Recent content by jkorten

Careful - in many TPA3255 designs the inputs to the amp are capacitively coupled (granted high impedance, therefore low capacitance required, and you can put in a high quality cap there).

Ah so here you are telling me what I perceive? This is the error in your thinking. You are wrong. The difference was plain for me to hear. I'm not telling you what you hear. Don't tell me what I hear.

Well - when it comes to one's own perception versus another person's - how can we know what is perceived? For me, it has nothing to do with volume. Transparency is a quality I hear at any volume, it includes a spatial aspect, and the lack of a veil or feeling like I've got a piece of plastic or...

Well I guess it depends on where you are coming from. In my case the Hypex and TPA 3255 class D (I think the number is right, may have to correct)

I found the LA90 to be lacking in transparency and all around flat sounding (no depth to the image). YMMV

I own this piece of Schiit. Nice preamp. Extended range. For my headphones, best HP amp I've had. But a similar priced preamp from China (FM255 MKII clone from Weileing) sounds less stressful somehow. That being said, I'm keeping the Kara for my family summer home. But my main listening chair is...

You need something like this: https://www.aliexpress.us/item/3256804400891355.html?spm=a2g0o.order_list.order_list_main.4.2e2518028ikRJS&gatewayAdapt=glo2usa Notice the insulators that will keep each connector separated from the case (if you drill the right diameter hole).

Not when the difference is that obvious. The TPA is transparent, the Topping is not. It's plain to hear. No blind testing is needed. Try them both and see what I'm talking about.

The output from the amp is differential. Each voltage swings about the halfway point of your power supply. It looks like you may have grounded your speaker terminal on the box. The outputs have to be completely isolated from anything.

@daniboun - by the way I bought the Topping, and built two monoblocks from Sylph and two monoblocks from 3E audio (TPA3255) and both of the TPA3255 versions sound way better than the Topping. The distortion measurements do not measure transparency and tonal quality well. Only listening can...

Not a fan of external power supplies. I'd solder in a connection if I ever bought one. The other problem is they're using NE5532 op amps which were the best on the market in 1980. But it is 45 years later. Those are rather bright sounding by today's standards. What's up with that? External...

I bought the predecessor to this model from China and it promptly failed after 3 months. The cost to send it back for service was almost equal to the cost of the DAC. So I strongly encourage everyone to purchase this from a within country dealer who provides warranty service.

I am in the medical device industry. There is a company famous for suing its customers to enforce rarely read supplier contracts and as well sues other companies and earns most of it's money that way. They purchased a very famous speaker company thinking they'd get into home patient monitoring...

I've bought quite a bit of stuff from aliexpress with no issues. Larger items take a while to ship (2 weeks) smaller take less. My 3Es have not failed yet.

I merely mean't what it sounds like. Like there's a sheet of plastic in front of me when I'm listening that makes things sound "reproduced" and less natural. Apologies for not being more explicit.