Topping LA90 Review (Integrated Amplifier)

[Gio]

With the outstanding performance of the PA5 sold for $ 300 it doesn't make much sense to spend $ 800 on this LA5. The differences would be audible to a bat.

 

[Tusoli5]

It shows really exceptionnal measurements even in front of legendary amplifiers from 1 to 50watts (@8ohms) that many people use with high efficiency speakers.
Linearity is astounding for such a price and such power.
Sure many would love a more powerful amplifier, but it already achieves what many haven't in this power range and price.

This pushes other companies to step up their designs and it is good for everyone.
It allows Topping not to be so offensive on the 100watts @8ohms market right now and to build attention to their company in regard of its future products that might achieve greater power.

Well done on design achievement and business strategy.

A teardown will be nice to discover what's inside, as I feel there won't be any miracle components, only simple and well done implementation.
It allready puts the pressure to many prestigious companies and big brands with their R&D branch working like hell to produce more distorsion in every product and less fidelity at much higher prices for the same power range.

Tell us how you feel about this amp when you'll hear it please.

 

[solderdude]

View attachment 202449

I wonder why Topping chose horizontal heatsink fins instead of vertical ? Esthetics ? Not much difference in practice when it comes down to heatsinking ?

 

[bill poster]

Hmm tbh some Nord amps offer better value despite these measurements.

 

[theREALdotnet]

View attachment 202449

CNC aluminium cases like that are certainly not cheap. I wonder why the heatsink fins are horizontal, though. Doesn’t that impede the airflow?

EDIT: Whoops, ninja’d…

 

[Vini darko]

The susvara crowd will be wet for this.

 

[jae]

The susvara crowd will be wet for this.

Wet & deaf

 

[nonnyno]

Perhaps the real value in this is that Topping:

1) Have demonstrated that they can!
2) That they have learned a lot in the process and can now apply it in more practical devices with wider user cases.
3) That their expertise extends well beyond the DAC

 

[Vict0r]

Perhaps the real value in this is that Topping:

1) Have demonstrated that they can!
2) That they have learned a lot in the process and can now apply it in more practical devices with wider user cases.
3) That their expertise extends well beyond the DAC

A sort of statement product? Those have their place, I suppose. Topping, make a MiniDSP killer next!

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping LA90 integrated amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $800.
View attachment 202305
I must say, this is one interesting industrial design. Everything oozes style despite the diminutive package. This aspect continues in the operation of the unit with the sound of the relays solidly clicking indicating something good is going to happen. Here is the side view:

View attachment 202306

While quite solid, you can pick it up with one hand. The small size is aided by a massive external switching power supply:
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Here are its ratings:
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Back to the unit, you can see three balanced inputs. Volume control can be bypassed although I did not do so for my testing. You can also operate LA90 in bridged mono mode. There is also 12 volt trigger.

There are to gain settings. One at 10 dB and another at 20 dB (nominal).

Topping LA90 Measurements
These are non-bridged mode measurements. Bridged setup follows this section. Let's start with our dashboard of 5 watts into 4 ohm in low gain mode:


View attachment 202314

I don't need to tell you that this is a stunning level of achievement. We have a power amplifier producing almost the same SINAD as a state of the art DAC! Using this number, LA90 grabs the top spot with ease with a nice gap to boot:

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Here it is zoomed:
View attachment 202319
You might be thinking that it can only do so with low gain but that is not true. Even in high gain performance is spectacular:

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It would still achieve top spot in our rankings and achieve full audible transparency.

Not only is distortion vanishingly low, so is noise level:
View attachment 202320

View attachment 202321

Frequency response is flat and wide as expected:
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Being class AB design, it has no load dependency.

Crosstalk is incredibly good although it loses a tiny bit relative to last champ of amplifiers:

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Multitone test shows the very low distortion levels:

View attachment 202325

Let's see how much power we have:
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So power is modest in non-bridged mode. But note how good the high gain mode is so I would feel just fine using that for operation of the unit if you need to. Allowing distortion to rise to 1% naturally gets us more power:

View attachment 202328

Here is 8 ohm:

View attachment 202329

Oops. "High Power" should be "High Gain."

