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[eve]

Just ordered one of these Dm7's.
Frankly, I'm extremely skeptical of Toppings claims here yet their past products + third party measurements of this unit seem to confirm that it might be a killer piece of gear.
https://www.topping.audio/productinfo/862560.html

A purely measurement based / objective analysis of the unit
https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/topping-dm7-8-channel-dac-review.35661/

This is pretty much the closest thing to an Okto you can get your hands on in a reliable time-frame. It's very barebones and missing a few features that would be excellent to have. For example, I'd appreciate a full 19" chassis with XLR connectors instead of TRS but electrically, there's not really a difference and coming from studio interfaces, I'm already doing TRS>XLR half the time anyways. There's IR control but even RS232 would be a very welcome addition.

The whole thing seems to be similar to a concept for affordable, competitive multichannel D/A I spec'd out pre-pandemic. An Xmos 216-MC-ABL dev board + relay switched attenuators for master volume, no fancy software, no frills, no extra features.

Anyone else play around with one of these or use them with JRiver?

[mwillems]

I've been eyeing the DM7 too.  I don't have one, but was on the verge of buying one.  Then I read some forum reports that it had a very loud power on "pop" that came through at max volume.  That gave me pause.  I agree the independent measurements look excellent.  I'll be watching this space to see if any one can report back with hands on experience with a unit.

[eve]

I've been eyeing the DM7 too.  I don't have one, but was on the verge of buying one.  Then I read some forum reports that it had a very loud power on "pop" that came through at max volume.  That gave me pause.  I agree the independent measurements look excellent.  I'll be watching this space to see if any one can report back with hands on experience with a unit.

I've heard about this too. I figure the solution is just power on your amps after. I turn my amps off at night but my sources and D/A always stay on so I'm not sure if it's particularly difficult for me to avoid with a tiny bit of sanity checking.

[mwillems]

I've heard about this too. I figure the solution is just power on your amps after. I turn my amps off at night but my sources and D/A always stay on so I'm not sure if it's particularly difficult for me to avoid with a tiny bit of sanity checking.

Based on your post in another thread it sounds like you grabbed a DM-7 and are enjoying it?  Did you notice any pop when it powers on, and if so how loud was it?  I think I'm about to grab one too, but am curious.

[eve]

Based on your post in another thread it sounds like you grabbed a DM-7 and are enjoying it?  Did you notice any pop when it powers on, and if so how loud was it?  I think I'm about to grab one too, but am curious.

I haven't powered it on or off without my amplifiers off, but read on. I'm absolutely loving it.

One of my old Brystons has a little 'thump' when it (to be clear, the it I'm speaking of is the Bryston) turns on, but this has happened while connected to other D/A as well. The Class A amp handling L & R's Highs & Mids is essentially silent while it comes on but you can hear about 5s after, a relay in the actual amplifier clicking, so clearly some kind of 'soft start'.

I did make some changes in my setup to accommodate the Topping. First off, if you have unbalanced amplification, this isn't for you. I had an unbalanced one for C and SL SR. My first idea after finding out that using a TS connector with an RCA on the other end is not a great idea, was TRS into dual RCA adapters and then only using one of those RCAs. This is a quick hack but apparently still can have problems.

I wanted to give the Topping a a fair shot so I ran out and grabbed a balanced studio amplifier from a music store near me. I think it was worth it. I can retire an aging receiver that was being bypassed for its IcePower modules, and replace it with a cute 1U rackmount amp that's 'good enough'.
It's an ART SLA-4 btw. My store has an SLA-1 and an SLA-2 on order for me. I'll run the SLA-1 bridged mono for my center, and the SLA-2 in stereo for the surrounds. Obviously, the next step is just Hypex modules.


So, if you're looking at it, the Topping is a very compelling unit. I'd just recommend staying away from it if you have unbalanced amplification. There's some discussions on ASR about WHY it's not a great idea for unbalanced that should prove interesting if you're curious.

If you *really* want, maybe I'll try turning it off and then on later with my amplification powered up.


I do have 2 sort of curious questions for you


1) What situations arise where you're powering off or on the D/A before you turn on your amplification?
2) When would you even end up turning off the Topping? Sources and D/A gear I leave powered up 24/7 unless I'm tearing something apart or off-lining a system to work on the hardware.

[mwillems]

I haven't powered it on or off without my amplifiers off, but read on. I'm absolutely loving it.

One of my old Brystons has a little 'thump' when it (to be clear, the it I'm speaking of is the Bryston) turns on, but this has happened while connected to other D/A as well. The Class A amp handling L & R's Highs & Mids is essentially silent while it comes on but you can hear about 5s after, a relay in the actual amplifier clicking, so clearly some kind of 'soft start'.

I did make some changes in my setup to accommodate the Topping. First off, if you have unbalanced amplification, this isn't for you. I had an unbalanced one for C and SL SR. My first idea after finding out that using a TS connector with an RCA on the other end is not a great idea, was TRS into dual RCA adapters and then only using one of those RCAs. This is a quick hack but apparently still can have problems.

