I have installed the HQPlayer server and am using Roon to remotely control the setup. It sounds very good to my ears.
I can not seem to get this DAC to use DSD512. Any combination I use renders at what sounds to be half or even quarter speed. I am able to use DSD 512 in Native mode under Roon with this DAC.
I have the following settings in use with a Topping D50s.
Using DoP with Roons DSP limits me to DSD256, Is similar happening here because I am not using “Native” Mode? My Pull down options for SDM pack are (none) or DoP, I expected a Native here. I’ve installed the ASIO driver and Roon locally is using it.
The moment I change the SDM Defaults Bit Rate (/Limit) to 48k x 512 (DSD 512) Playback becomes half speed.
Any feedback on this or my setup in general is greatly appreciated.
Thank you.
When I change that setting under Output Device Settings to (none) it puts out PCM. I can do that at its full capability without issue.
I am missing something still I think.
That is my understanding as well. I can honestly state I have tried every combination > 44.1 x 256 to try and achieve DSD512. It seems to just slow playback down by larger amounts the higher the resulting factor.
Got it, I didn’t get the ‘half speed’ part the first time around. If the OS is up to the task, and if it works playing DSD512 by other means, then I would think it’s HQPlayer-specific.
@IgorSki I’m thrilled with it. I use it with my headphone setup. I am using it with DSD256 up sampling. My HQPlayer system can’t do more than that without lag.
I honestly don’t know about your last statement. It has handled the options I have thrown at it. I like to tinker too. It doesn’t do MQA, if this is a concern.
I recommend it. The price is nice and it sounds great.
YMMV, IMHO, all opinions my own, blah blah blah.
Finally had a chance to audition Topping D50S at my friends set-up with HQPlayer.
Setup:
NUC 8i7 source with HQP embedded
Source connected directly to Topping D50S via USB (USB 2.0 port)
Topping D50S connected via RCA/XLR conversion cable to PowerAmp
PowerAmp is Benchmark AHB2
Benchmark cables to Klipsch bookshelf speakers
First of all link of Topping D50S with Benchmark AHB2 alone is already not too bad. Both devices are extremely ‘silent’ in pure measurement terms and therefore fantastically detailed in presentation.
Adding HQPlayer into the mix:
I have shortly experimented with “bit-perfect” PCM, trying to see the internal D50S filters capabilities and compare with Foobar2000 playback. I must say that in blind test I would not tell a difference between bitperfect Foobar2000 and bit-perfect HQPplayer PCM with all “none” settings. Very well expected result.
HQPlayer DSD playback via Topping D50S was a very pleasant experience, actually above expectations, knowing that D50S is based on ESS Sabre chip, that would add some internal DSP on top of HQPlayer stream. Here after few hours of playing around our consensus was that ASDM7ECv2@256x48 stays audibly superior to other modulators. 5ECv2 seems a bit “lighter” and more “airy” but it also felt like we were missing some richness of timbre comparing to 7ECv2. As for the filters the “gauss” group performed phenominally well. 1x for gauss-long and Nx for gauss-hires-lp. Ext2 filter was a little less exciting in this set up. And poly-sinc-shrt-mp was shining as always for rock and prog to our pleasant satisfaction.
Overall - very good (actually Hi End) experience with this little and not expensive device from Topping. Time will tell how “durable” this little D50S thing is…
It is very encouraging to see more of a) very good quality b) very reasonably priced devices with such an important (for a few people here) feature as nos/direct DSD.
