Topping RD3 TP Balanced DAC Review

[GGroch]

These Topping TP lines have some identity crisis for sure. What the hell is intended market and use case?

Dentist's Office, Coffee Shop, Small/Medium Cafeteria, Apartment Community Room, Mall Store, thousands of use cases. Luxury homes where the owners want the electronics for each room's inwalls hidden, less prone to failure by being unplugged/knocked around.

Ask a small business/home integrator about the value of making fewer service calls because a clueless employee spilled coffee on a tabletop component. Rack mounting was originally designed to be a tool, not a decorative expression.

 

[Transmaniacon]

Aesthetics were brought up by Amir. “The unit sports a gorgeous, white segmented display with highly responsive control. It is a joy to use”

To me, and many others, it looks cheap, nasty and not remotely ’gorgeous’, no matter if it was free or sent to me gratis…

It looks like something I would have made in the 1980s in a 1U rackmount case and desperately tried to convince myself it was decent. Luckily I moved on to real HiFi.

Okay you don’t have the like the way it looks, he does, that doesn’t have any impact on its performance. And you and I both know you couldn’t tell this apart from some “real hifi” DAC that looks nicer.

 

[Haskil]

De quoi parle-tu ?

Je répondais à propos du seuil d'audibilité du jitter...

 

[ceausuc]

I never realized how much discussion could be had over the aesthetics of a budget DAC… if you don’t like the look, it’s not for you.

unfortunately aesthetics are the only thing that's different for newer dacs these days.
nothing else interesting or worth speaking of.

 

[Veri]

What are you talking about?

He was giving an anecdote/example concerning the relatively high jitter on this particular device.

 

[MacCali]

I would be interested to see a tear down. Curious how much empty space is in that box, guess you can tell from the rear just like everything else o.o

 

[David_M]

Very nice product. Love the fact Topping is making something different than desktop stuff.
Isn't the level for absolute transparency -115? If so isn't that jitter audible?

"Isn't the level for absolute transparency -115?" ... according to what respected audio authority can anyone make this claim?

 

[MacCali]

"Isn't the level for absolute transparency -115?" ... according to what respected audio authority can anyone make this claim?

That’s what Amir says and human testing of the ability to hear things via research.

Gene from Audioholics says amps wise anything -95 db or better is also very passable. Maybe controversial for some of us and I use to think that’s crazy and now I realize it actually isn’t.

 

[Neddy]

Non-removable rack ears are a war crime.

Michael

Not quite sure about that, but agree, the Motu I have has very pretty removable rack ears.
Problem is, what the heck to do with them since I don't need (or want) them in it's current location!!??
The number of small little boxes full of weird odd parts is starting to get excessive around here!
In the event of my demise, no ones gonna have a clue what they are for, and even I might forget!
Then, a brain storm: make them 'rear mount' installable, so they could be installed, hidden on the back side, and pointing 'back' rather than side to side, when not required.
Isn't that what 'design maturation' should really be about?

 

[mdsimon2]

Not quite sure about that, but agree, the Motu I have has very pretty removable rack ears.
Problem is, what the heck to do with them since I don't need (or want) them in it's current location!!??
The number of small little boxes full of weird odd parts is starting to get excessive around here!
In the event of my demise, no ones gonna have a clue what they are for, and even I might forget!
Then, a brain storm: make them 'rear mount' installable, so they could be installed, hidden on the back side, and pointing 'back' rather than side to side, when not required.
Isn't that what 'design maturation' should really be about?

Definitely sympathize with this, have a few RME and MOTU interfaces with removable rack ears that are in a bag somewhere in my closet.

Michael

 

[Waxx]

Measurements look very good, but the build is sloppy and amateuristic for a company like topping and the price they ask. It looks like a diy build, not like a commercial build, especially from the back. I know those connectors and can buy them at diy shops for very cheap, and the box is a generic 1U rackunit that is also sold there...

And like said, for pro it's not rugged enough, for hifi it's not well finished build enough. So I gave it an fine, not a great score in the poll

 

[amirm]

Aesthetics were brought up by Amir. “The unit sports a gorgeous, white segmented display with highly responsive control. It is a joy to use”

To me, and many others, it looks cheap, nasty and not remotely ’gorgeous’, no matter if it was free or sent to me gratis…

It looks like something I would have made in the 1980s in a 1U rackmount case and desperately tried to convince myself it was decent. Luckily I moved on to real HiFi.

That's a comment about the display and not the whole thing. Regardless unless you had ability for time travel you did not have white LED to build this then. Much less a cheap micro to drive it this fast. Nor could you remotely come close to the cost of this product. If you had these abilities you would have owned the market then!

 

[amirm]

And like said, for pro it's not rugged enough, for hifi it's not well finished build enough. So I gave it an fine, not a great score in the poll

What is not rugged enough? And what ruggedness do you need for studio use?

 

[Kevinfc]

With near perfection available for every separate at an extraordinarily low cost, the only debate left is esthetics.

Time to be sad or rejoice?

 

[Bleib]

With near perfection available for every separate at an extraordinarily low cost, the only debate left is esthetics.

Time to be sad or rejoice?

Rejoice.
Well, apart form the fact that I can't find them elsewhere other than aliexpress, I'd buy the RA3 for another room

 

[Haskil]

He was giving an anecdote/example concerning the relatively high jitter on this particular device.

