All this was true when D90LE was used as a DAC only, connected to a proper preamp or integrated amp (that has a preamp built-in). But if you’re one of those people that likes to connect a DAC directly to the power amp and then use volume attenuation on the DAC itself (which never worked for me really), then 5V mode will probably sound fuller and more alive. Comparisons When it comes to soundstage and depth, I couldn’t differentiate them in my headphone setup. Only when I moved to a loudspeaker setup and changed the voltage to 5V on D90SE, it felt like having a better grip over the low-end. It had faster decays and an iron grip over the sub-bass territory, which wasn’t as tightly controlled on the discontinued DAC. After adding the Topping PRE90 into the chain, the difference shrunk by a lot and I was only experienced a wider frequency response and a better transparency on the newer unit. Then I want the brands who shove these chips inside their boxes to stop being so bloody lazy and stop merely handing the filter names to consumers, to recognise that filters are tone controls (it’s almost like they don’t know or don’t care) and to give us and especially *beginners* a more pleasingly simple experience.

We’ve now dropped the level of the sine wave to -100 dBFS or 0.31 the size at -90 dBFS. The sine wave has an amplitude of 39.1 uVRMS. The signal to noise drops by 10 dB to 20.2 dB relative to the -100dB tone. This confirms the noise is up by a factor of 3 relative to the tone. In the DAC’s 5V mode using a -90 dB 1 kHz test signal, and measured through the XLR outputs, we determined the digital SNR (A-Weighted) of the Topping D90SE to be 130 dB. That still equates to 21-bits worth of resolution. This is usually done by taking into account the width of the FFT window that is used to compute the levels for each frequency.Some of the coolest AKM-based devices are starting to fade away into the history books, Topping no longer makes the legendary D90 and D90 MQA and I have a weird feeling that Santa Muerte is numbering the days of D70S too. Topping being themselves, couldn’t just stand still, as others would be ripping apart a big chunk of their market share, they needed a replacement for their top-of-the-line and they need it Now. as an example, I see some clue of IMD at intermediate level in mono mode. To be true, this is because noise is so low, so not really a concern) Addendum: I spent a whole 2 months with the Benchmark DAC3 to make sure I knew what I was listening to and knew how it sounded if that makes sense. Didn’t just brush over it, and that is because it grabbed my attention from the start ) The above image is the Intersample Over Test on the Topping D90SE. The result also shows an absence of noise or spurious tones indicating that the D90SE decodes and processes the test tone correctly.

In term of detail retrieval, D90SE and BF2 are on-par. Instruments can be clearly identified – even during busy music passage. Meanwhile, I find Ares 2 to be less detailed due to smoothness nature of this dac. In a busy and complex passage, often it feels like all instruments are mushed together. And look how Japan grew from there, eh? It’s the same here with China and its tech. There’s some good Chinese companies out there. Topping is one of them but I like Topping’s move to secure a UK distributor, in this case Electromod. The headline feature of this DAC is the DAC chip itself, which you might call – obvious. That’s not always the case though. Sometimes, DACs will shove in a decent chip and then pay more attention to other areas of the design to enhance performance.Here is the same plot for the Topping D90SE. The amplitude of the signal is a little less at 123.6 uVRMS. You can see how just slightly cleaner this is over the Oppo’s -90 dBFS sine wave, given the better SNR of the D90SE.

I have already tested Qualcomm’s flagship CSR8675 Bluetooth receiver more than ~20 times already, not only on Topping products, but on many portable and desktop units and all of them performed equally well. Desktop units that are using an external antenna had a wider Bluetooth coverage since that works as a signal booster. My smartphone natively supports LDAC and AptX-HD data streams, it is also Bluetooth 5.0 enabled, so I will be squeezing the best D90SE is capable of via Bluetooth. Topping D90LE supports both Pre-amp and line-out functions. If you are using it with a high-end headphone amplifier like the Topping A90 or something else, you can use the Line-out function of the D90LE. In case you want to connect it to power amps or high-end speaker chains where volume is not available on the power amp, you can adjust it using D90LE’s Pre-AMP function. Selectable Output Function:- The third one is a very specialized lens, but gives you results impossible to achieve with the others. I have no previous Topping exposure, even in chance 5-minute store demos to meetings with like-minded audiophiles so I cannot pull any historical comparisons with previous Topping DAC or DAC/Amp models such as the D50 or D70. Any DAC will need to make some sort of sense of this, of course. It’s quite a challenge. SINGLE-ENDEDOut of box output voltage is our standard 4 volts but there is also a setting to adjust that to 5 volt (see test of that later). Let's start with USB input and balanced XLR output: To measure THD+N (or SINAD), measure the fundamental over 1/2 octave below the fundamental frequency and 1/2 octave above.