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Topping D30 DAC Measurement and Review

Vosya

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Indeed. I hope you understand that you are the one going against scientific consensus.
Calm down, answering machine. It's time to understand that you are not interesting to me at all.
 

Julf

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Calm down, answering machine. It's time to understand that you are not interesting to me at all.

I think I am finally done feeding the troll. Time for admins to step in?
 

Julf

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You see, finally my assumptions were confirmed. Bot-provocateur. Enviable role, be proud.

Yes, I do seem to provoke bots. How is the weather in St Petersburg, by the way?
 

BDWoody

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You see, finally my assumptions were confirmed. Bot-provocateur. Enviable role, be proud.

This has been exhausting...

Your trolling is of the very boring kind. That's enough for you in this thread. Please take a less aggressive approach going forward, and figure if this is the place for you.
 

Transmaniacon

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This has been exhausting...

Your trolling is of the very boring kind. That's enough for you in this thread. Please take a less aggressive approach going forward, and figure if this is the place for you.

Thank you. This thread really got off-topic.
 

spiritofjerry

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I'm going to be crucified for this, but I also owned the D30 for a brief period, and noticed a "sound signature" to it that I could not place with my other gear. Perhaps it was an aural hallucination, but I don't think it was. I ended up returning the D30 for the JDS OL DAC, which sounded -- like nothing at all, like a DAC should.

Again, I hate to be the guy that agrees with @Vosya in this thread, but that was the only piece of gear that I had that sounded wrong. It sounded "thin," for lack of a better description. Perhaps I got a bad unit? I don't know. I have read elsewhere that others felt the D30 sounded wrong, too, so I have no idea.

In any case, that DAC put me off from Topping for a while. Could have just been a QC issue.
 

Julf

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I'm going to be crucified for this, but I also owned the D30 for a brief period, and noticed a "sound signature" to it that I could not place with my other gear. Perhaps it was an aural hallucination, but I don't think it was.

So what did you do to ascertain that it wasn't an aural hallucination?
 

spiritofjerry

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So what did you do to ascertain that it wasn't an aural hallucination?
Oh god, here we go.... lol. Just the reply I knew I was going to get.

Honestly, I didn't do anything. I just used my other gear and sent the D30 back. I've never had another DAC sound like that one did (and I've used a lot of gear), but it didn't sound good. Purely subjective. Please don't crucify me :(
 

Julf

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Oh god, here we go.... lol. Just the reply I knew I was going to get.

Oh god, seems some people are really sensitive to any questions related to their subjective experiences - and seem to love hyperbole too. Asking if you verified your perception in any way is not "crucifying" you.
 

spiritofjerry

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Oh god, seems some people are really sensitive to any questions related to their subjective experiences - and seem to love hyperbole too. Asking if you verified your perception in any way is not "crucifying" you.
Ok
 

iazriel

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Hi all! I want to connect my Topping D30 to my PS5 via USB but I don't know if the dac is UAC 1 or 2. Moreover I don't know if PS5 has some updated audio drivers for UAC 2 nowadays?

Another solution was maybe to connect the dac to my LG CX via optical and use the TV as passthrough? Any ideas are more than welcome. Cheers!
 

tvrgeek

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Well, try it. Nothing will blow up. The DAC is USB2, but it is designed for insane data rates you don't have, so it it probably fine. For "normal" audio, you should not need any special drivers.
 

iazriel

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The problem is that the PS5 is in another house in another city and I don't want to move my equipment (D30, Atom, Sundara) and end up with a non working setup :p Tbh, my guess is that the dac on the PS5 won't work and I will have to try the TV passthrough solution and hope for the best but if someone here has already tried the above setup would save me time and money :)
 

Jimmy

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I no longer have my D30 (it died and got a refund), but it's UAC2 compatible (24/192 in this case), and as far as I remember there isn't a UAC1/UAC2 switch, so it may not work with the PS5.

The solution may be to use the digital outputs of your TV, or buy a HDMI to SPDIF/Toslink box, and use it to connect the D30, but if I remember well, the D30 didn't sound as good using SPDIF/Toslink it sounded less transparent (blurrier may describe it better), compared to USB.

It can be something like this :


but for that price you can buy a cheap DAC, that probably will sound worse than the D30 :


The cheapest and simplest solution would be to use your D30 hooked to your TV (if it has digital outputs), buying a cable with the appropriate length.
 

iazriel

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Thank you very much for the detailed answer! I can confirm that the dac doesn't work with the PS5 so I will try the TV passthrough with the SPDIF and see how it goes from there... Thanks again!
 

hamcha

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OLD DAC BATTLE: Topping D30 vs HRT Music Streamer II+

Primarily asking about sound quality.
If you have an opinion, please share. Thanks!
 

Jimster480

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OLD DAC BATTLE: Topping D30 vs HRT Music Streamer II+

Primarily asking about sound quality.
If you have an opinion, please share. Thanks!
I still have this and had it on my 2nd system. Just bought an EX5 the other week to "replace" it and now the D30 will probably go to this new sound bar that I got which seems to have a horrible DAC.... still going strong 5 years+ later.
 
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