MadCow
100+ Head-Fier
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- Aug 12, 2010
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There doesn't seem to be much discussion about this product; searching on Google leads to one discussion on ASR and another on Reddit, both with not much discourse so I thought I'd put down my initial impressions here for the benefit of those who are looking to use it as DAP.
Starting with the looks, it has roughly the same form factor as Topping's other 50's series devices, but is a little bit taller than the A50S and D50S, but shorter than the P50.
Besides the two SPDIF connectors, it can control a USB DAC via one of its two USB-OTG ports. They'll also take a USB stick or external hard disk drive. The little USB-C port is for you to use the device itself as a DDC.
According to Topping's own specifications, it supports SD cards up to 256GB and external hard drives up to 4TB... which doesn't really make sense (the SD card part). However, I tested with a 512GB card and the device read it just fine... though I don't have 256GB worth of media so maybe there's another soft limit that I have not hit. But then again, it still wouldn't make sense since it can support external drives up to 4TB.
Like most other DAPs, you can let it scan your media in order to maintain a library that you can browse via Album, Artist, and Genre. I didn't take any accurate readings, but by my rough estimate it's reading around 100 tracks every 4-5s. It also has some kind of Playlist and Favourites list, but I haven't explored those features yet. The controls here (both on the faceplate, and the provided remote control) are pretty rudimentary, but I do have one minor complaint - there is an inconsistency with the controls where you use the right button on the faceplate to navigate/activate menu items, whereas on the remote control you use the center "OK" button instead.
Supposedly you can also control the player on a smartphone via a "Hiby Link" app, but I haven't explored that feature.
On another note, the device can run just on a power bank alone, which is nice and makes it a bit semi-portable - especially if you have a portable DAC/amp that you can connect to. Though in this case, a portable DAP or smartphone would probably be more suited for the role as a DAP or smartphone will likely have better screen and easier controls/navigation. The screen on the M50 is tiny, not very bright, and doesn't provide much information.
One oddity that I should mention, is how the M50 sorts album titles. It places titles with Asian (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, etc) characters in between the regular A-Z sorting, which is different from the norm that I'm used to seeing (e.g. on Foobar, USB Audio Player Pro, and Sony's own DAPs). However, I noticed similar sorting on my Fiio M11 Plus, so perhaps this is a Chinese style of sorting.
I suppose one of the target demographic is people with the A50, D50, P50 stack - the M50 visually complements the stack nicely. But looks can be deceiving...
...the front looks neat and clean, but at the back, it's a bit on the messy side. Though I must note that there are shorter/thinner RCA interconnects to make the cable management tidier. Also the USB and power cables that came with the M50 are the long type, unlike the short ones that are bundled with the P50. Sourcing shorter versions of those two cables should also make the rear a bit neater. But regardless, it's still pretty nice to have everything powered from a single power point.
Honestly though, I'm a little bit disappointed by the M50. It was more of an impulse purchase, one part for its matching look with the rest of the stack, and another part because I wanted a desktop player similar to the HDD players back in the day... but honestly for this specific purpose, a DAP, computer or smartphone serves that role much better. But that is just my view for this specific purpose - according to the marketing material it also serves as a USB bridge or DDC, or a network streamer though I've no interest in those use cases.
Yeah, so anyway those are my early impressions of the device.
Starting with the looks, it has roughly the same form factor as Topping's other 50's series devices, but is a little bit taller than the A50S and D50S, but shorter than the P50.
Besides the two SPDIF connectors, it can control a USB DAC via one of its two USB-OTG ports. They'll also take a USB stick or external hard disk drive. The little USB-C port is for you to use the device itself as a DDC.
According to Topping's own specifications, it supports SD cards up to 256GB and external hard drives up to 4TB... which doesn't really make sense (the SD card part). However, I tested with a 512GB card and the device read it just fine... though I don't have 256GB worth of media so maybe there's another soft limit that I have not hit. But then again, it still wouldn't make sense since it can support external drives up to 4TB.
Like most other DAPs, you can let it scan your media in order to maintain a library that you can browse via Album, Artist, and Genre. I didn't take any accurate readings, but by my rough estimate it's reading around 100 tracks every 4-5s. It also has some kind of Playlist and Favourites list, but I haven't explored those features yet. The controls here (both on the faceplate, and the provided remote control) are pretty rudimentary, but I do have one minor complaint - there is an inconsistency with the controls where you use the right button on the faceplate to navigate/activate menu items, whereas on the remote control you use the center "OK" button instead.
Supposedly you can also control the player on a smartphone via a "Hiby Link" app, but I haven't explored that feature.
On another note, the device can run just on a power bank alone, which is nice and makes it a bit semi-portable - especially if you have a portable DAC/amp that you can connect to. Though in this case, a portable DAP or smartphone would probably be more suited for the role as a DAP or smartphone will likely have better screen and easier controls/navigation. The screen on the M50 is tiny, not very bright, and doesn't provide much information.
One oddity that I should mention, is how the M50 sorts album titles. It places titles with Asian (e.g. Chinese, Japanese, etc) characters in between the regular A-Z sorting, which is different from the norm that I'm used to seeing (e.g. on Foobar, USB Audio Player Pro, and Sony's own DAPs). However, I noticed similar sorting on my Fiio M11 Plus, so perhaps this is a Chinese style of sorting.
I suppose one of the target demographic is people with the A50, D50, P50 stack - the M50 visually complements the stack nicely. But looks can be deceiving...
...the front looks neat and clean, but at the back, it's a bit on the messy side. Though I must note that there are shorter/thinner RCA interconnects to make the cable management tidier. Also the USB and power cables that came with the M50 are the long type, unlike the short ones that are bundled with the P50. Sourcing shorter versions of those two cables should also make the rear a bit neater. But regardless, it's still pretty nice to have everything powered from a single power point.
Honestly though, I'm a little bit disappointed by the M50. It was more of an impulse purchase, one part for its matching look with the rest of the stack, and another part because I wanted a desktop player similar to the HDD players back in the day... but honestly for this specific purpose, a DAP, computer or smartphone serves that role much better. But that is just my view for this specific purpose - according to the marketing material it also serves as a USB bridge or DDC, or a network streamer though I've no interest in those use cases.
Yeah, so anyway those are my early impressions of the device.
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