I have balanced amps, so no worries there (I built a set of amps with Hypex modules a few years back, so I setup a proper balanced input for them).  FYI, if you need to connect balanced outs to unbalanced inputs, you can get a properly made TRS balanced to RCA unbalanced adapter cable, but you need to make sure the cable is wired/designed correctly.  A while back, before I had balanced inputs on my amps, I needed to convert from balanced to unbalanced, and went through a few cables that weren't wired correctly.  I finally just paid Blue Jeans Cables to make me the adapters so I'd know they were wired correctly.  Hypex did a white paper about "pin 1" problems that outlines the basic issues, and I sent a copy to Blue Jeans with my order and I got a nice set of TRS to RCA cables with no issues: https://www.hypex.nl/img/upload/doc/an_wp/AN_Legacy_pin_1_problems.pdf

I wanted to give the Topping a a fair shot so I ran out and grabbed a balanced studio amplifier from a music store near me. I think it was worth it. I can retire an aging receiver that was being bypassed for its IcePower modules, and replace it with a cute 1U rackmount amp that's 'good enough'.
It's an ART SLA-4 btw. My store has an SLA-1 and an SLA-2 on order for me. I'll run the SLA-1 bridged mono for my center, and the SLA-2 in stereo for the surrounds. Obviously, the next step is just Hypex modules.

That's funny, I also have an SLA-4 that I used for a while!  Just FYI the fan in mine failed after a year or two, but it's trivial to replace it (you can get fans that fit that are made for small form factor computers). Otherwise it was a great buy, it was quite a workhorse!

So, if you're looking at it, the Topping is a very compelling unit. I'd just recommend staying away from it if you have unbalanced amplification. There's some discussions on ASR about WHY it's not a great idea for unbalanced that should prove interesting if you're curious.

Thanks for the rec, I'm going to pull the trigger.  I'll let you know what I think when I get it.  It'll be replacing a Steinberg UR824, which has been mostly fine but is getting a little temperamental in its old age and has always had flaky Linux support.  I'm looking forward to trying out the Topping!

If you *really* want, maybe I'll try turning it off and then on later with my amplification powered up.


I do have 2 sort of curious questions for you


1) What situations arise where you're powering off or on the D/A before you turn on your amplification?
2) When would you even end up turning off the Topping? Sources and D/A gear I leave powered up 24/7 unless I'm tearing something apart or off-lining a system to work on the hardware.

So the issue isn't that I plan to power on my D/A before my amplification on purpose, it's that I worry about it happening by accident.  I have my amps hooked up to very sensitive compression drivers (about 118db at 1W/1M).  So I have had the unfortunate experience in the past of having equipment make unexpected pops that wind up being deafeningly loud coming out of my horns.  The speakers have a fairly high power handling so I'm not worried about damaging the drivers themselves, it's my ears/nerves that are in danger!  In general, I don't turn my DACs off on purpose, and even if they were all turned on at the same time my amps have a few seconds worth of "dead time" before they power up all the way so in ordinary operation I'd never hear the pop.  I'm just worried that the DAC might get turned off somehow (power failure, etc.) and someone (maybe me!) would turn it back on after the amps without thinking first, if that makes sense?

So I'm curious if there is a pop and how loud it is just so I know whether it will be a mild annoyance (soft pop) or something to avoid at all costs (loud pop).  No worries if you don't want to test and find out, I can test it myself in a few days 

[eve]

I have balanced amps, so no worries there (I built a set of amps with Hypex modules a few years back, so I setup a proper balanced input for them).  FYI, if you need to connect balanced outs to unbalanced inputs, you can get a properly made TRS balanced to RCA unbalanced adapter cable, but you need to make sure the cable is wired/designed correctly.  A while back, before I had balanced inputs on my amps, I needed to convert from balanced to unbalanced, and went through a few cables that weren't wired correctly.  I finally just paid Blue Jeans Cables to make me the adapters so I'd know they were wired correctly. 

That was the conclusion for me too when I was considering keeping the unbalanced setup. I was able to get a wiring diagram of the adapters I ordered and the configuration happened to be correct, much easier than me wiring them myself or paying for a custom job. I needed a new amp anyways. It replaced a hulking AVR that was mostly bypassed, to use it's IcePower modules.

Wild that you moved to Hypex, which is what I'm moving towards, from the same amp I'm running now. Guess it's a predictable path
 
Yeah I was planning on swapping the fan if it ends up being here for more than a week or two, I'm pretty sure some of the Notcuas we have lying around in boxes will fit. It's like 40mm or something right? Though not gonna lie, the fan isn't that bad. By about 3 feet away from the rack, it's almost non existent.
So you think these ART amps don't suck? I was a little surprised at how decent it was for the price I snagged it at.

Thanks for the rec, I'm going to pull the trigger.  I'll let you know what I think when I get it.  It'll be replacing a Steinberg UR824, which has been mostly fine but is getting a little temperamental in its old age and has always had flaky Linux support.  I'm looking forward to trying out the Topping!

