Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Topping D90 The Best DAC Under $700”.
What’S up tech fans, most of you guys out. There know that i am an audiophile nut. I mean i’m surrounded by equipment, i’m surrounded by audiophile equipment recording and i love listening to audio playing guitar, i’m just honestly. I am a complete audio nut. Most people would call me an audio file because i’m always searching for something better for my ears. Now, with that said, i’ve been looking to change my recording studio, do not only my recording studio but also an area where i can listen to super duper high-end cds and get the absolute best audio experience possible for kicking back reading my books and just enjoying music. So there’s a company called topping and they have a brand new product. Now this particular product is the apos d90 deck. Now this is a full balanced deck. Most people are going okay, what’s a full balanced deck, well, a full balanced dac. It uses four amps and one chassis, two amps running out of phase per channel.
What this does it completely eliminates any noise whatsoever, and i have to say right up front that when running the unit, the unit is absolutely completely silent. I mean it is, and another cool thing is: is when you’re done listening to your music like if you want to listen to a cd and fall asleep, it actually shuts itself off. So all in all, i’m really happy with the d90. So, let’s jump in and let’s talk, audio tech. Are you looking for a code for your favorite game or maybe you need a new windows? 10 key, but don’t want to spend a lot of money.
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Today and buy with confidence with cd key sales. Now taking a look at the front of the d90, you guys can see it’s just really plainly laid out. There are a few buttons for changing the different control options and there’s a screen which shows you everything right on screen.
You can pretty much adjust everything right here or you can use the included remote control that comes in the box, so whether you want to control it manually or with remote control, you can do all of it here. You can change all the inputs, you can change the different audio frequencies. You can make it so that it’s either really super duper bright or not as bright um.
It’S it’s. You can also actually set the adjustment. So if you want to shut off it will or if you want to leave it on permanently, you can do that as well now on the rear, that’s where you can see all the other components, your inputs and your outputs and all that other stuff. And you know, beyond the the good looks of this particular unit inside it actually has some really killer components inside the topping is the latest akmda chip, the ak-4499 otherwise known as the velvet sound chip? This is a very sought after component for many high-end audiophile seekers, and it’s inside many top of the line, cd players and dax. It is also equipped with an xmas xu 208 usb chip. It also has an ak, 4118 spdif receiver chip and a cpld programmable logic. Chip for drivers, it uses the german fesicon. Additionally, it comes with a pair of accu silicone high-end femtosecond clocks for inputs. The d90 is decked out with usb bxmos optical coaxial, xcs, iis and bluetooth 5.0 for the outputs it has.
A single ended, rca, stereo and balanced xlr, which can be used one at a time or together simultaneously, the usb and iis import support up to pcm 32 bit 768 kilohertz and dsd 512 native optical coaxial and aes inputs support up to pcm 24 bit 192 kilohertz And finally, the bluetooth 5.0 inputs support up to pcm 24 bit 96 kilohertz ldac. The d90 also has a volume control function, so it can be used both as a dac and as a dac pre-amplifier. The volume control can also be disabled to make the d90 function purely as a deck that produces output, levels of 4, volts rms using the xlr connections or 2 volts rms using the rca connections. For my test, i used some competing equipment. I used my apollo quad fire wire, a tascam cd 2000 sb.
The speakers i used were the yamaha hs5 and hss and the matching subwoofer – and i also used an additional cambridge cx controller, because this thing is just awesome. The iis connection is for hdmi, but it can’t be used with your tv set or set top box only really high in equipment. Now, inside the box, you get the unit itself, the usb cable, the power cable, the bluetooth antenna, the manual the warranty card and the remote control. You also get a two year, warranty and 30 day return policy.
Okay, so internally, like i said, the d90 has a lot of high-end components: everything about this unit, screams high-end, if you’re looking for a similar dac that has these type of components, they’re, actually about double in price, so for 700 you’re getting a unit that really has Components and structure and everything like something that is much more expensive now. I know a lot of people out there just listen to their ipods and they listen to stream music, and i’m just going to tell you right now that that audio experience is okay. But for me i come from the old school i come from when i grew up listening to records listening to vinyl and a friend of mine, robert gaslin was the very first person to turn me on to music, and he gave me the very first kiss album And he gave me aerosmith toys in the attic and i had a little cheap player and i blew that sucker up and through the years as i got more and more into music, i bought more and more audio equipment.
More and more all the time buying selling changing it out, always searching for something that was better now in the audio industry, i’m considered a person as a golden ear. This isn’t my thing putting a hat on myself patting myself in the back. This is just what i’ve been told by other people in the industry. Now tom paddock, he was my mentor. He worked for a company called sonic focus and his background was building recording studios for the grateful dead for steely dan other people like that, and he was a touring engineer, just a very, very smart guy. I worked with him for years doing parametric eq stuff, which actually came out on the azalea chipset, and it was also on a lot of hp laptops. So let me just tell you a little bit about this.
Basically me and tom talked tom had an idea, and we kind of just clicked, because i was like why do mp3 suck so bad and he’s like? Well because they compress it yadda yadda yadda and he was like. But i’m working on this way like we can restore that stuff and i was like holy crap. That’S the same thing i was thinking so we worked for together for years and years and years he’s the brain, i’m i’m the guy running the parametric eq and on the azalea chipset. If any of you guys remember that from intel, i did all of the programming stuff in there, your games, your music, all that stuff, i did it with a parametric eq programmed all that stuff out.
It was very, very popular stuff, so in my recording studio. Currently i had some pretty nice equipment. I had some yamaha speakers. I have the hs5s.
