Shenzhenaudio Topping EX5 Review (DAC and Headphone Amplifier)

[Sensation]

예, 실제로 #3도 추천하지 않습니다.
어떤 사람들은 최소 위상 필터를 선호합니다. 그렇다면 최소 위상 필터 중 가장 좋은 필터 #4를 사용하십시오.
요약해서 말하자면:
필터 2 또는 6이 전반적으로 가장 좋습니다(둘 중 하나 선택).
인과/비대칭 과도 임펄스 응답이 있는 최소 위상을 선호하는 경우 필터 4.

Do you use tidal?

This is my playlist ^^

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/a4fc1511-7799-47dc-b660-8a78576ff6b2

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/643c699d-8ca1-4af8-adb7-492bed231839

https://tidal.com/browse/playlist/8a5e50c1-262e-4591-8a72-63429402bf22

I want to be with you.

 

[MRC01]

I have Qobuz, not Tidal.
I listen mostly to acoustic music: classical, renaissance, etc. Sometimes blues, jazz, bluegrass. Very occasionally, rock etc.
My playlist is currently
23 classical albums, mostly small ensemble chamber works
2 Leo Kottke albums
1 Diana Krall album
2 Ayreheart/Brian Kay/Ron McFarlane albums
1 Tom Harrell album
1 Eric Clapton album

 

[Sensation]

Tidal이 아니라 Qobuz가 있습니다.
저는 주로 어쿠스틱 음악을 듣습니다. 클래식, 르네상스 등. 가끔은 블루스, 재즈, 블루그래스. 아주 가끔, 록 등.
내 재생 목록은 현재
23개의 클래식 앨범, 대부분 소규모 앙상블 실내악
2 Leo Kottke 앨범
1 다이애나 크롤 앨범
2 Ayreheart/Brian Kay/Ron McFarlane 앨범
1 톰 해럴 앨범
1 에릭 클랩튼 앨범

i love "Diana Krall" good!!

 

[HRTF_Enthusiast]

We have so many highly performing desktop dac/amps nowadays that the value proposition of each new release goes down considering they all sound the same. At this point, I just wish Topping would release a dongle.

 

[MRC01]

@SHENZHENAUDIO I noticed that you acknowledged earlier that the EX5 not displaying the correct sample rate is a software bug:

Shenzhenaudio Topping EX5 Review (DAC and Headphone Amplifier)

I think the sample rate is always displayed and the volume just briefly when you change it. Lovely, mine is now stuck to 192 even though the actual content is actually 44.1 (I don't think I own any 192 files). @JohnYang1997 , @SHENZHENAUDIO looks like another bug. Is there any chance you can...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The bug is intermittent: sometimes it displays the correct rate, sometimes it does not.

The EX5 works well otherwise and sounds good. But this bug is annoying so I'm not sure whether I want to keep or return it. Do you plan to fix this bug and issue a firmware update?

 

[Sensation]

A 대

There is a bug after the update.

The volumes in line out 1, 2, 3 are all saved the same.

Before the update, volumes in line out 1,2,3 were stored separately.

 

[Chromatischism]

• you have to point the remote straight at the display for it to work. It would be better if the remote was less fussy and worked whichever direction you pointed it. Perhaps the transmitter is too low power or the receiver has too little sensitivity?
• volume knob should be more "grippy". Right now it's smooth so your fingers can slide a bit when you try to turn it. Also, maybe the knob is slightly too big? If you the device placed straight on the table it can be difficult to get a proper grip around it. Of course it's less of an issue if you have something placed underneath it so it's elevated, or you have it placed at the edge of the table so the table surface is not in the way. For me it's not a huge issue because I just use the remote.

Agree on the volume knob, a little rubber like on my Nikon lenses would go a long way. Maybe there is some stick-on solution we could find and cut to size.

It definitely helps to get it above the desk as your fingers can get caught between the desk and the bottom of the knob as you turn it. Here is a "monitor stand" I found on Amazon. It's great except it doesn't match my desktop color.

With that said, I find myself using the remote to turn it on and off to not risk pushing the device back into the shelf. It has rubber feet but it can still move a little.

I grab the volume knob when I want a fast change and don't care about the clickiness. When I am on a video call and don't want the clicks to be heard, I use the remote. It's slower, but quieter. I wish the volume knob clicks were quieter.

I'm very close so with the remote sitting on the desk I don't have trouble with it being recognized, even though the EX5 is elevated.

Btw what sample rate is everyone running at? Any problem in choosing 48000 Hz in Windows instead of 41000 Hz? What about 96000 Hz?

48 kHz for Windows, REW, Voicemeeter.

 

[Chromatischism]

By reading reviews on the internet you can find out a lot of contradictory things about ex5 that I don't really want to believe (like non resolving, veiled sound??). Is there anyone with experience who could describe the sound characteristics?