Congrats on the purchase! Apparently the Topping works great under linux. I haven't played around with linux audio interfaces too much. Now that the MOTU AVB is out of my main rig, I have it hooked into one of my servers to experiment with in a VM when I get around to it. Long term, I'm trying to move critical video playback over to linux.
Driver support is a way bigger deal than you expect. I've spent like the last half year demoing and buying various interfaces in a failed attempt to replace an aging firewire unit whose D/A I quite liked. Firewire, in 2022... we're really stretching things here so it's been something that needs to get done. Frankly the Topping absolutely crushed all of them. Though I wasn't able to get my hands on an 828ES

So the issue isn't that I plan to power on my D/A before my amplification on purpose, it's that I worry about it happening by accident.  I have my amps hooked up to very sensitive compression drivers (about 118db at 1W/1M).  So I have had the unfortunate experience in the past of having equipment make unexpected pops that wind up being deafeningly loud coming out of my horns.  The speakers have a fairly high power handling so I'm not worried about damaging the drivers themselves, it's my ears/nerves that are in danger!  In general, I don't turn my DACs off on purpose, and even if they were all turned on at the same time my amps have a few seconds worth of "dead time" before they power up all the way so in ordinary operation I'd never hear the pop.  I'm just worried that the DAC might get turned off somehow (power failure, etc.) and someone (maybe me!) would turn it back on after the amps without thinking first, if that makes sense?

Fair enough, I'm always worried about this too! Idiot proofing for guests? Yeah most people think about that, the real smart ones, we idiot proof things for ourselves.
Even with being careful like I am, there's always the possibility. I'd definitely feel safer with a 'dumb' passive volume attenuator in between things but it's not particularly worth the outlay to buy and repurpose a studio monitor controller that may or may not mess with the sound.

[mwillems]

So you think these ART amps don't suck? I was a little surprised at how decent it was for the price I snagged it at.

They're not the lowest noise amps out there, but the SLA-4 is a reasonable quality four channel amp with balanced inputs and lots of flexibility.  The main reason I migrated away from using mine in my "big" system was that the noise floor was a little too high for my compression drivers (I could clearly hear the amp hum from across the room when nothing was playing), but I still use the SLA in another system that doesn't have high sensitivity speakers, and it still works great.

Congrats on the purchase! Apparently the Topping works great under linux.

Thanks.  I've read compatibility is excellent, and I've got my fingers crossed that's true.

I haven't played around with linux audio interfaces too much. Now that the MOTU AVB is out of my main rig, I have it hooked into one of my servers to experiment with in a VM when I get around to it. Long term, I'm trying to move critical video playback over to linux.
Driver support is a way bigger deal than you expect.

I know what you mean!  I've migrated almost every computer in my house over to Linux and finding high quality multichannel DACs that perform happily with Linux has been a quest.

Fair enough, I'm always worried about this too! Idiot proofing for guests? Yeah most people think about that, the real smart ones, we idiot proof things for ourselves.
Even with being careful like I am, there's always the possibility. I'd definitely feel safer with a 'dumb' passive volume attenuator in between things but it's not particularly worth the outlay to buy and repurpose a studio monitor controller that may or may not mess with the sound.

I've gone back and forth about having a preamp or a passive volume knob.  It's tempting, but I've mostly been too lazy to find one at a reasonable price that won't introduce unnacceptable noise into the system.  Things mostly work fine with the DAC hooked directly to the speakers, and I've been running that way for about ten years now so I'm tempted to just keep on going...

[eve]

There's the 'tiniest' bit of residual noise floor on it but nothing beyond 6 inches, at least with my current L C R speaker choice. Much better than other Class D implementations I've experimented with over the years.
 I'm extremely sensitive to that kind of noise and it nags at me so, yeah, as long as the speakers aren't hugely sensitive, it's really not a major concern.

I know what you mean!  I've migrated almost every computer in my house over to Linux and finding high quality multichannel DACs that perform happily with Linux has been a quest.

Amen. Though once you find one that has good support, there's a good chance it's usable lifespan goes up significantly. The driver situation for older interfaces on Windows for example, can be abysmal. Whereas, those same interfaces on Linux still work reliably and probably will continue to do so.



The cheapest, ready made option for volume I've seen is the SPL-Volume-8, but it's not passive so even more of a YMMV situation.
https://vintageking.com/spl-volume-8


Let us know how the Topping stacks up!

- Eve

[mwillems]

Let us know how the Topping stacks up!

So I've gotten the Topping and got it wired up this morning.  I spent a few hours putting it through the paces, and it sounds great!  If I'm honest, I can't tell too much of a difference in sound between it and the interface it's replacing (the Steinberg UR824), which is probably a good thing. The Steinberg had very good electrical specs for its time (118dB SNR) and all low noise DACs should ideally sound the same :-)  That said, the Topping does measure meaningfully better (130 dB SNR) and while I can't really tell much difference when listening to music, I can hear no hiss whatsoever from the speakers when no music is playing.  Previously if I got my ear near the horn, I could hear a quiet hiss, but now even with ear inside the horn I hear nothing at all.  Pretty Nice!

