Review and Measurements of Topping DX3Pro DAC and Headphone Amp

[scibry]

At least right at the moment, even their website is down. Hoping not fly by night:

http://en.tpdz.net/contact.html

Has anyone heard back from topping with any remedy? How to send to China? anything at all?

 

[scibry]

Note: I am now using a schiit modi 3 and magni 2 uber, and while the amp needs to be a JDS Atom instead it's more than enough. I wouldn't let a friend buy this junk.

At least right at the moment, even their website is down. Hoping not fly by night:

http://en.tpdz.net/contact.html

Has anyone heard back from topping with any remedy? How to send to China? anything at all?

 

[Veri]

Note: I am now using a schiit modi 3 and magni 2 uber, and while the amp needs to be a JDS Atom instead it's more than enough. I wouldn't let a friend buy this junk.

Mine has been flawless for almost 40 days straight

 

[bleachershane]

Have we been looking at serial numbers to see if there is a certain batch with this issue? Also, would it possibly be recently produced models which came with firmware 1.04? Curious if it can be narrowed down.

I will start: serial 1808594207, black, did not come with 1.04, no issues yet.

I reckon all the owners here should chime in with this to see if we can narrow down the issues/batches that are out there.

Serial number: 1812564032
Owned just over a week, roughly an hour to two hours use a day at the moment (busy over Christmas and New Year's etc). Still functioning correctly.
Using USB (majority of use), optical and coaxial inputs, headphone and line-level outputs.

 

[bleachershane]

At least right at the moment, even their website is down. Hoping not fly by night:

http://en.tpdz.net/contact.html

Has anyone heard back from topping with any remedy? How to send to China? anything at all?

Topping have been around a good while now, I doubt very much that they're flying by night so to put it. Probably just a server issue, but worth checking back, their website is clunky at best and usually very slow to access.

If anything goes wrong I bought through Amazon Marketplace and paid by credit card so I would be covered. Fingers crossed I have no issues as I do really like the unit.

 

[noel_fs]

At least right at the moment, even their website is down. Hoping not fly by night:

http://en.tpdz.net/contact.html

Has anyone heard back from topping with any remedy? How to send to China? anything at all?

Its up but the connection is blocked outside china for some reason, just use a vpn like Hola! VPN

 

[SemperUnum]

Today I finally had the time to test my Topping DX3Pro, I got mine through Massdrop.

Let me do a quick review and check for any of the issues mentioned.


MY ENVIRONMENT
The DX3Pro is connected to a laptop running Windows 10 Home by means of an USB 3.0 port. I use the DX3Pro to listen to music and to watch movies by means of headphones.

FOOBAR2000
The ASIO drivers works without any issue, both PCM and DSD are correctly recognized and played on the DX3Pro with this mode. WASAPI (event) works with PCM but not correctly with DSD, with DSD the music is still heard but crackling noise is added to the sound EDIT: WASAPI (event) works correctly for both PCM and DSD after installation of the Topping drivers and a computer reset. WASAPI (push) like ASIO works correctly for both PCM and DSD.

VERSION
My DX3Pro was shipped with firmware version v1.03. I updated this easily to v1.04.

REMOTE
The remote came included with a battery, I only had to remove the shipping plastic to make the battery connect and have a working remote.

CLICKING
The relay inside the DX3Pro clicks when starting/stopping/pausing songs in Foobar, not an issue for me since I usually listen to whole albums and the music drowns out any clicks anyway. With YouTube in Chrome there is a single click when I first start playing, but not when I pause or stop or select another video, there is another final click when I quit the browser tab.

3.5 HEADPHONE OUTPUT
The jacks of both the DT880pro and HiFiMan Ananda plug in nicely and connect well, no wobbling or vague "in between" sticking points.

VOLUME KNOB
Sits well, can wobble a tiny bit if strong force is applied but not when you casually turn it. Reacts correctly to my input.

ANTI-SLIP FEET
Yes, those feet, about the first time I see them actually working on a small unit. I can't remember how many times I had other DAC's slip off my table due to slippery feet.

LISTENING
At low gain I am listening to my HiFiMan Ananda at -9dB with seemingly more than enough room to spare, even with the volume at -0dB I hear no distortion. Subjectively I think the DX3Pro sounds good with a lot of detail though ultimately you should rather trust Amirs objective test-results for this.

EDIT: Thanx to noel_fs I could download the DX3Pro driver and firmware update!
EDIT2: Changed the WASAPI (event) in Foobar2000 description.

 

[zephyros]

Topping site went online again just now, but I will put the driver and FW link here just in case. I'm getting it in a few days, will see if there's any problem.
Driver:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/m57m68efaqpv08n/Topping_UsbAudio_v4.47_setup.zip?dl=0
FW:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/15s37b91hv2uypi/DX3 Pro FW1.04(18L).zip?dl=0

 

[Stein]

The serial number of my DX3 Pro is 1808594081

It stopped working after 3 and a half weeks(stuck in standby mode)

 

[donald24]

Maybe it's the inferiour power supply that destroys the circuit by bad voltage spikes, who knows. I swapped mine out for a good meanwell one. If it goes dead now, it's not the inferiour power supply, LOL! Maybe Topping will make an official statement for this... and offer a good solution.

