that really matters right? If you can't hear an effect does it matter in an audio chain? Not in my books and then think about a very, very, very minute measurable difference that never rose to the level of audibility. Imagine playing music now through the system. How on earth could an infinitesimally small effect that was never audible somehow have any detectable effect overtop of a very powerful audible stream such as music? The answer is that it cannot cause an effect.

 

[Megaken]

Well actually in my current setup (Raspberry Pi > Topping e30 > marantz avr) something is 'smearing' the higher end of my mid frequencies. It sounds great overall but then I played a familiar track from an iPhone directly to the AVR via airplay (bypassing the topping dac) and noticed that while airplay lacks in lows, it's more revealing in the part of spectrum between mids and highs - there's more instrument separation and texture when playing directly through the receiver. And I don't know if it's just the differences in dac chip, or something in the chain is muddying it up. And at this point I'm about to try a different usb cable

 

[GeorgeWalk]

I don't think a USB cable is the issue. It is a digital signal, ones & zeros, they are there and correct or not. That's it. Are you playing exactly the same files, and levels between the iPhone and RPI? The Topping e30 is transparent.

 

[Premonition]

When it comes to USB cables for me when it works then it works, I spend a little more money on coppercolour USB cables for fun but there's obviously no perceivable difference, but when doing cable runs 3m and above I do get like connection dropouts occasionally so i never go above 2.5m, maybe it's just me. Is your AVR doing something weird like converting the analog signal back to digital for tone control then back to analog perhaps? I had a NAD AVR that did that and it sounded bad.

Regarding the E50, D50s, E30, I own all three and subjectively to me it's E50 > E30 > D50s. Before the D50s I used an old Fiio and iBasso DAC for about 8 years, and when I got the D50s after reading up on all the hype about it, somehow it just never sounded right to me, it actually prompted my next 5 DAC purchases, I still can't figure out why it sounds so bad to me(D50 sounds just as bad or actually just slightly worse), which is why it now rests on my wife's table. Perhaps it's all just placebo since I felt so good after listening to the E30 and STARING at its sexy orange LEDs.

So just enjoy your E30, it's a great purchase for sure! In any case, I honestly don't think your Marantz AVR would benefit at all with upgrading to anything better.

 

[Megaken]

When it comes to USB cables for me when it works then it works, I spend a little more money on coppercolour USB cables for fun but there's obviously no perceivable difference, but when doing cable runs 3m and above I do get like connection dropouts occasionally so i never go above 2.5m, maybe it's just me. Is your AVR doing something weird like converting the analog signal back to digital for tone control then back to analog perhaps? I had a NAD AVR that did that and it sounded bad.

Regarding the E50, D50s, E30, I own all three and subjectively to me it's E50 > E30 > D50s. Before the D50s I used an old Fiio and iBasso DAC for about 8 years, and when I got the D50s after reading up on all the hype about it, somehow it just never sounded right to me, it actually prompted my next 5 DAC purchases, I still can't figure out why it sounds so bad to me(D50 sounds just as bad or actually just slightly worse), which is why it now rests on my wife's table. Perhaps it's all just placebo since I felt so good after listening to the E30 and STARING at its sexy orange LEDs.

So just enjoy your E30, it's a great purchase for sure! In any case, I honestly don't think your Marantz AVR would benefit at all with upgrading to anything better.

Gotcha. Appreciate your sharing the info
Oh and yea i was comparing same local flac files.

 

[thefsb]

Do you think there's a substantial difference between $3 monoprice RCA cables and $50 mogami?

There is a substantial difference of $47.

 

[gvl]

Many recent Topping DACs are plagued by SPDIF input issues. They blame it on the Cirrus Logic chip but CS8416 has been around for ages and used in external DACs of the CD player era and they worked fine. Topping DACs on the other hand have issues with CD players. To me it sounds like Topping didn’t do a good job designing around this chip, but they won’t admit it. It’s hard to recommend Topping DACs unless only for USB operation because of this.

 

[litguy]

Many recent Topping DACs are plagued by SPDIF input issues. They blame it on the Cirrus Logic chip but CS8416 has been around for ages and used in external DACs of the CD player era and they worked fine. Topping DACs on the other hand have issues with CD players. To me it sounds like Topping didn’t do a good job designing around this chip, but they won’t admit it. It’s hard to recommend Topping DACs unless only for USB operation because of this.

same as me, I prefer it's design issue, cs8416 used by many brand, if it has so big issue, CS must make new chip to replace it.

 

[ceausuc]

When it comes to USB cables for me when it works then it works, I spend a little more money on coppercolour USB cables for fun but there's obviously no perceivable difference, but when doing cable runs 3m and above I do get like connection dropouts occasionally so i never go above 2.5m, maybe it's just me. Is your AVR doing something weird like converting the analog signal back to digital for tone control then back to analog perhaps? I had a NAD AVR that did that and it sounded bad.

Regarding the E50, D50s, E30, I own all three and subjectively to me it's E50 > E30 > D50s. Before the D50s I used an old Fiio and iBasso DAC for about 8 years, and when I got the D50s after reading up on all the hype about it, somehow it just never sounded right to me, it actually prompted my next 5 DAC purchases, I still can't figure out why it sounds so bad to me(D50 sounds just as bad or actually just slightly worse), which is why it now rests on my wife's table. Perhaps it's all just placebo since I felt so good after listening to the E30 and STARING at its sexy orange LEDs.

So just enjoy your E30, it's a great purchase for sure! In any case, I honestly don't think your Marantz AVR would benefit at all with upgrading to anything better.

Oh, and I though I was the only one who found D50 a bad DAC...
But that's and old DAC and it looks like Topping learned how to make also good ones. E50 is an example.

Megaken, probably a good advice to keep E30 with the Marantz AVR, or if you like your music better without it, just sell and be happy.

If you still want to experiment with USB cables I suggest trying the shortest one you can. If you can use a 10cm cable, try that. Maybe talk to this guy to make one for you:

U01 (0.3m 1ft)--- USB(A to B) DAC Star Quad Silver-Plated OFC HiFi Audio Cable | eBay

U01---Hifi Star Quad Silver-Plated OFC, Single USB(A male) to USB(B male) cable, for DAC or Printer. Length:0.3m / 1FT (Total length of connectors and cables). USB (A to B) Silver-Plated Star Quad Audio Cable, for DAC or Printer.etc, Single(1pc) Cable.

www.ebay.com

Even shorter

USPCB A>B Adapter

The first true "solid" USB 'A' to USB 'B" male-male adapter! The USPCB is ideal for applications where preservation of USB audio signal integrity and impedance match into your DAC is important. Our own original USB REGEN, the new ISO REGEN, and other small devices such as the Sonore microRendu...

uptoneaudio.com

Don't believe everything you read here. Experiment! After all, it's part of the hobby!