Sound aside, one area that I can immediately tell a big difference, though, is in the quality of the Linux driver support.  The Steinberg (on Linux anyway) would always take five or six seconds to change sample rates, which often meant the first few seconds of a track were just "lost."  The Topping changes more or less instantly. The Topping also has better support for higher sample rates (192Khz in particular), which is not a huge deal for me but is definitely a "nice to have" feature.  More seriously, once every so often on a sample rate change the Steinberg would get "confused" and playback loud static, which was always a bummer.  It never did that on Windows, so I chalk that up to the fact that Steinberg's allegedly "UAC2 class-compliant" mode was maybe not so class-compliant  .  In any case no such misbehavior from the Topping so far. 

I got out my ear protection and tried turning the Topping off and on to see about the pop.  I was pleasantly surprised that the "turn on" pop was really no big deal.  It's clearly audible in the room, but is not frighteningly loud (I doubt I'd be able to hear it outside of the listening room).  I'd guess about 20 or 30dB down from fullscale?  So IMO most users will have nothing to worry about.  That said, there is a much louder bass "whump" when turning it off, but even that isn't scary loud (about like the whump from turning off an old power amp).  As discussed above, I don't plan to turn it on or off very much, this was just torture testing for unusual scenarios and those noise levels are perfectly acceptable IMO.

So all in all I'm very happy with the purchase.  The sound quality and the Linux driver support are both top notch.  Thanks for inspiring me to pick one up!

[eve]

So I've gotten the Topping and got it wired up this morning.  I spent a few hours putting it through the paces, and it sounds great!  If I'm honest, I can't tell too much of a difference in sound between it and the interface it's replacing (the Steinberg UR824), which is probably a good thing. The Steinberg had very good electrical specs for its time (118dB SNR) and all low noise DACs should ideally sound the same :-)  That said, the Topping does measure meaningfully better (130 dB SNR) and while I can't really tell much difference when listening to music, I can hear no hiss whatsoever from the speakers when no music is playing.  Previously if I got my ear near the horn, I could hear a quiet hiss, but now even with ear inside the horn I hear nothing at all.  Pretty Nice!

Sound aside, one area that I can immediately tell a big difference, though, is in the quality of the Linux driver support.  The Steinberg (on Linux anyway) would always take five or six seconds to change sample rates, which often meant the first few seconds of a track were just "lost."  The Topping changes more or less instantly. The Topping also has better support for higher sample rates (192Khz in particular), which is not a huge deal for me but is definitely a "nice to have" feature.  More seriously, once every so often on a sample rate change the Steinberg would get "confused" and playback loud static, which was always a bummer.  It never did that on Windows, so I chalk that up to the fact that Steinberg's allegedly "UAC2 class-compliant" mode was maybe not so class-compliant  .  In any case no such misbehavior from the Topping so far. 

I got out my ear protection and tried turning the Topping off and on to see about the pop.  I was pleasantly surprised that the "turn on" pop was really no big deal.  It's clearly audible in the room, but is not frighteningly loud (I doubt I'd be able to hear it outside of the listening room).  I'd guess about 20 or 30dB down from fullscale?  So IMO most users will have nothing to worry about.  That said, there is a much louder bass "whump" when turning it off, but even that isn't scary loud (about like the whump from turning off an old power amp).  As discussed above, I don't plan to turn it on or off very much, this was just torture testing for unusual scenarios and those noise levels are perfectly acceptable IMO.

So all in all I'm very happy with the purchase.  The sound quality and the Linux driver support are both top notch.  Thanks for inspiring me to pick one up!

MWillems,

Thrilled that your Dm7 worked out!

It was exceedingly hard to find a D/A solution that could replace my hacked together, very much unsupported Firewire unit, so I understand the plight of 'how is there no affordable playback only device for this niche?'.

Oh yeah, I wasn't sure if it was just me but the sample rate switching is incredibly responsive, no hitches, no serious delay, no switching noises or 'computer nasties'.
Hell on that old Firewire interface I was running, it had a persistent driver bug that occasionally (say every 5-10 times) during a sample rate switch would 'freak out' and set itself to 192kHz for no reason, while the input was still running at 48khz... in other words, everything got REAL fast.

I got out my ear protection and tried turning the Topping off and on to see about the pop.  I was pleasantly surprised that the "turn on" pop was really no big deal.  It's clearly audible in the room, but is not frighteningly loud (I doubt I'd be able to hear it outside of the listening room).  I'd guess about 20 or 30dB down from fullscale?  So IMO most users will have nothing to worry about.  That said, there is a much louder bass "whump" when turning it off, but even that isn't scary loud (about like the whump from turning off an old power amp).  As discussed above, I don't plan to turn it on or off very much, this was just torture testing for unusual scenarios and those noise levels are perfectly acceptable IMO.

With such sensitive speakers? This is fantastic news.