No, I was reporting listening through a device designed and manufactured by the QSC Audio brand for testing in ABX : QSC ABX Comparator.
And among the possibilities offered by this device, there is a jitter generator which adds transmission jitter to a signal passing through it.
And I said that this jitter was inaudible whatever its level... until the moment when the DAC connected to this QSC simply dropped out.

 

[ocinn]

Dentist's Office, Coffee Shop, Small/Medium Cafeteria, Apartment Community Room, Mall Store, thousands of use cases. Luxury homes where the owners want the electronics for each room's inwalls hidden, less prone to failure by being unplugged/knocked around.

Ask a small business/home integrator about the value of making fewer service calls because a clueless employee spilled coffee on a tabletop component. Rack mounting was originally designed to be a tool, not a decorative expression.

Uh, yeah absolutely not. Those people are going to be buying solutions that are 1/2 as expensive and much more compact per channel. Why would you spend $114 and 0.5U per ch, when you could spend $58 and 0.17U/ch, or spend the same amount and get more watts and more channel count?

Not to mention in professional deployments like malls, cafeterias, and high-end homes, these amps are fed via a distribution processor (Q-Sys, Symetrix), so the DAC is pointless. And for cafe's etc, they are either fed via a streamer, or an ipad. Not one cafe or dentist office owner is going to spend $229 on a DAC (unless it is a predatory invoice addition by the integration firm), When an Apple dongle does the job just fine.

So in short. The Amp is 2x overpriced for pro use, underpowered, and takes up a ton of space, doesn't have pro audio features (speakon/pheonix). And the dac is absurdly overpriced (the M300se is $100 cheaper, and wipes the floor with the RD3 in every metric), and also completely useless in pro audio settings (no aes, no word clock, no dante, no ADAT, no >4v output, no pheonix, no network control). Both of these make no sense on why they exist.

Well, apart form the fact that I can't find them elsewhere other than aliexpress, I'd buy the RA3 for another room

Or you can buy the higher performing, better looking, smaller, PA5 II... Which I assume is just an RA3 without all the wasted sheet metal.

 

[David_M]

That’s what Amir says and human testing of the ability to hear things via research.

Gene from Audioholics says amps wise anything -95 db or better is also very passable. Maybe controversial for some of us and I use to think that’s crazy and now I realize it actually isn’t.

The folks you quoted as being authoritative are simply giving personal opinions, not actual data from published science. No disrespect to either of them, but we are so quick to take as gospel, opinions from personnel with big audio media footprints, as fact or science. Again, no disrespect to either of these two folks as I have benefited from their work product, like so many have.

Think of this. The largest distortion generators in our home theater are the HT room and your loudspeakers by factors of 5x or more. For example, take a top-notch subwoofer outside and measure its distortion levels within decent dB levels (say under 100dB) between 20Hz - 200Hz. SOTA subwoofers will have THD levels under 1% .... outside at a 2 meters distance. Now, take the same subwoofer and place it in the best or optimal location in your room, the same 2m distance and again measure the same distortion at similar dB levels. The in-room distortion will be 5% to 15% (especially at resonance). What changed? The room of course... yet we don't much fret about our distortion-generating rooms. Why?

Similar case with standard loudspeakers. They measure better outside, where reflections don't exist, than they would inside the room, with distortion levels of 10% at higher dB levels...yet we fret much about an audio device having a SINAD of less than -100dB or whatever these non-experts claim is inaudible. A -100dB SINAD signal going through a 5% -10% SINAD (-26dB to -20dB !) speaker/woofer will produce a combined signal with SINAD levels between -26dB to -20 dB!!! No wonder, audio reviewers have always said that the best change you can make to your audio theater is by changing your loudspeakers...assuming getting a new bigger room, hence a bigger house is not an option.

Humans are used to listening to 'distorted sounds' and they sound really good. Go to a top-notch concert hall and listen to your favorite musical piece. At the orchestra level, the distortion is 0%, since that's the reference point. By the time sound reaches your ears, after bouncing off multiple side walls, floors, and ceilings. the distortion levels will be much much higher than at the orchestral level... and yet we listen and enjoy the music without any concern about distortion levels.

Human ears are very tolerant of distortion and are not precision audio test gear like the commonly used AP systems. That's why it's hard to tell the difference between a well-recorded but compressed 320 kbps - 512 kbps audio stream from an uncompressed one...even when using top-notch audio gear. Many 'golden ears' have tried so, with results equal to guessing.

By all means, I'd buy a device with top specs, not because I know it will sound better, but because it was well-engineered and will probably last me a long long while.

 

[Saponetto]

Or just buy a real interface, from a company that actually supports their customers.

Oh, that's a better choice, for sure...

 

[Mart68]

Pleasing in a space like this? OK, if you were still living in the 70's, sure.

(Not my space BTW)

View attachment 306262

Absolutely but I am still living in the 1970s.

My house was remodelled in 1973, in the style of that time, and aside from installing new windows I haven't done anything to change it.

I like my equipment on display and I like purposeful looking equipment not the bland, sculpted minimalism that's the current fashion.

So while I agree there's no professional market for this product there's people like me who like rack mount ears, grab handles, level meters, and, ideally, every function accessible with its own button or switch on the front panel.

Very few companies catering for my aesthetic tastes right now so we have to go pro, or vintage, or like with this Topping, 'faux-pro'.