He was asking me about the mojo, not the d70. I actually would like to see topping release a higher end portable dac/amp, would be neat
the D90 just got shown
That’s pretty neat, seems like it would be a solid choice, also MQA is a nice touch. I just wish they would release a portable thats a bit higher preforming
Also now I might want to pick up the audiofly af1122 mk2 lol.
lol, i find it so hard to believe that these small little DACs are any good. i mean probs good for a phone or DAP but serviceable for the good stuff? Like the audio quest dragon fly. people say their really good. but its so small and minimal. can it really compete with a regular sized desk DAC?
There is almost nothing to the components in a DAC, for most off the shelf chips all your adding is a micro controller, usually just for the USB interface, a clock generator, and possibly a level shifter.
A single AK4490 is about $5.
Most of the rest of the design is in software, component quality (caps and resistors), and board design for grounding and power delivery/isolation.
Some manufacturers will add a DSP in there, which increases costs.
But there is nothing that prevents a smaller cheap DAC from being very good.
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Uh, you all went from Topping D30 to D70 but both D50 and D50S got dual ESS chips!
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Nobody here can say what is good for your Ears.
You must decide it,when you Ears say is it good enough.
Try the smsl for first,when is not good back to return.
Is not Good for Amazon i know,but Amazon destroy it for you 
and you have the Money back.
Don‘t try to buy the expensiv shit on the Market.They is maybe less well as a smsl or another for the half price.For example Apple,produce her phone for 100$ and sell it for 500$,Samsung produce it too and sell it for 300$ .What do you Buy? A phone is a phone at first.Okay apple have a better software okay pay more for her shit.
The Audio industry is the same,Produce cheap and sell it for good Or expensiv Price.
With a good advertising the newiest shit on Earth and all buy it.
New Gold shit cable with a peace of Donald‘s hair you buy it?
The industry could to produce a good thing but she will not do it.
So try all Dacs when you would with the Esabre chip inside and let your ears decide.
Mass drop sell actually the smsl check it or it maybe better as this from Amazon.
so whats in the bigger desktop DACs that takes up all that space? this is the SU8:
The SU-8 is 5 x 7 inches of concentrated goodness. look at all those components. Now look at this:
how can it compete?
The SU8 is a balanced DAC so it has 2 of pretty much everything.
It also has an LCD display.
Just looking at the board the entire right side is basically power, as is the bottom of the board.
All the big capacitors are there to condition power.
There is an Altera FPGA in the middle, those aren’t cheap parts, I assume it’s being used as a DSP and probably the main uController.
The chips in the upper right probably drive the LCD, but they might also be a USB chip.
The actual DAC bits are in the middle under the 1/4 inch connector above the Altera FPGA.
It’s using a lot more passive components on the actual DACs and the 2 what I assume are op amps, that’s probably again to reduce noise.
The dragonfly has a PIC uController, which is used for the USB interface, and just pushes the signal through the DAC. It relies on you r computer power supply to produce a clean 5V to the USB connector.
When you look at a lot of expensive Audio gear outside of R&D the money is in the Power delivery and passive component quality.
I have a pair if M135 Valve monoblocks in my stereo, they cost $8500 for the pair new, and the manufacturer stopped making them because they couldn’t make a profit on them. All the cost for those is in the 2 transformers and the massive capacitors, the 8 or so valves aren’t cheap by any means, but they aren’t what make it expensive.
It’s one of the reasons you run into diminishing returns so quickly especially with fundamentally digital components. The USB interface should not matter, assuming it can put bytes on a wire at a consistent rate, it doesn’t contribute to the sound. The DAC does, the op amps do.
To be clear here I’m not trying to claim the dragonfly is in anyway better or worse than the SU8, I’ve heard neither.
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Yes, the su8 has built in modes not only for the dac filter, but also to add in some harmonic distortion for some more fun sound modes it has without using eq
thats a lot of info, thanks polygon. Yeah i guess there would be a lot of circuits dedicated to power, power managment, LCD, the various ports, a DSP. The USB DACs would not need those things.
@M0N just a quick one, when you have a warmer sounding amp like the LS will it be better suited with a more analitical dac ess vs the warmth of AKM? I see the D50 Is now on Shenzenaudio for $199. Purely sound wise,not to bothered by features. How is the D50 if tou have heard it. I take it, its miles ahead of the D10?
Is that the d50s or regular d50? I do think a dac like ess or akm would be nice to pair with the ls
Regular D50
Hmmm, have you looked for a d50s in that price range, it’s got improved sound imo (and more features)
The D50 is $200 and the D50s is $249. But the D50 will overall beat the D10 in every way possible? Will you take the D50s over the SU8 in purely sound? Like i said not to bothered with features
If you were going to use it with an unbalanced amp I would take the d50s. I think the d50s would beat the d10 in every way imo. Perhaps the simplicity of the d10 is appealing though, but that doesn’t matter to me for a dac lol
Perhaps look for other places to see if you can find a d50s on sale. I think the d50 was good but not as good as the d50s and I think the s is worth the extra cost. They can sometimes go on sale for 200
Awesome thanx MON, these days amps are so clean balanced seem like a waist. So a good SE dac and im happy
I won’t get into this debate lol
Correct. I think if you find a d50s for 200 go for it. I also think that if that’s not going to happen, if you can find a su8 for 200 and you can’t get a d50s that’s also pretty good. If that’s too much budget wise the d10 is very nice for the price
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Thanx MON will keep my eyes peeled