Enjoy the tunes,

Evelyn

[craigmcg]

@eve or @mwillems

I'm considering gettiing one of these units for my cobbled together home theatre set up that uses older HK and Marantz amps that are not balanced. How safe/easy would it be to convert the balanced outs to unbalanced. I'm debating between going with this DAC (my pc is the only source) or replacing most of my current components with an Anthem MRX 740 after tax time.

Do you think that the DM7 would be a good option to let me keep using my existing equipment (the limiting factor here is that my htpc sound card is an Auzentech X-Meridian G2 which won't fit in any current MBs).?

Thanks,

Craig

[mwillems]

@eve or @mwillems

I'm considering gettiing one of these units for my cobbled together home theatre set up that uses older HK and Marantz amps that are not balanced. How safe/easy would it be to convert the balanced outs to unbalanced. I'm debating between going with this DAC (my pc is the only source) or replacing most of my current components with an Anthem MRX 740 after tax time.

Do you think that the DM7 would be a good option to let me keep using my existing equipment (the limiting factor here is that my htpc sound card is an Auzentech X-Meridian G2 which won't fit in any current MBs).?

Thanks,

Craig

Converting balanced outs to unbalanced is safe provided that the adapter cables are wired correctly.  The only potential issue is that with an unbalanced connection you can wind up with a ground loop (hum) which is no fun to troubleshoot, but I've successfully used balanced outputs with unbalanced amps on several occasions.  To be clear, sometimes cheap commodity commercial adapter cables work just fine, but if all else fails you can spend $30 or so to get a company like Blue Jeans cable to sell you a correctly wired adapter cable.  For some technical details, I always recommend this white paper from Hypex, which includes some best practices (and a wiring diagram!) for interlinking balanced and unbalanced equipment towards the end:  https://www.hypex.nl/img/upload/doc/an_wp/AN_Legacy_pin_1_problems.pdf. 

If you only need unbalanced outs and are looking for a direct replacement for your Auzentech, you might be able to find a cheaper DAC/Sound card.  For example, I believe Asus currently makes an 8-channel sound card that uses the same chipset as your Auzentech and fits in modern motherboards.  The DM-7 is definitely lower noise, but commensurately more expensive.

[craigmcg]

Thanks @mwillems! I'd like to upgrade the audio from the Auzentech in addition to the ability to move to a newer pc (already built) so the DM7 is very interesting to me.

I have the wants for the Anthem MRX740 so that I only need to run the one HDMI cable from the PC to the receiver and get the benefits of ARC Genesis room correction (basement room is not a great acoustical environment). This said, spousal acceptance factor is significantly higher for a less expensive option that also reduces the amount of electronic components on shelves unused.

I'll read through the PDF you sent so thanks for your feedback/advice.

@eve, any suggestions/recommendations on the DM7 with unbalanced amps?

Thanks!

[eve]

@eve, any suggestions/recommendations on the DM7 with unbalanced amps?

Thanks!

Honestly, I didn't even bother trying. It's 'allegedly' going to increase your distortion due to the way it's output is designed and by that point, if you're potentially increasing distortion, why did you buy the Dm7 over a studio interface or even just a consumer multichannel soundcard?
That was my reason to not really go down that road in the end. I needed to change around my amplification anyways.

If you're really set on it, you pay attention to how those cables are supposed to be wired OR look at an ART T8. The T8 is interesting because it's not horrifically expensive (I actually use ART studio amps, it's solid gear) and last like year, maybe two, Jensen Transformers who are essentially the 'gold standard' in this game have felt absurdly overpriced or just out of stock.
That's pushing your investment up even more though.


By the way, you're absolutely one of the rare candidates for a Dm7, the whole 'sources' thing is a roadblock for most.

[craigmcg]

Thanks @eve and @mwillems!

I took the plunge Thursday and ordered the DM7 along with 3 MSA-1 Blue Jeans Cables specially wired cables based on the PDF from mwillems (2 male TRS with the ring unconnected going to 1/8" stereo jack so that I can simply connect my existing 3 BJC MSA-1 cables to them).

My thought was that even with a 6 DB loss of S/N due to the unbalanced amps this would still be a significant upgrade in DAC/sound quality compatible with the rest of my existing components (HK PA5800 and Marantz 140 amps to Totem Dreamcatchers with two DIY subs separately powered for 5.1).

The combined cost for the DAC and cables is about 1/3 of the cost of the Anthem MRX 740 that I would otherwise have purchased in April which makes my wife happy, as does the fact that there will be no new electronics/hardware being added to our storage shelving.

The Chinese source does concern me but it seems like an acceptable risk.

Thanks again for your help!

[eve]

Thanks @eve and @mwillems!

I took the plunge Thursday and ordered the DM7 along with 3 MSA-1 Blue Jeans Cables specially wired cables based on the PDF from mwillems (2 male TRS with the ring unconnected going to 1/8" stereo jack so that I can simply connect my existing 3 BJC MSA-1 cables to them).

My thought was that even with a 6 DB loss of S/N due to the unbalanced amps this would still be a significant upgrade in DAC/sound quality compatible with the rest of my existing components (HK PA5800 and Marantz 140 amps to Totem Dreamcatchers with two DIY subs separately powered for 5.1).

