By aspect — in detail
Sources split, and the split follows the jack and the USB port rather than the unit. Four-fifths of the weight — both benches, every editorial reviewer and most owners — finds the balanced output drives HD 600, DT 990 Pro X, FT1 Pro, Edition XS, Argon Mk3 and even a 470 Ω R70x with headroom, and calls the 3.5 mm jack fine for in-ears and easy headphones. The minority hears a glorified dongle: The Honest Audiophile found the single-ended output 'severely underpowered' and the balanced one short for planars and 300 Ω Sennheisers, an r/iems owner called the 3.5 mm jack weak even in high gain, a Mac user found transients soft until a Y-cable fed the box a full amp, and an ASR member flagged that Amir's bench read 467 mW where the sheet says 1,000. Amir's own reply — that his USB port was probably limiting the power — is the mechanism: the watt is real on a 5 V/1 A supply and shrinks on a weak port.
Measured
Topping's datasheet (measured on a 5 V supply): balanced 1,000 mW × 2 into 32 Ω and 64 Ω, 230 mW into 300 Ω, 115 mW into 600 Ω, output impedance < 2 Ω; single-ended 510 mW into 32 Ω, 58 mW into 300 Ω, < 1 Ω; two gain settings 14 dB apart; power input 5 V / 1.0 A. NTTY's bench (E1DA Cosmos, firmware 2.69): 7.78 V RMS unloaded from the balanced headphone jack in high gain and 1.59 V in low gain, 4.00 V / 0.82 V from the 3.5 mm jack, channel imbalance 0.02 dB. Amir's bench, balanced output on his analyser's USB port: 467 mW into 33 Ω and 57 mW into 300 Ω in high gain (20 mW / 2.4 mW in low gain), which he attributed to a power-limited port. An ASR member's inline USB meter read 1.02 A at 4.81 V driving 32 Ω at full scale from the single-ended jack, and 1.52 A into 16 Ω with the output clipping — a full-power run sits at or above the 1 A budget.
⚠ vs. listeners — The sheet's watt and Amir's 467 mW are not two opinions about the same measurement — they are the same amplifier on two different power supplies, and the owner ledger repeats the pattern (a Mac's 500 mA port, a tablet that cannot power it, a Y-cable that fixes it). The 'underpowered' camp's own volume readings (−33 dB in high gain on 300 Ω Sennheisers) show headroom to spare, so its complaint is about dynamics and the 3.5 mm jack rather than loudness.
Where it splits
Enough — a real watt from the 4.4 mm jack drives most full-size headphones and efficient planars with headroom; the 3.5 mm jack covers in-ears82%
“The unit is USB bus powered so power is not going to be super high but still, we have a nice showing especially into low impedances”
Amir Majidimehr · Audio Science Review
Short — the single-ended jack is weak, hard planars and 300 Ω dynamics run out of dynamics, and a laptop port may not supply the rated watt18%
“the 3.5mm single‑ended is severely underpowered”
Dave · The Honest Audiophile
Near-unanimous for the headphone outputs: both benches, every editorial reviewer and every owner who plugged in sensitive in-ears — Blessing 3, Canon II, Meze Astru, Cosmic Ears C8A, Truthear Gate, 64 Audio U4s — report a silent background in low gain. The three dissents are all about the rear line outputs into a power amplifier: NTTY measured power-supply leakage on the balanced line out (it came and went with warm-up), one owner hears a buzz from an Aiyima A70 that a Topping Mini 300 does not show, another had noise into a Crown XLS1500 over RCA that vanished on the balanced connection, and Amir could not dial a ground loop out of the RCA output on his analyser. Pops and clicks at sample-rate changes are a separate story, under build.
“Noise is very low so you should be good with just about any sensitive IEM or headphone”
Amir Majidimehr · Audio Science Review
“Noise: dead silent.”
Nanotechnos · Headfonia
“There is a buzzing noise with the Aiyima A70, while the Mini 300 is normal.”
tb2025 · ASR review thread, page 33
Measured
Topping's sheet: noise < 0.9 µV RMS (A-weighted) from the 3.5 mm jack in low gain, < 1.2 µV balanced; crosstalk −102 dB single-ended, −140 dB balanced. NTTY: dynamic range 122 dB (CCIR-2k), SNR 122 dB unweighted at full scale, crosstalk −133 dB, and an SNR of 95.1 dB at 50 mV output in low gain — the level a sensitive IEM actually sees. Amir's plot puts it among the quietest balanced headphone outputs he has measured.
