Follow-up: Topping DX9 DAC tests. And reduction in the ability to comment on the Stereophile website.

Topping DX9 DAC sitting on Linn Klimax DS/2 which we'll talk about another time.

Hey guys and gals, thanks for the comments and feedback over the years on this blog. It really helps to refine the testing and of course explore broader ideas about audiophilia and what it is we're after in this hobby. I think it's important that we're free to discuss and critique not just the hardware, but also the ideas (including the philosophy and psychology) that "we" as individuals believe in. There's so much unsubstantiated audiophile cultural beliefs out there based on myths such that everything should be up for examination regardless of who says what. It's not unusual to find that audiophile review "high priests" are wrong, and some "heroes" of the audiophile world are nothing more than false prophets.

It's also good to get feedback suggestions on the published measurements, for example in the recent series on the Topping DX9 flagship DAC (based on rare AKM AK4499EQ chip), Nick in the Part III comments suggested that I consider this:

"Hi Archi,

Prior to version 5.40.78 beta rew had a gross error in IMD vs Level plotting, the results were underestimated by about 12 dB. It looks like the version you used has this error.

IMHO there are not enough performance measurements at high frequencies for a complete picture. If still available, it would be very interesting to see THD (without noise) vs frequency performance, accurate THD measurement at 10kHz and wideband fft (without weighting) with a weak signal such as the signal for the DR test.

Thanks!"

Excellent feedback and suggestions Nick, let's focus on checking this out in this post!

Multichannel/Atmos 3D Audio Walkthrough. The idea that DACs sound about the same. Countercultural & honest audiophiles?

Hey audiophiles, I've been wanting to do this for awhile now. Back in 2021 when I wrote about "Spatial Audio" music streaming on Apple Music, in the back of my mind I was thinking it would be pretty cool to not just listen to the music and consider whether this kind of content is worthy of audiophile exploration, but to actually fire up a DAW (digital audio workstation) and play around with Dolby Atmos myself to create a little something that I can also use as a demo or to help with set-up in my own room.

Nothing too fancy of course since the intent is to demo spatial capability rather than wow the listener with overly complex sounds or movements. It's also a fun way for me to learn how to use the software and to go a bit deeper into 3D audio - beyond just expressing opinions on the consumption side.

So, over the Spring Break with a little more time available, I bought a copy of DaVinci Resolve Studio 19 (currently US$300) and got to work on figuring out how to author some 3D audio content. The price is very reasonable for such a powerful piece of software which I plan to use in other audio/video projects. Other packages that allow Atmos audio mastering include Avid's ProTools, Steinberg's Nuendo and Cubase, Ableton Live, Apple's Logic Pro and Final Cut Pro.

Once I figured out how the Fairlight "audio console" module in DaVinci Resolve worked and got the immersive pieces authored, a friend who works in audio professionally helped with the Dolby Media Encoder (US$400/year subscription) side to bring the track over to Dolby Digital Plus / EAC3-JOC, TrueHD-Atmos, and AC-4 IMS.

MEASUREMENTS: Topping D10s - an inexpensive high performance basic USB DAC with S/PDIF outs. And on "perceptibly perfect" DACs.

 

Hey everyone, I suspect many of you have already seen or heard of the Topping D10s by now (~US$100-110 at time of writing). It has been out since spring/summer 2020, a DAC released during the early pandemic.

Basically, this is an update of the Topping D10 which I reviewed back in 2019 with change to the DAC chip from the ESS ES9018K2M to the ES9038Q2M with improved specs - lower noise, higher dynamic range, etc.

I bought this through the usual retail channels as I'm planning to give the D10 away to a family member. Let's have a deeper look and consider the implications of this change in the DAC chip to the overall performance.