The combined cost for the DAC and cables is about 1/3 of the cost of the Anthem MRX 740 that I would otherwise have purchased in April which makes my wife happy, as does the fact that there will be no new electronics/hardware being added to our storage shelving.

The Chinese source does concern me but it seems like an acceptable risk.

Thanks again for your help!

The rest of your components definitely make the argument that a Dm7 is a good choice here!
This is a weird question but what's your shipping time like on that Dm7?
Seems like CNY delays have kicked in. I was looking at snagging another Dm7 for my workbench so I have an identical unit to the primary system for use as a reference with the hardware / software I tinker with. They just flat out removed the Dm7 from Canadian Amazon and Ebay is telling me mid March.

Man congrats on the purchase though. It's a crazy performer for the price and really kicks any 'affordable' receiver / PrePro to the curb on the D/A front. If you can cope with the constraints, it's a sick piece of gear.

Obviously we'd love to hear your impressions when it arrives and hopefully we can help with any setup issues.

For me, it really was plug and play but I already laid the groundwork for a 'receiverless' setup.
Mainly, you'll want to get cozy with using JRiver to handle your bass management, and any routing. Next is volume.


The Dm7 has 2 methods of volume control.

You got the attenuation that shows up on your front panel, this is controlled by the buttons or a little remote. So if we're going this route, it's a good time to capture the IR commands for volume up and volume down to map to whatever your universal remote, control interface / automation system is. 

Then there's a second volume control. This is exposed in Windows as the 'device volume', now if everything is setup correctly (I use ASIO as the method to talk to my D/A), this is NOT touching the windows mixer. I need some confirmation from Topping on this but if other Topping units are the same, it's telling the ESS chip to turn things down, so in theory, the same as the front panel (though they 'add' together, so if you go -3 in windows and -3 on the front panel you're at -6 despite the front panel not reflecting said change)  This is a good thing!

Now I don't really trust that until someone can confirm so I still use the primary remote volume control, but the Windows Device Volume might be preferable as obviously, it's got a 'state' meaning you can read its current position and set it arbitrarily.

If your wife needs to use this, I'd recommend something like a universal remote or going all out and building a dedicated tablet interface for this. How do you guys like queue up movies and navigate around currently on your PC Source?

[craigmcg]

Thanks for confirming that this should be a great addition. I saw it disappear from Amazon.ca then decided that I'd better buy it through Apos Audio before it sold out/was removed there too. I believe that I saw 3 weeks for shipping but of course can't find it now. It has shipped but... We'll keep using the existing PC setup until it does.

From the volume perspective, the Marantz handling the surround speakers has gain controls, I'm routing the front left and right channels through a Rotel RSP-960AX preamp (back in the day it did the surround too), and the centre and subs go through a Schiit Sys passive preamp.  These are at pre-set volumes so that in actual use Margie and I only adjust the volume on the pc which is the sole source using the wireless mouse we share between recliners (using WASAPI exclusive currently). I understand that we'll have to move to ASIO with the Topping DM7 so some changes may be required. This said, we've been using JRiver for several years and if I recall correctly the default channel mapping for Media Center and the Topping are conveniently the same. I can configure it should it be required (thanks for the support offer as I'm sure that I'll have a few questions).

My main X factor is that currently when Margie watches Amazon Prime or Netflix through Edge the sound is NOT currently routed through JRiver (we noticed some synch issues when using the WDM driver in past but I never experimented with it so this may not be a showstopper). The majority of our "critical" watching/listening is through locally stored BD rips or Hi-rez / lossless FLAC audio.

I have Movies and TV share icons (to our NAS) on the PC desktop so it makes for easy browsing with all playback defaulting through JRiver and Edge is set to automatically open with  Netflix and Amazon Prime logged in in two tabs for convenience.

Thanks again to @eve and @mwillems for your help!

[syndromeofadown]

Typical 8 channel sound cards that use RCA or 3.5mm can be plugged straight into a subwoofer for the LFE channel. How does one accomplish this with the dm7 with its balanced out, which has a different voltage, and is balanced?

Off the top of my head you could use 3 cables to go Balanced TRS to XLR, XLR to RCA, RCA to Sub. But this will have the wrong voltage. Or you need a preamp in the middle like SMSL HO200, or Schiit Magnius.

[craigmcg]

@syndromeofadown  You're correct that my current sound card uses 1/8 stereo mini jacks for 5.1 sound in my home theatre (I don't have all 8 channels in use). I currently use 3 BJC MSA-1 !/8" stereo mini plug to 2 RCAs  for front left/right, centre/sub, and rear left/right through either gain controlled amp (rears) or preamps (Rotel for front left/right, Schiit Sys for centre/sub). My two subs are  Y connected  to IQ Audio M300 monoblocks and conveniently the higher efficiency of the sub drivers are compatible with the volume level of the centre speaker using the shared volume control of the Schiit Sys.

