How do you like your Topping D30 DAC?

I just ordered a D30 and it will be replacing an original Schiit Modi. It should be here tomorrow. I plan on hooking it up to a pogoplug via USB. It shouldn't need any drivers because the pogo runs Arch Linux. I will report back on whether it is an improvement over the older Schiit DAC.

Am I correct in assuming I don't need to use the power supply if I am only using the USB connection?
 
RobertCO said:
Decided to give the D30 one last try, comparing USB vs Toslink inputs from two different RPIs and inadvertently ran into an issue that is just the nail in the coffin for this DAC at my house.

EDIT: did this same test with the Emotiva XDA-2 and that never made this sound.

This D30 makes a scratching pop whenever I switch between files with different sample rates. It does fine when all the source files are the same sample rate. In this video, I'm switching between two tracks of the same song, one at 44.1/16 and the other at 192/24. Gonna take a tweeter fuse out or worse someday. :)

Click to expand...

I just received my D30 yesterday and ran the same test on the Led Zep's The Rain Song. One track was 16/44 the other one was 24/96 and I didn't get any popping sounds. Like @RobertCO I am running LMS. The player is a hacked Pogoplug v4 running Squeezelite which is attached to the D30 via USB.

So far I am liking what I hear from the D30 but I haven't had the time to do any critical listening.
 
So....... I may have been a bit hasty in my disdain for the D30. It was a bit frustrating for me with the drivers, and it still bothers me that they aren't providing official drivers for Windows 10, but I got the drivers via the links on this thread:

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...0-no-official-xmos-windows-10-drivers.842912/

Got the D30 running well, and I have to say I do like it. It has a smooth, bright, and clear sound streaming off of Spotify. While it's not a huge difference from my motherboard sound card, I do find it worth the money. Dunno.. maybe it burned in a bit, or my ears got used to it, but it grew on me.

This is the only DAC I've ever tried. I do want to try another one in the future.
 
JumboMumbo said:
So....... I may have been a bit hasty in my disdain for the D30. It was a bit frustrating for me with the drivers, and it still bothers me that they aren't providing official drivers for Windows 10, but I got the drivers via the links on this thread:

https://audiokarma.org/forums/index...0-no-official-xmos-windows-10-drivers.842912/

Got the D30 running well, and I have to say I do like it. It has a smooth, bright, and clear sound streaming off of Spotify. While it's not a huge difference from my motherboard sound card, I do find it worth the money. Dunno.. maybe it burned in a bit, or my ears got used to it, but it grew on me.

This is the only DAC I've ever tried. I do want to try another one in the future.
Click to expand...

You're not hearing the best of Spotify in its default setup on Windows. See this:

The definition of insanity.
 
gvl said:
You're not hearing the best of Spotify in its default setup on Windows. See this:

The definition of insanity.
Click to expand...

Thanks, I'll have to check that out and play around with the settings. Right now I've got Spotify premium set to "high quality", "normalize volume" off, "hardware acceleration" disabled, and the XMOS device set to output 32bit 44.1kHz in Windows. It sounds pretty good to me as is, but I'm always down to tinker.
 
I am playing some DSD files with the D30. I just needed to add a "-D" to the command to start squeezelite in the squeezelite service file and it will play them natively. No LMS plug-in needed. No drop outs or stuttering. Just some crystal clear music . :music:

DSD.png
 
I'm really liking my D30 even more after using it with Ubuntu, just plug it in and away you go, sounds great.
 
I am awaiting SMSL SU-8 DAC to arrive so I can put them both to test side by side (if I can manage that). I will post my findings though do not expect anything scientific. :)
 
I really like a lot my Topping over the Pro-ject usb box. Wider, deeper and more detailled than the pro-ject. I have it plugged through a Qed usb filter and use foobar dsd configuration and the sound is just sweet.
 
I'm thinking on a D30 at some point, read much about it and once I get a better cd player and NOT dvd player for my cd's I'll be really curious
 
pmartel60 said:
I'm thinking on a D30 at some point, read much about it and once I get a better cd player and NOT dvd player for my cd's I'll be really curious
Click to expand...

Or you could get a DAC and rip your Cd's into Flac files and you won't need a new Cd player. My Cd player gathers dust now, there are plenty of free ripping programs that are automated to do it for you, just a thought.
 
After more than a week of testing, the D30 continues to meet expectations. The noise floor is low, and the tone sounds naturalistic. In my system, it sounds better than a Modi 3, but not by much. The difference lies in the reproduction of high and low range. They both replicate bass well enough, but the Modi seems to exaggerate low notes, and though the high notes from the Modi are pleasing, the D30 generates clearer highs. If you're in the market for either DAC, you would likely be happy with the D30 or Modi 3. I know which one I'm keeping. :cool:
 
I am thinking of gettng this DAC used for 50 CAD. The planned use was to feed from my marantz CD player's (CC4300) COAX output. The current sound just sounds slightly blurry/not detailed. Thought I would give this DAC (albeit outdated) a try to see if there would be any difference.
 
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