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Why isn't Topping offering some DAP products?

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@JohnYang1997

This question just come to my mind randomly as I am listening to my Sony ZX300 DAP which don't measure great and enjoys quite a bit at office. I am thinking when topping is able to roll out some many great desktop dac amp in the budget category with so good performance it competes with each other, why don't they go a bit into the DAP world? with SINAD >100dB and some basic operation like android with Tidal Spotify support I believe it will sell like hotcake even the screen is half decent. Kinda hope when I finally need replace my Sony something great can be had from Topping and for most audiophiles nowadays the DAP with a good earphone is a larger market.
 

chris719

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Is there a even a real market for DAPs now? I mean, I guess some use them, I just don't see the point most of the time. My phone is a DAP and if I'm moving around I don't care about the quality that much. If I'm at a desk then I can use a desktop converter.
 
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Is there a even a real market DAPs now? I mean, I guess some use them, I just don't see the point most of the time. My phone is a DAP and if I'm moving around I don't care about the quality that much. If I'm at a desk then I can use a desktop converter.
at least here in Hong Kong and most of Asia there is quite a big market, phones are ditching the 3.5mm connector and great sounding CIEMs and IEMS are emerging here and there, in the tight space in the railways, buses and office the DAP is a very convenient way of listening, sometimes even at home as homes in Asia are mostly tiny, speakers of the hifi corner fighting with mum's TV is not a good choice.
 

chris719

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at least here in Hong Kong and most of Asia there is quite a big market, phones are ditching the 3.5mm connector and great sounding CIEMs and IEMS are emerging here and there, in the tight space in the railways, buses and office the DAP is a very convenient way of listening, sometimes even at home as homes in Asia are mostly tiny, speakers of the hifi corner fighting with mum's TV is not a good choice.

I'd still rather just use a dongle with my phone, but I see what you are saying with the physical constraints if you don't want to do that.
 
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I'd still rather just use a dongle with my phone, but I see what you are saying with the physical constraints if you don't want to do that.
yea that would work too but maybe it's the difference in amount of travel time plus the degree of crowded inside transit makes asian have lots of DAP going around, literally I saw one or two taken out with USD $1000+ earphones in every commute.
The local circle main reasons include
1) battery life of phones as we used to msg and browse the web at the same time which already eats up battery, and commute are usually 1hr+ so extra drain in the battery isn't good

2) dongles are great, but once pulled by some ppl rush beside you it breaks the port pretty quickly especially for the lightening port in iPhones which is very popular here, I used to use an OPPO HA2 dac/amp tied onto my phone and the short cable getting jarred by ppl rushing beside me loosen the connection so much the dac/amp plus my phone connection to computer after merely 1 year, which is absolutely bad

3) the storage space inside phone is considered more precious than putting a card into dap

4) the local believe that DAP sounded better than a multiple purpose device, after coming here we know it isn't true, but when the mass opt for that you can find a bigger market.

So overall it should have a fairly large market here as I saw every generation of A&K mega bucks DAP sell like hotcake here and that if Topping offer that as a separate package with a 4.4mm I would more than happy to get one with higher power output and 10+ hr of battery life which I can literally shut off everytime I don't use it and not caring to charge daily
 

Katji

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> > Why isn't Topping offering some DAP products?

Ask the company. How useful is speculation anyway?
Possible reasons:
- The question never arose.
- Basic market research indicated that it would not be worthwhile [to diversify.]
- Core business is desktop/compact DAC and amplifier, in specific price bands.
- The company decided not to because it is an entirely different model of R&D and manufacturing. And of capitalisation/investment.
 

leonidas

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I also thought I would not need a DAP and even let people on this forum talk me out of it.

At the end I still bought one and couldn‘t be happier, because:

- Power (can even drive my Senn HD800s easily)
- Battery (doesn‘t additionally drain my phone)
- Full Focus on Music, absolutely no distraction (my DAP is not full Android, no Browser, no email no nothing. Just pure music to enjoy through local files and streaming. Big point for me!)
- Great haptics, great Volume knob
- Hardware Buttons for skipping and play/pause
- Beautiful look with LED and stuff :)
- Perfect Output Impedance < 1ohm (many Dongles do this as well...)
 