When the Topping DM7 arrives, I'll be connecting 6 of it's balanced outs to BJC MSA-1 custom cables with 2 1/4" TRS (with the ring unconnected) to stereo 1/8" mini jacks so that I can just unplug my current cables from the soundcard and plug them into the cables from the Topping. If the volume level of the Topping is different than my current Auzentech X-Meridan (which coincidentally has a max output of 5V instead of the usual 2V), I'll adjust the 3 "preamps" volume controls as required with the new source.

In the case that I was using powered subs, my expectation that once the balanced output was made unbalanced using the adapter cable above (as you described),the volume control on the sub could be adjusted down if the Topping output is higher than the previous soundcard or increased if the Topping "unbalanced" is lower.

I agree that there could be nasty consequences if a direct connection was made with an incorrect balanced to unbalanced adapter

Craig.

[eve]

Typical 8 channel sound cards that use RCA or 3.5mm can be plugged straight into a subwoofer for the LFE channel. How does one accomplish this with the dm7 with its balanced out, which has a different voltage, and is balanced?

Off the top of my head you could use 3 cables to go Balanced TRS to XLR, XLR to RCA, RCA to Sub. But this will have the wrong voltage. Or you need a preamp in the middle like SMSL HO200, or Schiit Magnius.

Some people have balanced subs. If you're building your subs, well you can easily go the pro amplifier route and that's going to be balanced. not to mention there's a ton of balanced plate amps out there if a whole self contained situation is more your speed.

As for volume control of the sub, essentially every sub I've ever seen has a built in volume control (to simplify the average joe integrating it into his system) and you're also free to change channel volume in the Dm7 now. Apparently this wasn't in the launch firmware.

As I've mentioned before, an Isolation Transformer is what you're looking for if you're *really* concerned about connecting the balanced outs to unbalanced gear but I don't really know how big a difference it would make over properly wired cables.

[craigmcg]

My Topping DM7 arrived from Apos Audio last Thursday and this afternoon I got around to doing the pc/audio hardware swapping and configuration. I'm very grateful to mwillems and eve for their pre-purchase advice on connectivity etc. which made the process much less painful.

It sounds great and now that I have the JRiver WDM driver enabled and set to default in Windows so that Edge will route Netflix and Amazon Prime through it, my wife is also happy with the results. I'll experiment a bit more this week with application/internal/system volume for playback within MC30 itself but so far so good.

What I notice most since the change when watching  Blu-Ray rips is that the "positional audio/ spatial cues" are better than they were with my 5.1 setup. We've watched some of our favourites parts of Star Wars Rise of Skywalker, Thor Ragnarok, Endgame, and are now part way through the The Hobbit: the Unexpected Journey and been very impressed. While watching the Hobbit, we paused the movie because we both thought that someone was on the stairs outside our house but it was in the movie 

I'll probably post more comments and questions later this week after some more time with the DM7 but so far, no regrets at all.

[eve]

My Topping SM7 arrived from Apos Audio last Thursday and this afternoon I got around to doing the pc/audio hardware swapping and configuration. I'm very grateful to mwillems and eve for their pre-purchase advice on connectivity etc. which made the process much less painful.

It sounds great and now that I have the JRiver WDM driver enabled and set to default in Windows so that Edge will route Netflix and Amazon Prime through it, my wife is also happy with the results. I'll experiment a bit more this week with application/internal/system volume for playback within MC30 itself but so far so good.

What I notice most since the change when watching  Blu-Ray rips is that the "positional audio/ spatial cues" are better than they were with my 5.1 setup. We've watched some of our favourites parts of Star Wars Rise of Skywalker, Thor Ragnarok, Endgame, and are now part way through the The Hobbit: the Unexpected Journey and been very impressed. While watching the Hobbit, we paused the movie because we both thought that someone was on the stairs outside our house but it was in the movie 

I'll probably post more comments and questions later this week after some more time with the DM7 but so far, no regrets at all.

Glad you're impressed!

It's really incredible from a detail perspective.
My partner who had been getting increasingly frustrated with me buying decently expensive audio interfaces which ended up sounding far worse (in their words  'its not that bad'  ) than my aging firewire interface, agreed that this sounded excellent.
They totally understood why I had been like tearing my hair out trying to find a multichannel D/A that I liked.

[zoom+slomo]

Sound aside, one area that I can immediately tell a big difference, though, is in the quality of the Linux driver support.  The Steinberg (on Linux anyway) would always take five or six seconds to change sample rates, which often meant the first few seconds of a track were just "lost."  The Topping changes more or less instantly. The Topping also has better support for higher sample rates (192Khz in particular), which is not a huge deal for me but is definitely a "nice to have" feature.  More seriously, once every so often on a sample rate change the Steinberg would get "confused" and playback loud static, which was always a bummer.  It never did that on Windows, so I chalk that up to the fact that Steinberg's allegedly "UAC2 class-compliant" mode was maybe not so class-compliant  .  In any case no such misbehavior from the Topping so far. 