Transparency
Contested · 25 srcSources split on what the numbers sound like. Five-sixths of the weight hears exactly what two analysers show — a neutral, colourless, 'straight wire' source that reviewers describe with the usual Topping vocabulary (clean, fast, honest, transparent), some adding that it is lean of warmth and rewards a fuller headphone. The minority, led by What Hi-Fi's three-star sound score and The Honest Audiophile, hears the same neutrality as a fault: flat dynamics, poor timing, 'listless and mechanical', 'sterile', bass without body. Tellingly, the subjective camp cannot agree on which way it tilts — Headfonics hears treble that can tip sharp, ecoustics a slight upper-treble roll-off, Prime Audio a 'very warm' sound, The Honest Audiophile a glassy, metallic one — which is what a source with no tilt of its own tends to produce.
Measured
Amir (balanced line out): SINAD above 121 dB, dynamic range to match, a faint ESS IMD hump, state-of-the-art multitone, near-perfect linearity, THD+N versus frequency flat at about −106 dB, some spurious jitter tones over USB that vanish over Toslink. NTTY (RCA and balanced, firmware 2.69): SINAD 120.8 dB at 2.1 V RCA, 123.3 dB at 5 V balanced, 122.8 dB from the balanced headphone jack at full output; IMD −111 dB on every test; 21–23 bits distortion-free in multitone; frequency response ±0.1 dB 20 Hz–20 kHz; eight reconstruction filters (filter 3 recommended) and 1 dB of intersample-over headroom at full volume, full resistance at −2.5 dB.
⚠ vs. listeners — Both benches show a device with no frequency-response tilt and distortion far below audibility, so the 'flat dynamics' and opposite treble descriptions cannot be coming from the electronics' response; they are what listeners report when a source adds nothing. That does not make the minority wrong about their experience — a warmer rival will sound different — but it means the sound described is the headphone's and the recording's.
Where it splits
Transparent — state-of-the-art measurements, and a neutral, uncoloured sound that lets the headphone and the recording speak83%
“We are talking state of the art performance in this class, and near the best there is at any price”
Amir Majidimehr · Audio Science Review
Lifeless — clean but flat, undramatic and clinical; rivals with a warmer or livelier character are more engaging17%
“its key rivals’ more engaging handling of rhythms and dynamic shifts leaves the DX1 II sounding somewhat listless and mechanical by contrast”
Harry McKerrell · What Hi-Fi?
Features
Moderate · 26 srcThe strongest point of agreement: a balanced headphone jack, a balanced line out, optical in and out, a headset mic input, a UAC switch for consoles, a hardware PEQ with three stored presets, volume control on every output including the optical one, scene buttons on the remote, and Topping's browser-based configurator — a list reviewers say would have cost far more a few years ago and that no rival at $119 matches. The reservations are real but small: gain and PEQ profiles switch only from the remote, the remote ships without batteries, there is no coaxial input, Bluetooth or auto-EQ library, PEQ caps playback at 192 kHz, the web configurator needs a Chromium browser, Topping's Tune desktop app dropped the DX1 II from its device list in September, and a few owners still want a separate power input.
“Because the back of a $119 device has no business looking like this”
Nanotechnos · Headfonia
“Surprisingly though, you now get balanced 4.4mm output and 10 band parametric equalization!”
Amir Majidimehr · Audio Science Review
“It is the single most underrated thing about this product.”
ducurguz · HiFi Daydreaming (on the PEQ)
“It has a lot of features and power underneath its deceptively understated appearance.”
goukigod · YouTube (video description)
Measured
NTTY verified the digital bridge: optical in to optical out is bit-perfect in the 'd-2' mode, the PEQ applies to the optical output, and the volume control on the digital output can be used to remove intersample overs before an external DAC — behaviour he had not seen on any other DAC. USB accepts PCM to 32/384 and DSD256; optical is capped at 24/192 and DSD64 (DoP); PEQ engages only up to 192 kHz; UAC 1.0 mode limits USB to 24/48.
Ergonomics
Contested · 24 srcSources split, with the critics slightly ahead by weight. One camp — Headfonia most emphatically, plus Amir on the web configurator, Z Reviews, Kephren and several owners — calls it a box you set up once and stop thinking about: a precise knob, a legible display, a remote with scene buttons. The other finds the single knob a maze: Headfonics and Reddit owners object to gain and PEQ switching living only on the remote, HiFi Daydreaming calls option selection 'nightmarish', goukigod says getting the most out of it is tricky, Amir misread 'LO' as low gain until he opened the manual, one owner dislikes the knob's stiff feel, and firmware updates need a Chromium browser (Mac users report failed flashes and a temporary DFU brick). The box also runs warm in long sessions, and its weight lets a stiff cable drag it about.
Measured
Per the manual: the knob adjusts volume, a short press switches input and a double press switches output; the setup menu is entered from standby by holding the knob; gain, filter, mute, PEQ preset and the C1–C3 scene buttons are on the RC15C remote (two AAA cells not included). 275 g, 100 × 100 × 32 mm; 2.5 W typical consumption. Firmware updates run through Topping Home Web, which requires a WebUSB-capable (Chromium) browser.
