Topping E70 Stereo DAC Review

[MRC01]

... I have found 1 minor bug in the E70 firmware. With the display in L-A mode, it goes dark after 30 seconds as expected. If while the screen is dark you turn the knob to adjust the volume by only 1 click, the display wakes up but the display shows the prior setting, not the new one, even though the actual volume does change. If you want it to show the volume you are setting, adjust it at least 2 clicks then back to whatever you want.

Another Topping E70 bug: when the sample rate changes, it emits a loud CLICK. At high volumes this could damage a tweeter. It should auto-mute while changing sample rates, like many other DACs do. It only takes a few milliseconds.

Those bugs should be reported to Topping.

Hey! Topping! (is that still @JohnYang1997 ?) Check out these firmware bugs!

I do like the E70, but it would be nicer with the above.

 

[aka_Z]

Another Topping E70 bug: when the sample rate changes, it emits a loud CLICK. At high volumes this could damage a tweeter. It should auto-mute while changing sample rates, like many other DACs do. It only takes a few milliseconds.

I haven't noticed that when changing BT sample rate. Just tried, it mutes, changes sample rate, unmute. Maybe the phone is doing that, not sure. What kind of connection are you using?

 

[MRC01]

SPDIF toslink input, from a DVD-A that plays gapless, with subsequent tracks at different sample rates. When the sample rate changes between tracks, the E70 emits a loud SNAP.

 

[aka_Z]

I'm using E70V with Nvidia shield (USB) and phone (BT) no clicking or breaking.

 

[MRC01]

Update on the loud snap/click emitted when sample rate changes:
My preamp has a loop (digital out, analog in) to use an external DAC. The analog in is XLR balanced. It has an internal switch to set the gain - low gain for professional XLR (+4 dBu / 16V), high gain for consumer XLR (-10 dBu / 4 V). The difference is about 12 dB. My other external DAC is a Tascam DA3000 which is +4 dBu so I was using low gain. The E70 is only 4 V so I set to high gain. This +12 dB of additional gain is a contributing factor to why the snap/click is so loud. If I set it to low gain, it's still there but a lot quieter.

In short, it's still a bug, but the E70 is only partly responsible for it. The high gain setting makes it worse.

BTW, what would be really cool is if the E70 voltage output setting gave the choice of 4 V (consumer) or 16 V (professional), instead of just 4 V or 5 V.

 

[staticV3]

BTW, what would be really cool is if the E70 voltage output setting gave the choice of 4 V (consumer) or 16 V (professional), instead of just 4 V or 5 V.

Out of all the Amps that Topping makes, only the EHA5 is confirmed to be able to take 16V in.

With most of them, 16V in would heavily clip the input.

Image the number of customer complaints and refunds with a Topping DAC that severely distorts their Topping Amp.

 

[MRC01]

It doesn't seem confusing to me. Balanced analog audio has 2 standards:
+4 dBu / 16 V is the standard for professional equipment
-10 dBu / 4 V is the standard for consumer equipment
Use the one that matches your equipment.

In this sense, the E70's current choice of 4 V or 5 V is more confusing, because 5 V is not a standard for anything. It's too high for some consumer level equipment, and too low for most professional equipment. 5 V is nice to have because you can always use it and set the digital volume to -2 dB, which will make it 4 V for consumer equipment, while giving you 2 dB of digital headroom to better handle digital recordings that have intersample overs or clipping. But how many consumers understand that?

 

[staticV3]

It doesn't seem confusing to me. Balanced analog audio has 2 standards:
+4 dBu / 16 V is the standard for professional equipment
-10 dBu / 4 V is the standard for consumer equipment
Use the one that matches your equipment.

In this sense, the E70's current choice of 4 V or 5 V is more confusing, because 5 V is not a standard for anything. It's too high for some consumer level equipment, and too low for most professional equipment.

You see, every Topping Amp that has differential input is compatible with 5V, so they can make their Amps output 5V to profit from the APx555's lower THD+N at those levels in order to advertise even better numbers.

