Joined in 2023 
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63 About this deal
Now I have my fully tuned and customised ES9018 DAC next to it with dual AD828 opamps in class A. And i'd have to say the 9018 is wider in sound stage and has that typical ESS sparkle but less detail and depth. Less musical. The DX3 Pro is my easy choice to go to for daily listening. It's well balanced and maybe not having that sparkle that I've come to love from ESS chips but a solid well rounded ans detailed sound. The switch from ESS to AKM has provided relief from intermodulation distortion that we have been seeing in so many DACs. Yes, there is a slight rise in noise as levels get down, impacting linearity measurements. That is a very worthwhile trade off in my book and I am glad Topping has made the change. I started my testing with Sennheiser HD-650 in high gain mode. Here, there was plenty of power and no hint of strain from the amplifier. Tonal response remained constant up to max volume which was quite loud. But not loud enough to make the cups flap in the wind.
I won’t spend your time here as DAC outs have the same general tonality as the headphone output. But while the headphone amplification section stands out with high power and great drive compared to similarly priced devices, DAC out doesn’t have much going for it. It’s simply another highly detailed, analytical, sharp, thin-sounding DAC. Comparisons Quite a similar situation on the vocal region as it doesn’t add unneeded sweetness or flavor for a simple flat delivery. Detail retrieval is a balance of great vocal textures in throaty characters only to lose the breathiness on some parts. Surprising for a small unit, as seen in the picture, you get a remote control and all the functionality in its larger brother, the Topping DX7s. You can select the volume control to apply to line out, headphone out or both. So you could use this to drive powered speakers for example without a need for pre-amp and use the remote control as needed. Next, that song has some sharp piano sounds. When the keys are hit, it's as if someone is tapping the inside of my skull when listening via the D50 - the sound is so sharp. With the DX3 Pro, that 'tap inside the skull' sharpness was missing. It was a little dulled and veiled. I also noticed that the treble on the D50 was a lot more extended and clearer. Power is provided through a small switching power supply (double the size of typical phone chargers). All of my testing was performed using the provided power supply.
Sound Impressions
It only took three versions for us to finally get our hands on Topping’s entry-level DAC/Amp combo, the DX3 Pro+. And since this unassuming little box is priced very competitively for the number of features it offers, it is one of those “better late than never” kinds of moments.
There is no significant change in the midrange, keeping its flat response aside from some tweaks in female vocals that sounded a bit sweeter. This continues to the treble receiving a small dose of airiness and scale. Bluetooth There is USB input of course and Toslink. For coax input, you actually get two of them! So if all of your sources are digital, you have a nice little pre-amplifier on your hands. I had to turn the subwoofer gain up a tiny bit - around 2-3 degrees of the rotary gain control. The mids are more forward. Vocals, once again, are beyond imaginably good! Listening to Lindsey Webster singing "Those Three Words", it seems like she's in my listening room! Vocals are very, very smooth. Now I hear the 'velvet sound' of the AKM DAC chips in the DX3 Pro. Treble is a little further away. Pausing the music and holding my ear to the speakers and subwoofer, all are 'dark' with no interference noise. Soundstage is a little narrower than the D50 (as was the case with my headphones system), and instrument separation is less too. Overall, the sound is very musical and great for me as I work from home a lot so it's lovely to listen to for several hours a day. It's nicer to listen to for long periods - less fatiguing. Having experienced the transparency of the A90 amplifier, I went in scrutinizing the DAC section of the DX3 Pro+ anticipating a fairly similar sound signature. I tested the unit’s DAC output by connecting the RCA to my Burson Funk amplifier which is important to note since while it is a fairly resolving gear, it has its sonic characteristics.The DX3 Pro+ features a basic, two-color display that shows information about the active input type, sample rate, sample type, and active mode. The accessories are as anticipated with one exclusion. Topping provides a USB-A to USB-B data USB cable, a remote, couple of manuals, an antenna, and a small power adapter. I especially like the 15V adapter because of its small size. It’s surprisingly small. If you remember, JDS’ 15vac adapters were huge and heavy. Overall, the DX3 Pro+ offers good quality accessories and the inclusion of a remote is very welcome. So I got the Topping DX3 Pro for about 4 days now and I've been fiddling around with it quite a bit. I didn't care much for burn-in time etc, but the truth is that it's sounding better now after 3-4 days playing than when just out of the box. Less crisp. More smooth. Obviously, for testing purposes, I want something easy to access and swap and if I like it I'll solder it in more reasonably permanent as close to the PCB as possible.
In terms of overall sound signature, DX3 Pro is very neutral, almost transparent with great dynamics and detail retrieval. The overall balanced signature of the DX3 Pro+ allows the staging to breathe without any specific regions competing against one another with only an honest reproduction that moves far or near depending on the song. Layering could be better but the 1.8W amplifier is helping in the dynamics. DAC Setup was plug-and-play and I was relieved to see full compatibility with ASIO4ALL at 24 bit depth allowing me to proper test the unit without installing any drivers. Listening tests were performed using WASAPI interface in Roon. Adapt to every listening situation with the DX3 Pro+’s four output modes: headphone amp, headphone amp + DAC, DAC, and preamplifier. Product highlights The ‘plus’ gets you reworked internals including a new ESS Sabre decoder to replace the dual AKM AK4493 chip of the earlier versions while promising improved overall performance.As expected, the digital volume control produces perfect response with essentially zero imbalance until you get to max volume attenuation of 99 db. No headphone amplifier using analog volume control comes remotely close to this kind of performance.
Well…here things get quite interesting. DX3 Pro can work as a standalone DAC, preamp or a headphone DAC/AMP through optical, coaxial and usb input. Sadly at this time I don't have any other DAC running (that's why I bought it) since my other DACs died in the past year. I had a LKS custom built ES9018 DAC with a highly tuned output stage and some other small DACs (Sanskrit, Aune T1SE, Aune X1S, onboard ES9018K2M). So no direct A/B comparison DAC only. Sorry. The ES9018K2M in my laptop is not worth comparing it with. The soundstage is pretty wide and deep, with good layering and imaging. While not ground-breaking or breathtaking in any ways, it’s pretty good for the price, just nothing worth going crazy about.
Packaging & Accessories
And continuing Topping’s trend of lower THD in every update of its products, the DX3 Pro+ measured 0.00015% THD in both its DAC and Amplifier section. This is a 60% improvement for the DAC and 85% for the amp compared with the LDAC version values. There are no front-facing I/O options except for the HP input. Right to left: RCA outputs; dual coax; optic; USB input. Additionally, we can observe that the DX3Pro+ is powered by 15V DC. Power
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