Where it splits
Effortless — a good knob and display, a useful remote, and a browser configurator that is a pleasure to use43%
“A major bonus: topping has implemented a web interface on top of their USB DACs. It was a delight to use that to configure the DAC and see its current status with a web browser.”
Amir Majidimehr · Audio Science Review
Fiddly — one multi-function knob, gain and presets reachable only from the remote, a manual you actually need, and a firmware process that fights Mac users57%
“the gain-via-remote-only limitation is a genuine operational frustration”
Meldrick · Headfonics
Sources split, and the split tracks time in service and how the box is wired up. Every editorial reviewer — loaner units used for weeks, mostly as USB headphone amps — praises a dense, flawless aluminium chassis, and a solid block of long-term owners on ASR and Reddit report months of daily use with no fault at all. Against them stands the review thread's own ledger: Topping issued ten firmware releases between launch and September (a CD/optical clock-sync fix, a 48 kHz random-distortion bug introduced in 15.69 and fixed in 15.83, standby thumps, PS5 mic levels, an optical wake-up pop fixed in 16.07), and a group of owners — several of them testing methodically across firmware versions, external supplies and second units — still hear a pop or click on the RCA line out at every sample-rate change, source switch or preset change, plus optical dropouts on some TVs. Topping told one of them to return his unit; another was offered a refund or a replacement without sending the box back. Two loud early complaints turned out to be a Windows shared-mode buffer and a Mac USB port. Add a Head-Fi reviewer who found the front jacks fragile, a few units returned, and Topping's one-year warranty with return shipping to China, and the honest read is: excellent hardware whose firmware was finished in public.
Measured
Firmware trail posted in the thread: V15.53 / 15.54 (June 3, 'fixed random noise that occurred after playing for a while'), 15.69 (June 25, wider CD-player optical compatibility, UAC 1.0 for Switch 2 / PS5, UAC 1.0 mic input), 15.83 (July 9, 'fixed: random noise that could occur after playing audio via USB input for a period of time'), 15.86, 15.92, 16.01 and 16.07 (September 4, 'fixed a popping noise when the device automatically woke from OPT input'). ASR's 275-voter poll on Amir's review: 76.7 % 'Great', 14.5 % 'Fine', 4.0 % 'Not terrible', 4.7 % 'Poor'. An owner's meter read the box drawing 1.02 A at full output into 32 Ω — the ceiling of its 5 V / 1 A rating.
⚠ vs. listeners — No bench found a hardware fault: NTTY's unit passed every test (his rear balanced-output leakage came and went with temperature) and Amir's ran clean apart from an RCA ground loop with his analyser. The pops the critics describe are not in the measurements because they happen at transitions — sample-rate changes, standby, input switches — that a steady-state test does not exercise, and several owners reproduce them only on the RCA output while the balanced line out and the headphone jacks stay quiet.
Where it splits
Solid — a dense, well-finished aluminium box that runs for months without a hiccup once it is on current firmware58%
“Solid, compact construction”
What Hi-Fi? (verdict pros)
Immature — pops and clicks on the line outputs, sample-rate glitches, optical dropouts and units sent back, chased through ten firmware releases42%
“The loud popping sound on the RCA output of the Topping DX1 II when changing functions is still present even in the latest firmware update 2.92.”
Janox · ASR review thread, page 34
Sources split only at the margin. Nearly seven-eighths of the weight calls it the reset point for the price class — Amir's 'hard to believe', Headfonia's 'steal', ecoustics' 'genuinely aggressive', a Reddit thread titled mind-blowing value — and the recurring comparison is that it out-features the FiiO K11 for less money while giving up some single-ended grunt. The dissent comes from two directions: What Hi-Fi, which does not think it improves enough on a laptop's own output to justify buying it, and the firmware critics on ASR, for whom a product that clicks on its line out is not a bargain at any price.
Measured
$119 list at Topping's store, Apos and Amazon (September 2026); the original DX1 was $99 and is no longer stocked. Rivals named in the reviews: FiiO K11 (about $130, more single-ended power, external supply, no balanced line out or PEQ), Shanling EH1, iFi ZEN DAC, SMSL PS200 Pro, Fosi K7 and the Sound Blaster G8.
Where it splits
A steal — nothing at $119 offers balanced outputs, optical I/O, a hardware PEQ and this level of measured performance together86%
“Folks, this is shocking level of performance and features with pricing that is hard to believe.”
Amir Majidimehr · Audio Science Review
Not worth it — too little audible gain over a good laptop, or too buggy to recommend until the line-out clicks are fixed14%
“it doesn’t offer enough over a laptop to justify the outlay”
Harry McKerrell · What Hi-Fi?
