This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping G5 portable, battery operated DAC, headphone amplifier with bluetooth. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $299.
The G5 comes in a super stout metal enclosure. It is on the heavy side for a portable product (2 to 4 times heavier than a typical mobile phone). There are dual headphone output jacks but they both have same power. There is aux in if you want to just use its headphone amp. I tested it as a combination DAC+Amp.
The G5 is very easy to use courtesy of simple to set sliding switches:
Topping G5 Measurements
I treated the unit as a DAC by setting the gain to medium and maximum volume. This is our usual dashboard:
This is excellent performance for a desktop DAC. For a portable one, it is state of the art.
And that is at 2.1 volt output. Performance will likely improve at higher output level.
Noise performance is up there as well:
This makes the G5 very suitable to drive very sensitive IEMs.
IMD distortion is excellent:
Linearity is nailed:
Multitone is superb:
Jitter is near perfect:
The default filter is set to one that starts to attenuate early:
It has great suppression but you do lose a bit of audio spectrum:
I have email into Topping to see if this is intentional or specific to my sample. Fortunately there is little audible impact as most of us don't hear that high up. Getting older has some benefits!
The strong filter makes great showing in THD+N vs frequency:
This kind of performance would make a lot of desktop DACs blush with embarrassment.
Switching to headphone amp performance (which using DAC as input), we get plenty of power for a portable product:
Notice how it easily beats its desktop older brother, the DX3 Pro in every category: noise, distortion and output power.
Output impedance is essentially zero:
There is some variability in channels as volume is adjusted. But it remains below my 0.5 dB threshold until max attenuation:
Topping G5 Listening Tests
I started with my hard to drive, low impedance Dan Clark Stealth headphone. I was pleased that I could get pretty high volumes out of it using high gain. For loud listening, I had to go to 3:00 pm on the volume control. There was a bit more volume to be had if you turned it to max. There, I only heard distortion when the sub-bass notes arrived. Otherwise, the sound was super clean, detailed and enjoyable.
I then switched to high impedance Sennheiser HD650. The G5 drove these with ease, allowing every bit of their performance to shine through. Dynamic range was fantastic with bass notes almost causing resonances in my ear lobes at highest volume. Low level detail was superb as was overall fidelity.
With either headphone, I just wanted to sit back and just listen to my music!
Conclusions
We expect perfection from Topping and company delivers even in this constrained category of battery operated product. No excuses are made for that with a DAC that provides state of the art desktop performance. The headphone amplifier is quite powerful although desktop products do edge it out. This only impacts the least sensitive headphones though. For vast majority of headphones out there, the G5 drives them as hard as you need with any distortion being the headphone, not the amp.
The only "hitch" is the slower roll off in the DAC filter. I almost knocked the overall rating lower but once I listened to the G5, I could not go there. Performance is too good to give it any score other than top of the line. You get to disagree otherwise by voting in the poll.
The other bit is the size and weight of the unit. This is no small device to tie up to your cell phone even though Topping provides the usual rubber band and cabling to do so.
I am happy to put the Topping G5 on my recommended list.
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
The G5 comes in a super stout metal enclosure. It is on the heavy side for a portable product (2 to 4 times heavier than a typical mobile phone). There are dual headphone output jacks but they both have same power. There is aux in if you want to just use its headphone amp. I tested it as a combination DAC+Amp.
The G5 is very easy to use courtesy of simple to set sliding switches:
Topping G5 Measurements
I treated the unit as a DAC by setting the gain to medium and maximum volume. This is our usual dashboard:
This is excellent performance for a desktop DAC. For a portable one, it is state of the art.
And that is at 2.1 volt output. Performance will likely improve at higher output level.
Noise performance is up there as well:
This makes the G5 very suitable to drive very sensitive IEMs.
IMD distortion is excellent:
Linearity is nailed:
Multitone is superb:
Jitter is near perfect:
The default filter is set to one that starts to attenuate early:
It has great suppression but you do lose a bit of audio spectrum:
I have email into Topping to see if this is intentional or specific to my sample. Fortunately there is little audible impact as most of us don't hear that high up. Getting older has some benefits!
The strong filter makes great showing in THD+N vs frequency:
This kind of performance would make a lot of desktop DACs blush with embarrassment.
Switching to headphone amp performance (which using DAC as input), we get plenty of power for a portable product:
Notice how it easily beats its desktop older brother, the DX3 Pro in every category: noise, distortion and output power.
Output impedance is essentially zero:
There is some variability in channels as volume is adjusted. But it remains below my 0.5 dB threshold until max attenuation:
Topping G5 Listening Tests
I started with my hard to drive, low impedance Dan Clark Stealth headphone. I was pleased that I could get pretty high volumes out of it using high gain. For loud listening, I had to go to 3:00 pm on the volume control. There was a bit more volume to be had if you turned it to max. There, I only heard distortion when the sub-bass notes arrived. Otherwise, the sound was super clean, detailed and enjoyable.
I then switched to high impedance Sennheiser HD650. The G5 drove these with ease, allowing every bit of their performance to shine through. Dynamic range was fantastic with bass notes almost causing resonances in my ear lobes at highest volume. Low level detail was superb as was overall fidelity.
With either headphone, I just wanted to sit back and just listen to my music!
Conclusions
We expect perfection from Topping and company delivers even in this constrained category of battery operated product. No excuses are made for that with a DAC that provides state of the art desktop performance. The headphone amplifier is quite powerful although desktop products do edge it out. This only impacts the least sensitive headphones though. For vast majority of headphones out there, the G5 drives them as hard as you need with any distortion being the headphone, not the amp.
The only "hitch" is the slower roll off in the DAC filter. I almost knocked the overall rating lower but once I listened to the G5, I could not go there. Performance is too good to give it any score other than top of the line. You get to disagree otherwise by voting in the poll.
The other bit is the size and weight of the unit. This is no small device to tie up to your cell phone even though Topping provides the usual rubber band and cabling to do so.
I am happy to put the Topping G5 on my recommended list.
----------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
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