Easy setup in Linux without needing of any driver. Very clean sound via spdif out.
It works on Manjaro Linux without needing to install any driver. My setup is: Linux(pulseaudio) -> USB2.0 -> Topping D10 -> Coaxial Digital out -> Denon 1612 Receiver -> HD 598 Headphone. With my old cheaper $30 dac, the sound was clean but also a bit harsh. With the D10, it does a great job on passing through the digital signal to my receiver. The sound is very clean and not harsh.
I am ordering a pair of rca cables so I can use the DAC on the D10(ESS ES9018K2M) instead of my receiver(AK4358VQ). I hope it will sound better.
banerjeesabyI believe you won't regret it. :)
By default, pulseaudio cannot take full advantage of the high sample rate because it down-samples anything to 44k. To play any audio without any sampling, you can modify the pulseaudio daemon file:
sudo gedit /etc/pulse/daemon.conf
change
;avoid-resampling = no
to
avoid-resampling = yes
#note: by removing the ";" sign, you enable the setting.
#you should change gedit to any text editor in your system.
#note: avoid-resampling should be working start with Pulse Audio 11.0. If you have older version, this may not work.
#this setting brings native sampling playback to Linux. Down sampling is what makes pulseaudio sounds so bad.
;default-sample-rate = 44100
;alternate-sample-rate = 48000
to
default-sample-rate = 192000
alternate-sample-rate = 44000
you can change 192000 to any number you like depending on the connection:
96000 - pulseaudio (d10 analog out) with fibre toslink (I believe toslink can only output 24bit/96k)
192000 - pulseaudio (d10 analog out) with coaxial
384000 - pulseaudio (d10 analog out) with dual rca
#note: when you output via pulseaudio d10 analog, you are using the dac from toppings.
#note:but if you output via pulseaudio d10 digital, you are passing digital signal through d10 without processing.
From my experience, using d10 analog via single coaxial @ 192000 max provide best result maybe it is due to my coaxial cable is better shielded than the rca cables I have. You might want to try to play around with the setting to find out which is best for you.
Some people play audio via the ALSA because pulseaudio sounds worse than ALSA. If your pulseaudio version is not too old and allow the avoid-resampling = yes setting, than you should not have to deal with ALSA at all. The advantage of doing this is, you can control the volume via pulseaudio. Hope it helps :P
Though it's tiny, it manages to power even high ohm headsets with amazing accuracy. It works great with the drop usb-c to usb-c and my Phillips shp-9600. Soon enough I'll be using the Akoustyx...
I have an external amplifier with no integrated DAC and I only have an xduo xa10 as a dac/amp can I use the xduo xa10 as a dac only with an external amplifier?