My first post. I kept watching for a review here of the Topping MX3, before I bought it a couple years ago. It was a few weeks after that when the review came out. I was so disappointed to see such lacklustre results for the MX3. Maybe a lot of the high noise floor issue is in the amplifier. I really would like to have a line out on the unit, even if it meant using the line in jacks (there’s not much room for additional jacks). I kept looking for someone to do a mod on the MX3 to provide line out, or maybe a teardown or schematic so I might attempt it myself. Is anyone else going down this rabbit hole? A teardown would be great. Maybe someone has a dead mx3, as there seems to be a lot sudden death syndrome with this DAC.
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Topping MX3 ...Possibility of adding line-out
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infinitesymphony
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Welcome! Can you provide more details about why you want to have a line output on an integrated amp? There may be a solution that is a better fit for what you want to do.
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I really wanted a dac for my existing Sound system. Mostly I’m watching music concerts, and wanted something better than the headphone output from my tv to the sound system. I bought a cheap $25 optical dac from amazon and it sounded like crap. If I was to buy now, of course I would probably buy the topping e30, but I already have the mx3 so I thought maybe there’s a way to improve the sound. I also would like to use my old Luxman amp, again.
infinitesymphony
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I think you're better off selling the MX3 and buying a nice DAC to use with your Luxman amp. A standalone DAC like the Alex Cavalli Liquid Spark would be a good choice if you plan to use the Luxman's volume knob anyway.
As an experiment, you could try using the MX3's headphone output as a line out using a 3.5mm male TRS to two male RCA Y-adapter plugged into a line input on your Luxman. Play around with the MX3's volume to make sure it's healthy to the Luxman without clipping the inputs, and/or measure the MX3's headphone output voltage using a multimeter and a 1 KHz test tone to set it to 2V as Amir did in his test of the DAC section.
As an experiment, you could try using the MX3's headphone output as a line out using a 3.5mm male TRS to two male RCA Y-adapter plugged into a line input on your Luxman. Play around with the MX3's volume to make sure it's healthy to the Luxman without clipping the inputs, and/or measure the MX3's headphone output voltage using a multimeter and a 1 KHz test tone to set it to 2V as Amir did in his test of the DAC section.