If they'll ever make a DAC with 16V out, I'm sure it'll be under their new "TP" branding that's aimed at prosumers, along with Amps that are compatible with 16V in.

5 V is nice to have because you can always use it and set the digital volume to -2 dB, which will make it 4 V for consumer equipment, while giving you 2 dB of digital headroom to better handle digital recordings that have intersample overs or clipping. But how many consumers understand that?

I believe setting the DAC to 4V will achieve the same thing as setting it to 5V and applying a slight negative pre amp. Same digital headroom.

 

[MRC01]

...I believe setting the DAC to 4V will achieve the same thing as setting it to 5V and applying a slight negative pre amp. Same digital headroom.

I don't know for sure, but I speculate that it is not the same. If the digital volume control is applied before DA conversion (as it should be, but it depends on how the E70 is designed), then in both cases, digital full scale is 4 V output. However, using 5 V with volume at -2 dB gives you 2 dB of headroom to expand intersample overs without exceeding digital full scale. In this case, if intersample overs were encountered then the analog output would exceed 4 V briefly for these peaks. Alternately, if you set the E70 to 4 V output with volume at 0 dB (or disable volume control in settings) then intersample overs would exceed digital full scale and clip, and the E70 output would never exceed 4V.

Again, this is speculation on my part. It should work that way, and likely does, but not necessarily.

 

[Ahmonge]

if intersample overs were encountered

How frequent are intersample overs in current or past records?

 

[MRC01]

How frequent are intersample overs in current or past records?

Depends on what kind of music you listen to. Most modern music (rock, pop, etc.) and remasters of older material is heavily compressed, often not only with intersample overs but also clipping. With classical music it would be extremely rare, since the genre is well outside the blast radius of the loudness wars. With Jazz and other genres, it depends on who recorded & mastered it.

 

[Namesbuck]

Has anyone split the 12v trigger out on the E70 to turn on multiple devices? I'm curious if it can manage the load of at least two devices. Not sure that topping notes this information or how to measure independently.

 

[aka_Z]

It should be possible. I don't think that 12V trigger out actually powers anything, at least it shouldn't. It should be just a signal. If you have an ammeter, you can check.

 

[Mattx]

New driver available. Not sure whether just new DACs added or if anything changed for the E70.

V5.62 driver for most of TOPPING DACs-TOPPING

 

[Namesbuck]

Probably unnoticeable. For a direct change to E70, would need a firmware update.

Are these topping updates needed if the DAC is never connected to a Windows PC? Mine is only ever connected to a wiim and a CD player.

 

[Ahmonge]

Are these topping updates needed if the DAC is never connected to a Windows PC? Mine is only ever connected to a wiim and a CD player.

No, driver update is for PCs running Windows connected to Topping DACs

 

[MRC01]

Are these topping updates needed if the DAC is never connected to a Windows PC? Mine is only ever connected to a wiim and a CD player.

You may want the firmware updates but you don't need the driver.

 

[scruffy1]

ummm... what firmware updates are you suggesting, and do they have any recent versions?

this is simply a driver, n'est-ce pas?

 

[MRC01]

Firmware is the internal software that operates the unit. It defines several things: user settings, available filters, etc. With the E70, firmware 1.04 adds the capability to set SPDIF sample rate lock sensitivity with a new setting called DPLL. This was essential for me because the default DPLL setting 5 didn’t handle 88.2 and 176.4 sampling well, so I upped it to 7 and it became clean. Setting 6 also worked but I figured I’d give it one extra nudge just to be sure. But last time I checked, Topping hasn’t yet put this firmware up on their support site. You can get an unofficial copy at a link given earlier in this thread.

 

[voodooless]

New driver available. Not sure whether just new DACs added or if anything changed for the E70.

V5.62 driver for most of TOPPING DACs-TOPPING

Changelog:

https://www.thesycon.de/usbaudio/TUSBAudio_history.txt

Yes, it’s just the Thesycon driver that basically everyone uses with XMOS chips and many others as well.