Topping E30: another DAC for linux/RPi

The Topping brand has put out various well received budget Chi-fi units over the last few years, and of interest to me, with various USB enabled DACs such as the D90, D50s and so forth. The most recent addition as of Q2 2020, the Topping E30 is a hi-res DAC with an all metal case, requiring 5v ~1A via by a 2.1mm barrel jack. The E30 has traditional inputs and outputs: toslink/coax and USB digital input and RCA out and crucially for me, without the bloat of a headphone amp or bluetooth receiver- a pure DAC.



How does it work with Linux and a RPi music server running forked-daapd.

RPi3 media server with Volumio and Kodi

I have most my music now ripped to mp3/flac but these either live on my iPhone or on a NAS .. playing them easily through a proper amplifier/speakers has been an obsession of mine for many years. Recently, I discovered that the RPi3 could be enhanced with RPi DAC boards which meant a new avenue to explore.

VM'ing: Copy music to/from IOS from Linux via VMs

Recently I've needed to spend more time using the Fedora installation on my aging 2010 Dell Vostro however I've found various occasions where I wanted to copy music files to my iPhone/IOS 9.x/10.x devices from Linux.

In years gone by Linux's recommended options for IOS music management included gtkpod, banshee and rhythmbox but none of these options work with my iPhone and Fedora. With my current Fedora 24 installation and IOS 9.x/10.x the only option would be to run a virtualised OS that supported iTunes via VMware or VirtualBox.

Marantz CD52mkII CD tray repair

Rediscovered 1990s hifi separates - needed to replace the CD tray gear/cog to avoid the grind...

Z banana plugs

This is a Z banana plug. Various companies like Nakamichi, Atlas and Chord make these, but this is bare Milty CC124 "BFA / Camcom" style speaker plug - in this form (with it's plastic outer Camcom-ness removed) the Milty is just a generic Z plug aka BFA-Z plug aka Z banana plug.