I watched nearly all of the YouTube reviewers and none of them said that.

I would also not agree with it.

Granted, I don't have tons of experience with these kinds of devices, but I did compare it to a Schiit Modius/Magnius stack with my FiiO FH3's and I was not convinced there was a difference outside my own margin of error. And yes, there is a margin of error – going both ways – which is why I discount it. I also have a rather competent music and home theater system and I don't think the EX5 produces a veiled sound.

 

[Chromatischism]

I measured my EX5 with REW sweeps to 22.05 at 44.1 kHz with each of the 7 filters. The names and graphs in the EX5 documentation are indeed incorrect as they do not match their measured responses. Measured responses:

Filter	19k	20k	22.05k	phase
1	-3.3	-10	-40	+15, -150
2	0 / flat	-1.5	-24	0 / flat
3	-3	-5	-14	+24, -84
4	0 / flat	-0.2	-7	+210, 0
5	-2	-3.6	-9	0 / flat
6	0 / flat	-0.3	-10	0 / flat
7	0 / flat	-0.3	-10	0 / flat

Filter #2 is most correct. The manual calls it "slow minimum" but it is neither slow, nor minimum phase. Filters 6 and 7 were identical in my testing. They are a bit flatter and smoother than #2 in the passband, but they do not fully attenuate by Nyquist. The impulse responses were consistent with the phase; that is, the ones with flat phase had symmetric impulses, the others had asymmetric impulses.

For those who like pictures, here's what I measured:
View attachment 169087

THANK YOU for testing this. I could never figure out why the manual and Amir's measurements didn't reconcile. In short, ignore the manual and refer to this post.

I will just stick with 2, even though I can't hear a difference either way.

 

[Chromatischism]

Also, you want the AUTO setting (labeled so via the remote) set to A - C if you want no power draw when turned off.

Here is the power use in A - 0 when off:

 

[Audiofanatik]

I measured my EX5 with REW sweeps to 22.05 at 44.1 kHz with each of the 7 filters. The names and graphs in the EX5 documentation are indeed incorrect as they do not match their measured responses. Measured responses:

Filter	19k	20k	22.05k	phase
1	-3.3	-10	-40	+15, -150
2	0 / flat	-1.5	-24	0 / flat
3	-3	-5	-14	+24, -84
4	0 / flat	-0.2	-7	+210, 0
5	-2	-3.6	-9	0 / flat
6	0 / flat	-0.3	-10	0 / flat
7	0 / flat	-0.3	-10	0 / flat

Filter #2 is most correct. The manual calls it "slow minimum" but it is neither slow, nor minimum phase. Filters 6 and 7 were identical in my testing. They are a bit flatter and smoother than #2 in the passband, but they do not fully attenuate by Nyquist. The impulse responses were consistent with the phase; that is, the ones with flat phase had symmetric impulses, the others had asymmetric impulses.

For those who like pictures, here's what I measured:
View attachment 169087

 

[Audiofanatik]

I measured my EX5 with REW sweeps to 22.05 at 44.1 kHz with each of the 7 filters. The names and graphs in the EX5 documentation are indeed incorrect as they do not match their measured responses. Measured responses:

Filter	19k	20k	22.05k	phase
1	-3.3	-10	-40	+15, -150
2	0 / flat	-1.5	-24	0 / flat
3	-3	-5	-14	+24, -84
4	0 / flat	-0.2	-7	+210, 0
5	-2	-3.6	-9	0 / flat
6	0 / flat	-0.3	-10	0 / flat
7	0 / flat	-0.3	-10	0 / flat

Filter #2 is most correct. The manual calls it "slow minimum" but it is neither slow, nor minimum phase. Filters 6 and 7 were identical in my testing. They are a bit flatter and smoother than #2 in the passband, but they do not fully attenuate by Nyquist. The impulse responses were consistent with the phase; that is, the ones with flat phase had symmetric impulses, the others had asymmetric impulses.

For those who like pictures, here's what I measured:
View attachment 169087

Thank you very much MRC01 for bringing much needed clarity to this issue. The graphs and descriptions in the Owners’ Manual are confusing at best. Notwithstanding my affection for Topping products, I find it surprising and disappointIng that they have not seen fit to correct the obvious anomaly here. That said, like many ( most?) of us, I struggle to hear any difference between the various filter settings.…

 

[bellyofthebizd]

I watched nearly all of the YouTube reviewers and none of them said that.

I would also not agree with it.

Granted, I don't have tons of experience with these kinds of devices, but I did compare it to a Schiit Modius/Magnius stack with my FiiO FH3's and I was not convinced there was a difference outside my own margin of error. And yes, there is a margin of error – going both ways – which is why I discount it. I also have a rather competent music and home theater system and I don't think the EX5 produces a veiled sound.

