thank you for sharing your observations Anthony!
simply by looks, the D90 is winning vs the RME and the B2 - in my humble opinion.
for those who still are into mqa, this should be a no brainer in the sub 1k DACs
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Awesome glad you are digging it!!
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Great job @antdroid I echo the majority of your impressions as well!
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Hi has anyone used an amp on top of there d90 and had problems with very audible noise when using iems and then moved the amp to the side of the d90 and the noise is not there anymore? Im wondering if I have a defective unit the amp I had problems with was the topping a50. Also I can hear a slight bit of transformer whine when powered on. is that normal?
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My A90 amp sits atop my D90 with zero audible noise @Dhananjeyan_Nataraja something may be wrong with your unit or the surrounding gear. Also welcome we appreciate you joining us!
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Hi folks. iām seriously considering getting a D90 MQA and A90 to put on my computer desk, to be connected via USB to my Windows 10 PC tower (home built, 3 yrs old, relatively high end, connected to the internet via ethernet).
my concerns are:
- people have written that itās not plug and play with Windows 10 pcās. that the set up when you plug the d90 into a windows 10 pc requires a lot of research, online tutorials, windows 10 set up issues with settings, etc. Is that really true? that would be awful! are there simple instructions or is it all āgo figure it out yourselfā?
thank you in advance.
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iāve also read that this reviewer wrote him trying to update his D90ās firmware and it was very difficult. it took a lot of effort, work, and finally, after much ado, it was finally accomplished. is that true? i canāt imagine that other DAC brands are that problematic as well. am i incorrect? is updating D90ās firmware easy? difficult? thanks.
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i will use this in fully balanced mode, and use my Meze Empyreans with this. i spend 3 hours to 8 hours at my computer desk a day, every day, so i thought this will be a good set up. iām ok with a flexible budget if anyone has better options for me to consider. a little more costly is ok, but not if itās like a $3,500 dac. DACs are somewhat like computers and they change often with time, so 2-3 years later, iād most likely change my dac to a newer model. just guessing. kindly note that i must have MQA full unfolding/decoding via the dacās internal hardware. i want the DAC to do all the MQA deconding/unfolding, and NOT have any software partial decoding done via the Tidal app on my Windows 10 pc. i read repeatedly that MQA is best done via hardware in the DAC.
thank you all in advance.
other brands/models iāve looked at include:
iFi NEO iDSD but this uses a 17 year old dac chip from Burr Brown! my concern is that they are really trying to force an old chip to work with MQA, as time is marching forward, and iFi seems to be stubbornly stuck with this 17 yr old Burr Brown! now, the new current ES9038 and 9068 and AK4499 chips all have the MQA FULL unfolding/decoding baked into the dac chips themselves! so why use such an old dac chip from that many years ago and try to make MQA work with this old technology? iām confused. i canāt figure out why this would be a better solution! any education in this area would be appreciated. thanks.
MRphotography - 6 mo. + later reply to your post - but do you remember what orchestral music you were listening to here in Qobuz?
Man I am listening now to live orchestral music in hi-res via Qobuz with my smsl thx sp200 and the D90 and I am hearing details in songs I havenāt heard before when using my SU8, like people coughing in the audience! This is nuts, very impressive to be sure.
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Ohhh man I canāt say what I was listening to from so long ago!! I am sorry 
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I just picked one up (saw a non-mqa version very briefly on sale) and got it going this weekend, paired with a thx 789, streaming through qobuz. Iām really enjoying it - sound is very detailed and engaging. Starting with Bowieās Ziggy album hi-res (which I think has great sound and layering and is well produced, Five Years and Soul Love really shine on the 2012 remaster) immediately liked it and was happy.
I know @ValentineLuke recently posted in another thread that he liked the Schitt Modius over the D90 - that may be a really strong recommendation for the Modius! I havenāt tried it.
Iām curious to try the D90 with i2S at some point down the road.
