Introduction

TOPPING is an audio brand popular in the PC desktop space for its range of affordable and good quality DACs and headphone amplifiers alike. We've previously covered several of its products including the budget-friendly E30 II/L30 II stack, the more expensive and equally impressive E50/L50 stack and the newer, premium E70/E70 stack which offers different DAC options too—the E70 Velvet is a nice pick! While TOPPING has also explored new territory with the EHA5 electrostatic headphone amplifier, I think anyone familiar with the brand's history will acknowledge it is more known for its D-series DACs and A-series amplifiers. The E-series DACs and L-series amps are newer to TOPPING's product lineup and intended to be more compact while offering better value for money compared to the D/A lineup that is aimed at more specialized use cases. The latter is also where you will see newer features implemented first and today's article is a great example of this.


TOPPING shook the premium headphone amplifier market in 2020 which, until then, was mostly in the "more power = more money" mindset. The A90 amplifier along with the accompanying D90 DAC offered a lot of juice for even the most demanding headphones at a very reasonable price and this opened the floodgates for a lot of companies to put out affordable and powerful solid state amplifiers. TOPPING put out updated "discrete" versions thereafter too but it felt like the E/L series was getting more attention. Today we examine the latest entries in the TOPPING D/A lineup with the D70 Pro DAC and A70 Pro amplifier which feature rich color displays and a lot of customization, with the former having two DAC options again in the form of the D70 Pro SABRE using the ESS Sabre ES9030PRO and the D70 Pro OCTO using a ridiculous eight Cirrus CS43198 units! Since we have already looked at several portable DAC/amps recently employing the CS43198, I decided to go for the D70 Pro SABRE for this desktop stack review which begins with a look at the product specifications, so be sure to click the images twice to fully open it and go through all the details. Thanks to TOPPING for providing review samples to TechPowerUp!

Specifications

TOPPING D70 Pro SABRE DAC:


TOPPING A70 Pro Amplifier:

TOPPING D70 Pro SABRE DAC: Packaging and Accessories

TOPPING appears to have chosen a few differently-sized boxes to use for its products across the board. We have seen similar implementations before and the D70 Pro SABRE DAC ships in the largest of these seen here to date. It's an all black 2-piece box with the TOPPING logo in the middle of the textured front with contact information on the side where we also see the new company website mentioned too. A sticker on the other side confirms the product inside is indeed the D70 Pro and I have the black colored version with a UK power plug inside.


Removing the lid reveals foam protection on the inside for added protection and there are machined cutouts to snugly fit the DAC. TOPPING includes paperwork in the form of a user manual (available online here) and warranty card which are both found on top of the DAC. The other accessories are placed inside two separate cutouts in the foam sheet to help ensure everything is protected well and nothing unintentionally scratches or damages the DAC. These include a USB Type-B to Type-A male/male cable, which in turn indicates the adoption of Type-B connectivity on the DAC rather than the Type-C I would have liked to see. As expected from a more premium product, the D70 Pro SABRE is powered off an AC mains cable rather than another USB connection as on the lower E50 and E30 DACs we saw before, and this also indicates there is an internal power supply. Then we find the same remote control we saw before on other TOPPING DACs and this has dedicated buttons for a lot of things, including shortcuts and navigation between inputs and outputs, changing the display brightness, and so on. It is made of plastic and takes two AAA batteries that TOPPING does not provide in the box. Rounding off the unboxing experience is a Bluetooth antenna that plugs into the back of the device no doubt.