On the inside D90 uses the flagship AK4499 DAC chip – just a single unit, plus 4 op-amps are needed to convert its current output to a voltage output. D70S on the other hand has two pieces of a lower grade AK4497, but it doesn’t need those additional 4 op-amps, so the signal path is actually shorter and a bit clearer. Both devices have the same remotes, the same monochrome OLED screens, the same menus and the same build-quality which I always liked. Their D70 line is simply soul grabbing and easily the most natural and smooth sounding from their entire line-up I would rank I2S as being the best, followed by USB, very closely by AES and then by coaxial and optical. Your mileage may vary as I am not using fancy digital cables. The D70s has six input interfaces, all

The Topping D70s offers a lot of I/O options and proper Bluetooth capability so you can use it in many configurations. For the Bluetooth chip, Topping went with the CSR8675. It is a premium-tier chip from one of the world’s largest chip manufacturers, Qualcomm. It supports quite a few codecs, which can be seen on the technical specifications, although I only care for one of them and that is LDAC. The maximum bitrate support of LDAC is 990 kbps. That is, of course, not fully Hi-Res, at least in my book, but it is probably the best we’re going to get in 2021. It is great to see here as I sometimes want to hook my phone to D70s and listen to podcasts & playlists via my active monitors. Note that you will need an LDAC compatible phone to use it. Note that the D70 is a new product so I can't vouch for its reliability in the field as yet. My sample worked beautifully so no concerns from this one unit. The D70s features full MQA-decoding, delivering the best possible version of your music. MQA (Master Quality Authenticated) files contain the full, uncompressed information of the original master recordings. MP3 files, on the other hand, contain just 10% of the original information. That’s one-tenth of the nuance, depth, and richness that the artist intended for you to hear. I’m hearing bass notes reaching sub-bass territory easily, not only with my electronica, but even with regular jazz or dark folk music. Its powerful down there, it is clean and it will show layers and sub-layers of information. It’s hard slamming all right, exactly as D90 is, just a little more focused in the mid-bass section. About that, D70S is extremely potent in the mid-bass, it sometimes elevates that region, it is a bit fuller than D90 in here and a lot fuller sounding than regular ESS-Sabre DACs. Even my reference Element X don’t have as much mid-bass presence all over my tunes. D70S is a fun and engaging DAC, it puts a higher emphasis on the act of music listening, than on analyzing every second of it. To recap this section, I can say that you are getting your money’s worth under the hood, without a doubt. The performance on paper is quite amazing and let me tell you this, just wait until you hear it. Features

CPLD & Accusilicon Clocks

For a life-like presentation was important to have a grain-free treble performance. Treble is sounding extended up to subsonic levels but without putting on the fire the upper treble. Treble is not harsh or bright sounding by any means, it is quite defined but not a lot, it has substance but doesn’t attract a lot of attention to it. You can make it even more defined and extended in the treble area by using a different digital filter, filter 5 will give you that, but it somehow shifts its performance to a colder and brighter side.

This is a really a funny chapter, because I am trying hard for several days finding a clear difference between D70S and D90 and I always struggled with that, because both units are sounding equally clean, detailed and transparent and knowing that D70S is considerably cheaper, it would be hard recommending the D90 from now on. Boasting Bluetooth 5.0, the D70s supports 24-bit transmission of lossless codecs (AAC, SBC, aptX, aptX LL, aptX HD, and LDAC). The D70s comes with a fully-functional remote allowing you to control every aspect of the D70s from volume to gain to user settings. You can even use it to switch output modes, which is useful if you’re running multiple amplifiers. Six input interfaces

USB XMOS Interface

D70S felt like drinking mulled wine on a super-cold day and like pouring milk and honey when you got a cold. It has something that wakes you up and steals your attention, a smoothness and a liquidity that is hard to be expressed with words. It has to do with natural rendition of textures as it doesn’t sound like a digital to analog conversion is happening in real-time, it sounds like real music and not like a reproduction of it. The accessories are modest like they usually are with DACs, you get a USB-A to USB-B cable, a remote, an AC cable, and a Bluetooth antenna along with the manual. Measuring 25x19x5cm, the D70s is by no means a small device. It weighs about 2 kilograms so it is heavy as well. These numbers do not matter at all to me as it is a desktop DAC and I don’t plan to travel with it.. yet. A D70S összességében egy szerethető DAC, ami képes fenntartani a zenehallgatási kedvet, ebbéli mivoltában szó nélkül lehetne belőle akár legendás készülék is – ha nem volna ennyire szoros a verseny ebben az árszegmensben. Az ára szerintem, bár első pillantásra nem olcsó, nagyon jutányos, ezt a minőséget ennyiféle csatlakoztatási lehetőséggel, távirányítós hangerő szabályozással, MQA-val, meg egy európai vagy amerikai logóval, simán kétszer ennyiért is el lehetne adni.