I got out my ear protection and tried turning the Topping off and on to see about the pop.  I was pleasantly surprised that the "turn on" pop was really no big deal.  It's clearly audible in the room, but is not frighteningly loud (I doubt I'd be able to hear it outside of the listening room).  I'd guess about 20 or 30dB down from fullscale?  So IMO most users will have nothing to worry about.  That said, there is a much louder bass "whump" when turning it off, but even that isn't scary loud (about like the whump from turning off an old power amp).  As discussed above, I don't plan to turn it on or off very much, this was just torture testing for unusual scenarios and those noise levels are perfectly acceptable IMO.

So all in all I'm very happy with the purchase.  The sound quality and the Linux driver support are both top notch.  Thanks for inspiring me to pick one up!

Fair enough, I'm always worried about this too! Idiot proofing for guests? Yeah most people think about that, the real smart ones, we idiot proof things for ourselves.

Even with being careful like I am, there's always the possibility. I'd definitely feel safer with a 'dumb' passive volume attenuator in between things but it's not particularly worth the outlay to buy and repurpose a studio monitor controller that may or may not mess with the sound.

  So glad I found this thread. If I can find a good Class A/AB 3 or 4 channel power amp with balanced inputs for the Topping DM7 I may finally be able to build my 3.3 system.

Indeed, like mwillems, I've been living in fear of getting hearing damage from accidental transients which can occur, for example, if the proper preamp (DAC) / power amp (s) turn on/off sequence is not followed, as my horn speakers are very like these. https://josephcrowe.com/products/speaker-system-no-2095

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whyw7aszyIg Btw, this may or may not help.
https://neurochrome.com/products/guardian-86

Do either of you use some kind of USB master volume/mute device like this?
https://www.dynattenik.com/products/usb-volume-control-knob-one-key-mute-volume-controller

As the DM7 is discontinued, are used one easy enough to come by?

I would think that aside from the far more expensive Merging Hapi or Dangerous Music Convert 8, that the Okto DAC 8 Pro is the about the only other straight 8 channel DAC alternative. Any experiences with or opinions on those?   



 

[mwillems]

  So glad I found this thread. If I can find a good Class A/AB 3 or 4 channel power amp with balanced inputs for the Topping DM7 I may finally be able to build my 3.3 system.

Indeed, like mwillems, I've been living in fear of getting hearing damage from accidental transients which can occur, for example, if the proper preamp (DAC) / power amp (s) turn on/off sequence is not followed, as my horn speakers are very like these. https://josephcrowe.com/products/speaker-system-no-2095

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=whyw7aszyIg Btw, this may or may not help.
https://neurochrome.com/products/guardian-86

Do either of you use some kind of USB master volume/mute device like this?
https://www.dynattenik.com/products/usb-volume-control-knob-one-key-mute-volume-controller

As the DM7 is discontinued, are used one easy enough to come by?

I would think that aside from the far more expensive Merging Hapi or Dangerous Music Convert 8, that the Okto DAC 8 Pro is the about the only other straight 8 channel DAC alternative. Any experiences with or opinions on those?

I don't use anything in between the computer and the DAC.  The DAC is connected directly to my amps, but with a 10dB inline attenuator for the horn amps (not really for safety, but more just for gain matching as my horns are much more sensitive than my mid-range stage).

Bummer to hear that the DM-7 is already discontinued.  Hopefully they'll make a newer version sometime soon.

[eve]

Bummer to hear that the DM-7 is already discontinued.  Hopefully they'll make a newer version sometime soon.

Yeah this sucks. Kind of upset I didn't buy a second now.

[zoom+slomo]

Do you hear significantly audible pops or thumps when powering on/off your amps, as had dartinbout; post 48? https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/topping-dm7-owners-thread.35849/page-3

I'm especially concerned-more like scared of hearing damage (!)-as my speakers at least 93db SPL/w/m, I also want to add a center speaker. And my room is less than 2900 cu ft.

If you did not get these transients why do you suppose dartinbout does?  But if you did get these thumps  did you find one or more solutions to prevent them?

[mwillems]

Do you hear significantly audible pops or thumps when powering on/off your amps, as had dartinbout; post 48? https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/topping-dm7-owners-thread.35849/page-3

I'm especially concerned-more like scared of hearing damage (!)-as my speakers at least 93db SPL/w/m, I also want to add a center speaker. And my room is less than 2900 cu ft.

If you did not get these transients why do you suppose dartinbout does?  But if you did get these thumps  did you find one or more solutions to prevent them?

I think you may have missed my post discussing my experience with the transients upthread, see the third paragraph of this post: https://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php/topic,134316.msg930810.html#msg930810

To recap I get a soft turn on pop, and a slightly louder turn off "whump," but neither are very loud or disturbing.  For reference, my horns have compression drivers that have a sensitivity of 118 dB 1W/1 meter.

That said, I've never heard the noises in actual use, only in testing.  The way I use the Topping it gets power on the same relay as my amps, so both power up or down together.  I never hear the power down noise because the amps are cut at the same time, and the power up noise doesn't make it through because the Topping powers up immediately while my amps take about two or three seconds to turn on fully.