 

[TomSawyer]

Figured out the issue on garbled sound with event mode in WASAPI (or DSD) from foobar... Installed the dx3 pro drivers, both modes work fine now. I noticed a rogue 'Topping DFU' in device manager, no luck in getting that to go away with vanilla win 10 drivers so figured I'd give the topping batch a try. Fixed the DFU device as well as my event mode issue. No difference in SQ, and the Topping control panel in the tray is pretty light weight. Nice to see it show the current sample rate and latency.

Stayed up way late last night listing to many of my favorite tracks, and continue to be amazed at what I'm hearing. It TRULY woke up the m40x's.

 

[noel_fs]

I love how smooth the topping drivers are with asio. I would recomend install them for it, and use asio then ofc

 

[TomSawyer]

I love how smooth the topping drivers are with asio. I would recomend install them for it, and use asio then ofc

Thanks, Noel I'll pop the asio plugin in and see how it does. Can't say my (old) ears can tell much difference between the windows and topping driver in wasapi mode, but being a bit OCD I'm happy to have event working properly and no rogue devices in device manager.

 

[Yuno]

I noticed a rogue 'Topping DFU' in device manager, no luck in getting that to go away with vanilla win 10 drivers

This is not specific to dx3, I had this on my previous dac too. I don't think this does anything, wouldn't worry about it.

 

[MacDac]

Guys, those of you facing temporary failures of your DAC (ie hissing, distorted sound, losing one channel, etc), especially during longer listening sessions, please check the temperature of AKM chip. I had similar issues with a different Chinese device (based on AKM4490) and the only working solution was to mount a mini-fan inside the chassis, since the chip temp went as high as 98 C on hot days, and 75 C on average. However, if RCA output works well, the reason is probably somewhere else...

 

[bleachershane]

Unfortunately mine is not an overheating issue. I can leave it unplugged for an hour and when immediately turned on starts with a big pop in the right channel followed by garbled hissing. The headphone out is completely toast. It hasn't worked since the first pop.

This sounds like the headphone amplifier is at fault, although without seeing and scoping a faulty unit this is sheer guesswork.

 

[bleachershane]

I'm also intrigued by the impedance of the headphones used by everyone who has had theirs pop? Just to see if there's a correlation between this fault.

 

[scibry]

I'm also intrigued by the impedance of the headphones used by everyone who has had theirs pop? Just to see if there's a correlation between this fault.

I was listening to 300ohm when it happened, then tried 8 ohm, and same silent result.

 

[Wolven]

Today I finally had the time to test my Topping DX3Pro, I got mine through Massdrop.

Let me do a quick review and check for any of the issues mentioned.


MY ENVIRONMENT
The DX3Pro is connected to a laptop running Windows 10 Home by means of an USB 3.0 port. I use the DX3Pro to listen to music and to watch movies by means of headphones.

FOOBAR2000
The ASIO drivers works without any issue, both PCM and DSD are correctly recognized and played on the DX3Pro with this mode. WASAPI (event) works with PCM but not correctly with DSD, with DSD the music is still heard but crackling noise is added to the sound. WASAPI (push) like ASIO works correctly for both PCM and DSD.

VERSION
My DX3Pro was shipped with firmware version v1.03. I updated this easily to v1.04.

REMOTE
The remote came included with a battery, I only had to remove the shipping plastic to make the battery connect and have a working remote.

CLICKING
The relay inside the DX3Pro clicks when starting/stopping/pausing songs in Foobar, not an issue for me since I usually listen to whole albums and the music drowns out any clicks anyway. With YouTube in Chrome there is a single click when I first start playing, but not when I pause or stop or select another video, there is another final click when I quit the browser tab.

3.5 HEADPHONE OUTPUT
The jacks of both the DT880pro and HiFiMan Ananda plug in nicely and connect well, no wobbling or vague "in between" sticking points.

VOLUME KNOB
Sits well, can wobble a tiny bit if strong force is applied but not when you casually turn it. Reacts correctly to my input.

ANTI-SLIP FEET
Yes, those feet, about the first time I see them actually working on a small unit. I can't remember how many times I had other DAC's slip off my table due to slippery feet.

LISTENING
At low gain I am listening to my HiFiMan Ananda at -9dB with seemingly more than enough room to spare, even with the volume at -0dB I hear no distortion. Subjectively I think the DX3Pro sounds good with a lot of detail though ultimately you should rather trust Amirs objective test-results for this.

EDIT: Thanx to noel_fs I could download the DX3Pro driver and firmware update!

Do you guys think it is better to run DX3pro in WASAPI push? I have been using WASAPI event to this point, but after reading your post I switched to 'push'. I thought it is generally recommended to use 'event' with devices that support it. I tried using SACD files, but I can get it to work only if SACD in Foobar is set to PCM. My SACD is set to (double precision with 30kHz filter. DSD direct mode doesn't work, any suggestions?

 

[chrisliuboy]

45 ohm HE-560 for me ....... -10dB volume

Thanks for the info., I mailed Topping support to see whether they know the cause and whether there is anyway to avoid it like using a "better" adopter. I hope I could get some feedback from them, but since their website is still down, finger crossed.