After more than ten days of continuous burn-in, I finally opened two bottles of Trappistes Rochefort 8 that I was saving for a while, I’ve calmed my spirits and I commenced a long listening session, comparing it with its predecessor and also with my own Matrix Audio Element X…which by the way, was never beaten at its own game: telling the truth. The D90SE, much like its predecessors requires that the power button on front be held in while powering on the unit to enter setup mode. From there options of switching between DAC and Pre-amp mode are available. This prevents accidentally switching modes and destroying your hearing but does seem a bit antiquated and less than intuitive compared to some other models. Another thing to remember is that just changing the setting doesn’t save it. You have to go through the options to option # 13 to save the settings and restart the unit. A 14th option does exist but is rarely used as it is factory reset. The D90 uses an XMOS XU208 USB stage for decoding but for SPDIF it reverts to an AKM AK4118 chipset which decodes at a maximum of PCM 24-Bit/192kHz which is the norm for coaxial. For optical input, the D90 will decode to the max rate allowable which is 24BIT/192kHz.

Lastly, change its 0 dB level from 4V to 5V, so that you could squeeze a little more power out of your headphone amp or power amp – it is the setting no.12 The SNR and dynamic range from the D90 implementation won’t get you those numbers, no system DAC rarely gets that high. However, the D90 does benefit from that enhanced performance spec on paper. DAC Chips: Texas Instruments DAC11001B, Analog Devices 5781 R2R, Xilinx 7 FPGA, ESS 9218p, Cirrus Logic for Apple, AK4499EQ 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. We take the digital input down another 10 dB to -110 dBFS which drops the level by another 0.31. Again the screen was magnified by 3 to make the wave look the same size as the two that preceded it. The noise of the Topping D90SE is making the sine wave harder to see but is still visible above its noise floor. The amplitude of the sine wave is at 12.4 uVRMS. The signal-to-noise ratio is now 17 dB relative to the -110 dBFS signal. With an SNR of only 17 dB, the waveform is not surprisingly noisy but keep in mind the signal is microscopic at this level. Full scale is 4VRMS. This signal is 0.0000034 of full scale.BF2 has same width but a lot better depth which makes it sound more holographic. It is also more intimate and very engaging. I have to hand it to Topping, the company has given it a real go. It’s been persistent, it’s worked with its customers, it’s been dogged and it’s been very serious about establishing itself in the HiFi industry.

Which on a circular level, directly reflects onto this product. It’s a point that is as important as the product itself. Especially these days. Topping has been around for some time now. Actually Topping, as a brand, has been in the HiFi enthusiast’s vision for quite a while now. Such familiarity is essential for success. Doing ‘well’ in the HiFi industry is mostly about hanging on in there and maintaining consistency, waiting to be noticed and, above all, accepted, at some point. Once your feet are under the table, you’re in and you can make a decent business in co-operation with the customer base. Probably the only criticism some would have is the DAC may come across a little bright since it's not rolling off the Highs the way many R2R DACs do like Denafrips Aires 2 or Schiit Bifrost 2. It is not fatiguingly bright like the D10 Balanced from Topping though. The Topping D90SE will operate as either a conventional DAC or it can be hooked up directly to a power amp and operate as a digital preamp with adjustable digital volume control. It also has two choices of voltage output for pairing with various types of equipment, 2.1 V/4.2V (RCA/XLR) or 2.6V/5.2V (RCA/XLR). These particular features, along with others such as PCM and DSD filters, Phase, BT on/off, etc, can be accessed by turning on the rear panel master switch while simultaneously holding down the front power button to enter the operating menu. Navigating the menu is done using the two front up/down keys and pressing the front power button confirms a selection. Out 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: You can feed the signal input to the Topping D90LE using high-resolution Bluetooth wireless connectivity. With the help of the latest CSR8675 Bluetooth chipset from Qualcomm, D90LE supports high-resolution LDAC wireless transmission codecs. A Hub Of Digital Inputs:-But you can't focus at less than 4m, it has a fixed aperture, and it requires some use to be able to aim accurately at the bird you want to capture.

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. Before we look at the furniture adorning the chassis, be assured that you do get a remote control. It’s the typical Topping offering familiar to many other Topping products that can change the volume, add mute, input selection, display screen brightness plus filter choice. I then leapt from my chair and connected the same digital audio player into the rear of the D90SE with an optical cable and that changed the sound to a more trim and direct source. A concentrated source with sharper beats, impactful bass and a faster pace.

Tested with a balanced Xi Audio Broadway Amp, USB out from an Acer Nitro 5 laptop. the software was Windows 10, Foobar 2000, and WASAPI drivers. The headphones used were the Dan Clark Audio Ether 2, Meze Empyrean, and Rosson Audio’s RAD-0). Choose XLR only, RCA only, or XLR+RCA to run the signal to two different amps at once, such as a solid state and a tube amp. No more plugging and unplugging cables every time you want to switch from one amp to the other. Doubles as a preamp

At the risk of stating the very obvious, it is my absolute pleasure to recommend the Topping D90SE. D90SE is a neutral and clean-sounding dac. The bass is punchy. The vocal is clear and articulated. The treble however sometimes can be “hot”. For a bright headphone like Sennheiser HD800, this can be easily noticeable and make it very fatiguing. However, it’s not that noticeable on a warmer headphone like ZMF Atticus. In general, D90SE still has a slight “digital glare” that is common on delta sigma dac – however, from memory, it is more natural sounding than RME-ADI2. Btw. The resolution isn’t better than my Marantz HD DAC1. Maybe and just maybe on the low end frequencies.Above are the same series of tests done at 24-bit/192 kHz resolution, the results are as close as to be essentially identical to the 24-bit/96 resolution tests. That beautiful but unobtanium AKM 4499 DAC chip was replaced with an equally matched top-of-the-line ES9038 PRO 8-channel DAC chip of ESS Technologies. This is their best and most premium converter. Topping has already plenty of experience with this chipset, as they used it in DX7 PRO and its mobile variant is sitting in their D10S and D50S units. ES9038 PRO is a very interesting silicon, as it can work in mono, stereo or 8-channel mode with either current-mode or voltage-mode operation. Most ES9038 PRO designs that are I know of are using it in stereo configuration with a voltage mode operation due to a much lower cost, R&D and that is perfectly fine. However, if you want to squeeze maximum performance out of it, this particular silicon gives a lower total-harmonic-distortion if current mode is being used. This configuration adds a lot to the cost, as a powerful I/V (current to voltage) conversion stage needs to be built around the ES9038PRO. The better the I/V conversion stage is = the higher precision can be squeezed from the DAC chip and the same can be said about its operation mode, as in mono mode it will output a higher dynamic range. 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. Office Chain: Dan Clark Aeon X Open -> Nitsch Magni Piety -> Bifrost 2 OG Absolute Phase inverted -> AK SP2000 (local) You may have a 45Mpixels camera with a set of wide aperture high resolution pro zooms, say 16-35 2.8 + 24-70 2.8 + 70-200 2.8. This is a very polyvalent and still extremely performant tools set.