Review and Measurements of the Topping D70 DAC

[Kiko1974]

You are reinforcing my point.
I am pro Topping. Almost fan boy perspective. I am pro AKM. I interviewed with their USA plastics business entity five years ago when I was early retired against my will.

Topping seems to be excellent at allot of company functions. Their feature... advantage... benefit (FAB) marketing model in English is vague or muddled.
They use three different chip manufacturers and as a somewhat informed consumer, I am confused as what the FAB is between these three that makes them better than my five year old D70.

Maybe it sounds better is not a marketing proposition.
Unfortunately, rarely do manufacturers comment on ASR threads.

I am pro-AKM too. I got a Marantz PM 6007 integrated amp that has one SPDIF and two Toslink digital inputs. This amp features an AKM DAC chip. I had at the time a Topping D50 D/A converter (first model) with Sabre D/A chips. I ended Up using the Topping D50 for DSD playing only and the AKM built in DAC on the Marantz amp for PCM.
In April 2023 I got an SMSL DO 300 that features a top of their line Sabre D/A IC. I think this sounded great but ended Up returning It as this DAC has a design error: It applies over 6 dB's of "boosting" when playing DSD (-6 dB's equals 0 dB's in PCM), around 7.5/8 dB's of level increase, which deviates from the standard.
making DSD sound too boomy and distorted.
Just my 0.002 $.
I got around 3 months ago an SMSL DO 300EX which features an AK4192EQ (that does oversampling and Delta/Sigma modulation and an AK4499EX.
Both DSD and PCM play at the right level, but I find this AKM chipset combination not lacking in detail and much more easy to my ears. I can spend HOURS listening to music with the AKM based DO 300EX while I did find the Sabre based DO 300 fatiguing after an hour or so of music listening.
Maybe it's just a matter of taste, sinergy with the rest of my set up, that I've been suffering of tinnitus for 8 years, or that Sabre D/A IC's excell at getting the most detail out of our digital media but are actually a bit (or not so "a bit") tiring to one's ears.
Having had this experience with the AKM IC'S on the Marantz versus the Sabre IC's on the D50, and the SMSL DO 300 versus the DO 300EX, I'll be having AKM based D/A converters in the future.