Topping DX5 II

HiFi, DAC
Topping DX5 II — Desktop Power Without the Desktop Price

Topping built its reputation on the idea that measurements matter more than marketing, and the DX5 II is that philosophy poured into a £299 box. It’s a DAC, a headphone amp and a preamp in one, and it arrives with enough clean power on tap that I had to double-check the price. This is the kind of product that makes the mid-tier desktop DAC/amp market genuinely awkward for everyone above it.

Build & Design

The DX5 II keeps the same compact aluminium chassis as the original DX5 but sharpens everything inside it. There’s a colour screen up front flanked by physical volume and input knobs, a VU-style level display, and a sensible rear panel: USB-C, optical, coaxial, a pair of RCA pre-outs, and both 4.4mm balanced and 6.35mm single-ended headphone jacks. Build quality is solid rather than luxurious — this is a working tool, not a showpiece — and the on-device menu, while dense, is navigable once you’ve spent ten minutes with it. Reviewers have flagged the odd firmware quirk on early units, which tracks with Topping’s habit of shipping features slightly ahead of polish.

Sound

Character

Twin ES9039Q2M chips — ESS’s current flagship-tier DAC silicon, also found in far pricier separates — feed Topping’s X-Hybrid balanced amplifier stage. The result is textbook Topping: flat, quiet and honest rather than warm or coloured. It isn’t a device with a “sound” of its own so much as a very clean window onto the recording, which is exactly the point. The bundled parametric EQ is genuinely useful if you want to bend that neutrality toward something more forgiving.

Power & Drive

This is where the DX5 II stops being a budget curiosity. Topping quotes up to 7600mW per channel from the balanced output into a 16Ω load, with SNR and dynamic range figures around 133dB and distortion low enough that it disappears into the noise floor of most measurement rigs. In practice that means it drives hard-to-please planars like the Hifiman Sundara and Hifiman Arya without breaking a sweat, and it has headroom to spare for the Audeze LCD-X. IEMs are equally well served, with a genuinely quiet noise floor at low volumes.

Comparisons

Against my RME ADI-2, the DX5 II doesn’t have the RME’s mastering-grade toolset or the same sense of three-dimensional layering, but the gap in outright cleanliness is smaller than the price gap suggests, and the DX5 II wins comfortably on raw power. Against the pricier FiiO K17 R2R reviewed alongside it, the Topping is the measurement-first, delta-sigma answer to the R2R’s more deliberately voiced ladder DAC — cheaper, more clinical, and arguably the smarter buy if neutrality is the goal. Headfonics and Trusted Reviews both landed on the same conclusion: for under £300, this is close to unreasonable value.

Verdict

Pros

  • Dual ES9039Q2M chips deliver genuinely flagship-tier measured performance
  • 7600mW balanced output drives planars most rivals can’t
  • Full DAC/amp/preamp feature set for £299
  • Powerful, flexible on-device PEQ

Cons

  • Firmware has shipped with rough edges on past Topping products
  • Dense menu system takes time to learn
  • Chassis feels functional rather than premium
  • Character is clinical — not for those chasing warmth

Ratings:

  • Build & Design: 7.5 / 10
  • Sound: 9 / 10
  • Features: 9 / 10
  • Value: 9.5 / 10

The DX5 II is proof that Topping’s measurement obsession keeps paying off for the rest of us — flagship power and a genuinely clean signal for less than a decent cable costs elsewhere.