This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping MX3 DAC, Bluetooth, Headphone Amplifier, and Power amplifier. You even get a remote control with it. Despite all that functionality it costs just USD $130 from Amazon including Prime shipping. I bought mine from Massdrop 10 months ago. I don't know what I paid but likely less.From the outside, the MX3 looks quite attractive:It has the same design language as the Topping DX3 Pro but even more attractive with that slanted logo.The volume control is digital and very sensitive.There is a ton of functionality here which I won't go into as there is a good review of it from Z which I will post after this review. Suffice it to say, it is very feature rich and well designed for such a bargain product.Everything is powered by an external laptop sized switching power supply:Not only is extra expense incurred in getting a Topping branded power supply, but typical of them it comes with full compliance with regulatory bodies both in US and EU.For most of my testing, I used the USB input but did give the Aux analog input a try as well. I did not test the subwoofer out. Not did I play with Bluetooth.If the MX3 performs, it will be the audio miracle of modern times so let's get into measurements. But first a note: I had to take some shortcuts to get through all of this functionality. I think it represents the missing measurements.There are no line outs on the MX3 so I used the headphone output set to 2 volts to get our dashboard view:Oh no! Distortion is fairly high putting the MX3 in bottom class of all DACs tested:This is quite a bit worse than any DAC Topping has produced and will set the limit for the rest of the measurements.Let's start with our all important power versus distortion+noise at 300 ohm:The higher noise and distortion in the dashboard comes into play here putting the MX3 fair bit behind its look-alike, Topping DX3 Pro. At 33 milliwatt power before clipping, there is not sufficient amount for a desktop amplifier. Then again if you listen to the DX3 Pro in low gain, there is more power here than there.Using 33 ohm load we examine the current delivery of the headphone amplifier:Similar story here except 230 milliwatts is good amount of power for low impedance headphones.I was pleasantly surprised to see a very low output impedance in MX3:This means you can use any headphone with the MX3 and not have its frequency response change because of output impedance.Our dashboard for power amplifier calls for 5 watts of output:The amplifier is quite a bit worse than the DAC, showing a disappointing SINAD (signal over noise and distortion) of just 68 dB. This is not performance you want to brag about to your friends:Here is the full power curve into 4 ohm load:Usually amplifiers keep reducing their THD+N as the signal gets stronger relative to noise. Not so here. Distortion is high enough that at just 1 watt, it starts to dominate and flattens the curve until clipping at about 30 watts. More power can be had if you get it spike up a bit as shown so the unit meets its spec of I think 40 watts into 4 ohm.Here is the THD+N versus power versus frequency:The issue here is rising distortion in high frequencies regardless of amount of power being output. 1 kHz test tone we use in the dashboard then is almost the best case scenario. By the way, the above test was performed with Aux input so that I could vary the input voltage as I do with other power amplifiers.Here is out signal to noise ratio:So not quite as good as CD's dynamic range.I only tested the headphone amplifier this way. I will at some point start testing with speakers.With Sennheiser HD-650 high impedance headphone, there was good bit of power giving a physical sensation of bass. Alas, by then distortion would set it and the sound would get bright and corrupted.Things changed with much lower impedance Hifiman HE-400i. There was plenty of volume here and I had to try really hard to get it to distort. It would do so but at levels I did not want to listen to for more than a second or two. Bass sensation was quite good bringing the full dynamic range out of these headphones which lesser powered headphone amplifiers cannot.The only bright spot in the Topping MX3 performance is its headphone amplifier especially with low impedance headphones. Outside of that, the MX3 disappoints. While nothing is broken and design clearly verified (Audio Precision graphs are included in the manual), the bar was set quite low to meet the price point.Is the MX3 transparent enough? Probably for most people. Is it transparent enough for me to recommend it? No. You are much better off with discrete components. You will be paying more though to get that performance.Am I being too critical? We had fish chips yesterday at our favorite waterfront restaurant and it cost $57 for the three of us. Two of those meals and you can have the Topping MX3. So the value is incredible. Let me know what you think.------------As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.The guy from Nigeria who was selling me the money tree sent me email saying due to my mention of his services last weekend, he is inundated with calls so he has raised his price for shipping and handling ot $3,00. So please donate money right away before he raises his price even more using: https://www.patreon.com/audiosciencereview ), or https://audiosciencereview.com/foru...eview-and-measurements.2164/page-3#post-59054 ).