I have the hs8s, whereas my friend jonathan from tld, was supposed to send me some really nice speakers from ikea multimedia that he said were even better than these, but he didn’t john. Where are my speakers all right? It’S a whole different thing, but anyways. I also have a subwoofer and i got really lucky, because when i used the d90, all i really needed to do was just unplug the spdif connector in between the two units. So i have a tascam.
This is the 200 sb. You know this is just a it’s: it’s uh actually considered a studio, cd player, it’s a rack, mountable cd player. It uses all all kinds of digital media, it doesn’t actually record cds, but it uses sd cards and all that kind of stuff. So you know it’s an interesting unit, not top of the line. Also, i have an apollo quad, that’s what i usually use my interface for doing all my recording all my music.
In fact, all the stuff that you guys ever heard from me has pretty much been recorded through one of these units and i’m not saying that it doesn’t sound good because it does sound good. It has really good separation between between the high end and the low end. The mid-end is just it’s kind of okay and it sounds pretty good now between using the two different components that i was using because i used the cd player and then i used the cambridge cx controller.
Now you guys are what’s a control. Well, controller is basically a cd player that doesn’t have any kind of deck built in and if you had a cd player with a dac built into it, like this they’re about fifteen to seventeen hundred dollars, i paid like seven hundred dollars for the one i had And at the end of the day, what i really truly discovered is that i know a lot of people throw this word around they’re, going to use the word warmth, i’m going to try to describe this to you so um a lot of people say: okay! This sounds sterile or it sounds clinical, the apollo doesn’t sound, clinical or or you know, or sterile whatsoever. It does have a warm sound to it. It’S just that the mids and the actual reproduction of the instruments isn’t as authentic.
That’S the word i’m going to use authentic as the d90 when i’m listening to the d90, every nuance of every note is coming out. I listen to a lot of different cds, shm cds, gold cds, which are mobile, fidelity sound labs. These are the gold, true replica cds. I’Ve listened to the blue, spec cds.
I’Ve listened to the japanese cds. I’Ve listened to the original red book cds trying to fight it. I got ta just tell you that on some of these cds, the music differences are really incredible and if you guys would like to see me actually do a video explaining the different types of cds that are out there and what they mean. I will but dark side of the moon super crime of the century, edgar winter group, white, trash curtis mayfield, the first album the commodores eight mile saturday, night fever, soundtrack bill and ted soundtrack.
I listen to all kinds of musics in all of its various forms and at the end of the day, the d90 is just incredibly warm and the reproduction of everything is just there. I mean you hear a horn, it sounds like a real horn. You hear someone singing, it sounds like someone’s singing in the room when you hear a guitar, it sounds like a real guitar, and so at the end of the day, even though i have this other unit, that’s you know three times as expensive, because the apollo quad Is like in 2500 bucks, the d90 is only 700 and it actually has a matching headphone amplifier that you can get as well, because topping and apos they have this that i think apot’s. The brand topping is the main company.
They just have a lot of different stuff. In fact, i have a 200 headphone amp review coming out pretty soon from those guys as well, but i really like the d 90.. It’S priced right. It sounds great. It’S easy to hook up something, also interesting um in the back there’s a bluetooth, bluetooth antenna. When i was setting up my tv in the living room, i had a new box and when it came across the bluetooth setup, it actually found the d90. If you guys saw my best tv box under 30 dollars in that video you’ll see that it actually finds the d90 and shows it so that’s pretty cool, which means that if you have anything hooked up or anything to the d90 in your room, say if you Know five cds, a cassette whatever the heck you have at your house that you have hooked up to it. You can actually play it in your living room through your system in the living room. Now the iis connection, it’s an hdmi connection, but it doesn’t actually work through. Like your tv or your box, it actually works with other high-end type of equipment. It is a really killer signal, but i don’t have that type of equipment, but if you’re somebody out there who does you’ll know exactly what i’m talking about and what this connection is, so i’m cool guys. I like this a lot.
The sound is awesome. The remote works totally perfectly well, you can control it as a volume controller as well. I’M using the speakers that i’m using are all yamaha. It’S a powered, subwoofer powered speakers. I would switch between the hs5s and the hs8s just listening the difference to the subwoofers.
You know just to hear different things honestly, i, like the hs8 a lot better and once again, i’m waiting for those ik multimedia speakers from john. Where are my? Oh okay, wait back to the video oh just kidding! I could post some fun up my friend there, but anyways. I got to tell you guys. I know a lot of people out. There are probably like. Oh, my god, that’s a total fortune, but if you look at some of the other stuff from like mcintosh and stuff there’s these brands that they have over in england that, were you know, the receivers and stuff are so much more money. You know i’m just saying it’s a fortune now how much better they actually sound. I don’t know. I just know that for me right now, with with the cambridge cx and with the d90 and with these speakers i am totally in heaven with my audio. It sounds really great and i suppose you know if i had even better speakers, which i know there are some out there. There’S some dyna audios.
Supposedly these ik multimedias are better, i think, with even better speakers. I’D have even a better audio experience, but right now just for listening to all of my music and everything i’m using the d90, i even actually hooked it up to my mac. I used the usb cable and i hooked it up to the back of my mac. So anything like, i said my itunes anything like that.
I can all listen to the d90 and i can even listen to it through my 5.1 in the living room. I don’t think it’s 5.1 separation, since this isn’t a 5.1 deck, but still so i’ll have a link down below. If you guys want to check that out.
Also, like i said, if you guys would like to know the differences between all the different types of cds that there are because trust me, there are a lot and i’ve tried streaming. Music i’ll, say it once again: it’s just it’s piss poor quality. You know compared to real uncompressed audio, that’s all i’m gon na really say on the matter, so peace out. I appreciate you guys for watching the video we’ll be back around tekken tomorrow for more tech. .