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?