If you plan on using the D70S MQA in a speaker setup as a DAC + Pre unit, just skip the first recommendation. By following these steps, you will be squeezing the last drop of performance out of your unit. hajtva. A Gustard U12-es bridge-emen keresztül hallgatva a zenét, lényegesen jobb hangminőséget ad, mint az Atoll DAC beépített Xmos átalakítója. De ez a megfigyelés a másik, Cirrus chip-es DAC-omra is igaz. Full-sized headphones: Hifiman Susvara, Hifiman Arya, Audeze LCD-4, Erzetich Phobos, Erzetich Mania, Kennerton Wodan, Magni, Gjallarhorn, Vali, M12S, Quad ERA-1, Ollo S4X Reference, HarmonicDyne Zeus Wolf Totem by The Hu ( Tidal / Spotify) is always a very blood-boiling experience for me, the combination of throat singing, that magical sounding horse-head fiddle and those impactful drums created several chest pounding moments that I will not forget very soon. I’ve observed that D70S can easily move a bigger amount of air an instant and delivery that mercifully. Asahi Kasei recommends using their own low noise S/PDIF receiver with their digital to analog converters, so it was natural using the AK4118 that takes care of all its digital inputs except for I2S and USB.D90 is by a hair more technical sounding, it is slightly faster and more linear in the FR. D70S on the other hand, had more midrange presence, more meat to the bone, it was weightier, voices carried more nuance and more weight to them. D70S was also smoother and more musical sounding, while D90 less so. D90 is winning if you want a super technical DAC, that is fast, agile and hard smalling, but also capable of awaking emotions in your music. D70S leans mostly to the emotional side than to the technical side, D70S gets as close to the sound of R2R units, without being one…if that makes any sense to you. Ce qui m'a le plus marqué c'est l'impression de dynamisme accrue lais pas du tout fatiguant avec des aiguës justes et basses tendues. The biggest difference between them is that D90 will output 4V at max power via XLR and D70S can output a hotter signal of 5V via XLR. This fact alone is more important than you might think. If you are using headphones, there isn’t much of a difference with headphone amplifiers, with the exception of SMSL SP400 that really likes a hotter signal of 5V or even better 6V to shine bright with hard to drive headphones like Hifiman Susvara. The D70s can be configured to run to XLR only, RCA only, or XLR+RCA. This final option allows you to run the D70s to two different amps, such as a TOPPING A90 and a DarkVoice 336SE, without having to plug and unplug cables every time you want to jump from one amp to the other. Fully-functional remote

So, what was the difference? I had the same feelings when I compared a well mastered 24-bit Hi-Res record to the same record in 16-bit. The frequency extremes at both ends are just richer in information and a bit more defined, there is a little more sub-bass, a clearer treble and most importantly music sounds more liquid, smoother in a way, more life-like and less digital once it is played in MQA format. If you are streaming a lot of music as I do, D70S MQA is a must-have upgrade over the regular D70 or D70S or over other non-MQA DACs. In terms of specs, measured in the Topping Audio labs by one of the nicest audio analyzers on the planet, both are really close to each other, so much so that in a real case scenario you cannot differentiate their signal to noise ratio or noise levels. I couldn’t… Az MQA-ról szólva, igazán jó minőségű felvételeken az MQA nem hoz sokat a konyhára, és bár az elején örültem ennek a képességnek, azóta szó nélkül lemondanék róla, mondjuk egy picivel gyorsabb hangért cserébe. Ezt sem fogom végül nélkülözni, mert amikor lejár a garancia, szépen kicserélem majd a három puffer kondit, ami ezért felelős, gyorsabbakra. Eljön a Kánaán. R2R /ladder dacs have it easy in the output, (I found) filtering to be mainly to please marketing but for music steep filtering just gets in the way. It destroys phase coherence which messes up soundstage and ambiance cues. Nothing worse and unnatural than pre-echo. And voltage is already up there, no amplification needed really. Just buffering for impedance if you want. I don't like buffering because i dislike complicating the signal path. Anything extra always takes something away from the pure signal (information can only be lost, never created). I feel D70 is staying somewhere in the middle, as it is neither too fast nor too slow. On rare occasions I wanted my music slamming me harder and on other occasions to slow it down a bit. D70 can change its pace, rhythm and timing depending on the music it is playing.The remote will also offer 3 brightness levels and the usual stuff like volume adjustment and selecting the digital input.