Since i have returned ex5 and found that mini jack to cinch splitter i'm using has messed up channels (red is left!! haha) my impressions may had been wrong.

 

[Ingy]

Thanks, but even trying that I'm still consistently getting the same behaviour. I've also since tried the EX5 connected to my laptop instead, which has an older version of REW and an older Topping driver (it runs Windows 7) with the same result, so I'm leaning towards it being a fault with my unit. I forgot to say that there's also a pop from the right speaker when I play something through the left speaker (even just through the left speaker) to get the right speaker working again, not sure if that makes it any easier to diagnose what's going on.

Edit: It does the same thing with the right channel of the headphone output as well.

Just to update on this, I found that the right channel stops dropping out in mono if I lower the RMS level of REW's pink noise generator from the default -12dBFS to around -24.5dBFS, even if I increase the EX5 volume to compensate. Still no idea why it would be doing this on one channel but not the other, and only in mono. I can't decide whether to see about a return or not, since it seems to be working fine in general use.

 

[Berwhale]

I set up a pair of Genelec 8030C with an EX5 yesterday and encountered a slightly weird issue - when I used REW to run a sine sweep or play pink noise through a single speaker it worked fine with the left channel, but the right kept cutting out with a pop after three or four seconds of the sweep or pink noise, and wouldn't output sound afterwards until I played something through the left channel first. Initially I thought it might be a problem with the speaker going into protection (albeit at a relatively low SPL), but it still does it at very low volumes, and when I switched the other speaker to the right channel it had the same issue. I was able to work around it by running the sweep or pink noise through both speakers and shifting the balance all the way to the left or right in the Windows device settings, so I was wondering if it might just be something to do with the way I have REW set up rather than being indicative of a problem with my EX5. Has anyone experienced something similar?

This sounds similar to the issue on the Topping D50 and D50s (which I encountered myself). It appears to be a problem with the DAC chip automuting when no signal is detected on the left channel...

Review and Measurements of Topping D50 DAC

Could some of you D50 owners out there send Pink Noise using REW's Generator to L & R channels as per my prev posts and note what's happening. Would be very interesting to see if this behaviour is unique to my D50.

www.audiosciencereview.com

I think there is a workaround where you play a very low level signal on the left channel when sweeping the right. I didn't investigate further as I use the moving microphone method against both channels with REW now.

 

[Ingy]

That seems exactly it, thanks a lot! I'm reassured if it's just some quirk of the DAC chip that's easily worked around rather than a fault with my unit that could affect performance in some subtle way or cause problems later on. I'm still going back and forth on how best to EQ the speakers, right now I'm using separate MMM measurements for each channel (since one speaker is in a corner) and correcting up to 200Hz with no dip switches active, but maybe it would be better to set the dip switches as Genelec advise and perform the software EQ afterwards.

 

[Berwhale]

That seems exactly it, thanks a lot! I'm reassured if it's just some quirk of the DAC chip that's easily worked around rather than a fault with my unit that could affect performance in some subtle way or cause problems later on. I'm still going back and forth on how best to EQ the speakers, right now I'm using separate MMM measurements for each channel (since one speaker is in a corner) and correcting up to 200Hz with no dip switches active, but maybe it would be better to set the dip switches as Genelec advise and perform the software EQ afterwards.

I'm correcting each of my MTMs with the built-in DSP correction (one is in front of a wall, the other is in front of a bay window), then I'm generating combined correction with MMM and REW on my PC and applying with eAPO.

The MMM method I followed measures both L+R channels at the same time, I don't know if it's a valid approach for correcting L and R separately.

There's some discussion of the approach and settings here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/rew-moving-microphone-method-help.12641/

 

[MRC01]

... It appears to be a problem with the DAC chip automuting when no signal is detected on the left channel...

I just confirmed this with my EX5. When it is on the coax input, if there is no input on the L channel, after several seconds it auto-mutes both output channels. The time delay depends on the sample rate. At 192k it's about 5 seconds, at 44.1k it's about 25 seconds.

Wow, yet another EX5 software bug (the other is the display always stuck at 44.1k regardless of the actual sample rate).

 

[Chromatischism]

I'm correcting each of my MTMs with the built-in DSP correction (one is in front of a wall, the other is in front of a bay window), then I'm generating combined correction with MMM and REW on my PC and applying with eAPO.

The MMM method I followed measures both L+R channels at the same time, I don't know if it's a valid approach for correcting L and R separately.

There's some discussion of the approach and settings here: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/rew-moving-microphone-method-help.12641/

I use separate Left and Right measurements. I skip ARC and just use REW+PEACE.

 

[Berwhale]

My REW EQ after using ARC is a lot more subtle...

I should have some time to experiment with and without ARC over the Christmas holidays. I guess i'll have to work out how to get around the automute issue.