JohnYang1997

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I understand that too. But there are issues. Operating system is first. SoC is second. Driver and the audio stack can be really difficult to do too. You are basically making a phone by this point but harder. The amount of work that needed to put in to make a perfect unit is huge.

Portable amp, portable dac/amp with Bluetooth is possible.
 

Katji

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This is now not why Topping is not making DAP, but about DAP versus phone.


Try using your phone as a music player every day and see what happens to the battery. 1 year and you will be buying a new battery. If the battery is replaceable.
You get a new phone every year or 2 anyway? That's ok - if you're wealthier than most people or you carry on with a high-end contract.
 

Grandzoltar

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I would like to see Topping's version of the e1dac. A small portable headphone amp and dac and just use my phone
 
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I understand that too. But there are issues. Operating system is first. SoC is second. Driver and the audio stack can be really difficult to do too. You are basically making a phone by this point but harder. The amount of work that needed to put in to make a perfect unit is huge.

Portable amp, portable dac/amp with Bluetooth is possible.
Really appreciate the prompt respond John!
Yea it sounds a very tough job to be done in perfection and thus so few vendors can get it right even in the $1000+ usd market.
Portable dac amp though would likely be more of the niche lineup which IMO don’t worth doing, it eats the storage space and data on the phone as well as drains phone battery with Bluetooth which by itself can’t be that transparent in a lot of phone implementation to achieve topping SINAD.

the question was raised when I see a new dac and amp from you guys which performs nothing short from fantastic and it seems cannibalise your own market for a D30/50 to perform marginally worse than the D90 just to say. So it sounded like to me personally throwing out more just hurt your stock piling and profit and thought maybe you guys could be able to create a nice DAP.

I know you guys always try to make a perfect product in launch, but can I ask would it be that hard if audiophiles want is say a basic android interface (which i imagine don’t need much modification or build from ground up OS) on a pretty much last gen SOC which all it need to do is Wi-Fi and BT support? It seems say for the old Hifiman DAP products which are nothing related to cheap or great nice user interface but it sells the sound and sold like hot cake. So if you guys even release something similar in functionality but topping quality sound would be worthwhile
 

ta240

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I understand that too. But there are issues. Operating system is first. SoC is second. Driver and the audio stack can be really difficult to do too....

It would seem like the amount of software required would make it quite a challenge. The size of the market probably would make it tough to make back the investment. And if the software didn't end up being perfect it could damage their reputation.

Actually the question should be why does Topping have no decent speaker power amps while releasing a DAC and headphone amp every 3 months.

From what we've seen in the reviews here, it is difficult to make a speaker amp in the lower price range that performs well. And even if they did it, someone would dismiss it and say "nobody gives a damn about speaker amps that don't have ### amount of watts."

No body gives a damn about DAPs when phones exists.

I love the way the internet has changed the statement of "I don't give a damn about..." to "nobody gives a damn about..." with everything.
 

Taddpole

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I love the way the internet has changed the statement of "I don't give a damn about..." to "nobody gives a damn about..." with everything.

I think the sales figures for daps compared to phones and compared to dap sales ten maybe 15 years ago show that not many do any more.

But I guess the hifi dac and amps markets are pretty niche now too.
 

raif71

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I would like to see Topping's version of the e1dac. A small portable headphone amp and dac and just use my phone
I'm using the Topping nx4 dsd portable dac/amp with my Fiio M6 DAP. Powerful to drive my hd600 headphone.
 
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I think the sales figures for daps compared to phones and compared to dap sales ten maybe 15 years ago show that not many do any more.

But I guess the hifi dac and amps markets are pretty niche now too.
Well hifi stuffs are always a niche market, ppl have way too much to be prioritised in spending
 

Rottmannash

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I think the sales figures for daps compared to phones and compared to dap sales ten maybe 15 years ago show that not many do any more.

But I guess the hifi dac and amps markets are pretty niche now too.
How many DAPs were in existence 10 to 15 years ago?
 
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