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Hi, do you know if the d90 mqa would sound better than it does if I pair it with a new topping pre90 preamp? Have someone already tried it? My d90 goes directly to a wilsenton r8 tube amp. Thank you
Is the D90 compatible with iphone/ipad? I connected a iphone 12 pro max last night and gave me a power error with the D90, said something to the extent of not being able to power I believe the D90. Is this a known issue? I have a 512gb ipad pro Iād like to use for music but it looks like this is not compatible. Thanks
I have the D90 and it works great on a Windows 10 computer. While it might work on an iPad (if you are adventurous, you took try to find XMOS driversā¦ my M200 used stock drivers from XMOS, the USB controller in that DAC, same as the D90), I very much doubt it will because how Apple curates its ecosystem (Topping drivers on Windows are kinda shit, and thatās the main customer base). While not ideal, you should be able to connect from your iPad via Bluetooth to your D90. Otherwise, Iād look into a NUC, Mac Mini, or maybe a RaspberryPi (I have no idea if a Pi would work or sound good though).
I appreciate the input. This is a 2 meter cable but works with Monolith THX dac/amp and Schiit Bifrost2. I have 200gb left of space on my laptop, so downloading any media on there would be limited. 170gb left on my phone and probably the majority of the space left on my 512gb 12.9 ipad pro, which would be my choice for music storage. Kind of a deal breaker for me, Iāll have to pay the heavy restocking fee and wash my hands of this adventure.
does anyone know how the d90 handles switching on/off the MQA filters when switching between MQA and PCM content. itās my hope that the unit properly switches off the MQA filters on the fly when a PCM track is played and vise versa when playing MQA fracks?
MQA filters are only on when playing MQA content. For me itās not subtle. The sound drops for .5 second or so then comes back on (whether transitioning from MQA to PCM or vice versa).
What follows is a semi-angry rant. The tl;dr is for me MQA with the D90 isnāt worth it. I personally wouldāve been better off with a non-MQA DAC and a cheaper Tidal subscription.
To be honest, Iām not really happy with Tidal and the D90. I need to reboot my computer for the Tidal app to play MQA (seems like if my PC goes into sleep mode, Tidal no longer sees the DAC as an output). Without being able to use exclusive mode with the D90, the DAC wonāt play MQA (and most times just wonāt play from the app, though the website works fine). Installing the latest drivers from Topping, flashing the latest firmware, etc. hasnāt rectified the problem. Tidal support has been completely non-responsive. Iām not sure if thereās really a noticeably difference between lossless CD quality and MQAā¦ but there is a noticeably difference between being able to just play the damn song you want (always works on the web app in CD quality) vs having to sacrifice a small cat to get the Tidal app and D90 to get along well enough to play MQA.
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Thatās unfortunate man. So if you just use the topping in non-MQA mode and non-exclusive mode do you have any problems? I run a Mac and I use SoundSource so I cant run in exclusive mode, so I may not be able to run in MQA mode anyway by the sounds of it. Iāll have to do some testing. But so long as the Topping works fine while in non-MQA mode I donāt really mind. It doesnāt hurt having the MQA capability there for if and when firmware improves and perhaps the situation improves.
I can use listen.tidal.com (the website) all day everyday. The windows app worked fine with a SMSL M200 but I need to reboot my computer to use it reliably with the D90 (sometimes if I launch the app, itāll decide to recognize the DAC after 10 or so minutes for no apparent reason). But everything else works fine all the time.
I just receieved and setup my D90/A90 today and so far no issues at all. but youāre right in that it does require exclusive mode for MQA. though im using SoundSource 5 on my mac with eq and crossfeed plugins so im not sure i can use exclusive mode or i havent figured out a way to make it work anyway. if anyone has any suggestions with this id love to hear it.
Iām on PC. When I play Tidal using exclusive mode it disables all sound processing (in my case EqualizerAPO). I would expect it to do the same on a Mac. Iām ideally shopping for some sort of hardware DSP/EQ to put in between my D90 and the rest of my chain so I can still have EQ and MQA.
If you are sticking with Tidal, you should check out Roon. Has a pretty powerful integrated DSP/parametric EQ that will play nice with MQA playback in the app.