Changing frequencies shows the same excellent performance:
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Despite being pushed deep into clipping, the amplifier did not complain until I got to 20 Hz where its over temperature shut it down.

Finally, you don't need any warm up:
View attachment 202332

Topping LA90 Bridged Mode Performance
A shorting wire is provided to connect the two negative speaker bindings together allowing bridged mode from the top two posts. Here is our dashboard again:

View attachment 202333

Performance is still exceptional. Here is our SNR:
View attachment 202334

Due to more power available now, we cross the amazing 140 dB SNR threshold. What this says is that even if you play at 140 dB, the noise level will be at or below threshold of hearing! Of course there is not enough power there to do that but basically you know that noise is not part of the equation with LA90 as even 5 watt measurement hits below threshold of hearing.

We want to know the power increase though so here it is (with 8 ohm which is the minimum impedance):
View attachment 202335

Now we get good bit of power at 95 watts with almost no penalty relative to non-bridged mode. Notice the massive gap as far as noise floor relative to Purifi amplifier.

Allowing for 1% distortion we get:
View attachment 202336

Here is the super wideband spectrum of the amplifier while producing 5 watts:

View attachment 202338

Conclusions
It is clear that Topping engineers are bringing their expertise in designing ultra low noise and distortion in headphone amplification to power amplifiers. As such, they have outdone every amplifier I have measured in that regard, getting ahead to capture the #1 position with a large gap to #2 choice.

The amplifier is not for everyone though. Power level is modest as compared to competitors. And you have that large external power supply. My wish is another version of this amp with built-in power supply, motorized volume control with bridge mode standard. For now, we need to celebrate one of the most important development in delivering transparent, high fidelity amplification to audiophiles in a very attractive package.

It is my absolute pleasure to recommend the Topping LA90. History is made on this day folks!

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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

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Do you think you might hook it up to your main system and tell us how it performs and sounds?

 

[RandomEar]

I wonder why Topping chose horizontal heatsink fins instead of vertical ? Esthetics ? Not much difference in practice when it comes down to heatsinking ?

Yeah, this has to be chosen because it looks good. For natural convection, vertical fins would be far superior. Also, the fin spacing looks to be on the tight end for convection (but looks/images can be deceiving) and accounting for the horizontal orientation, fin depth is higher than needed - but again, this will likely be a design choice. This is what a cooler optimized for natural convection looks like.

 

[rebbiputzmaker]

I wonder why Topping chose horizontal heatsink fins instead of vertical ? Esthetics ? Not much difference in practice when it comes down to heatsinking ?

More than likely availability In theory vertical heat sinks will always be better. Not sure how much never measured it myself but heat does rise, and the flow would be superior.

 

[restorer-john]

My speakers go down to 3.2 ohms, though nominally rated at 8. So yeah, a competent let alone a great amp does need to be able to drive speakers that dip below 4 ohms over part of their impedance curve. It's not that uncommon.

My current mains drop to 2.6 ohms at 100Hz. But, even so, with a variety of amplifiers of significantly differing abilities, I've never had an amplifier shut down. I have had some vintage amplifiers of limited power (around the power of this Topping) let me know they weren't all that happy.

 

[nonnyno]

A sort of statement product? Those have their place, I suppose. Topping, make a MiniDSP killer next!

Ostensibly yes. They have now se the benchmark standard (and what a standard it is!). They can work to fill the gap underneath with amps with more power and similar characteristics. Everyone else is now playing catch up. They have the expertise now and just have to apply it more usefully. if thye make a bit of money in the meantme for the niche they've targeted well that's a bonus.

 

[pma]

Not sure how much never measured it myself but heat does rise, and the flow would be superior.

https://www.scirp.org/pdf/epe20090200004_95602315.pdf

 

[TheBatsEar]

On balanced inputs ?
What is lirc ? If I may ask

IIRC = If I Remember Correctly

OK, it’s only equally transparent if your gain structure and speaker relative efficiency don’t let you hear the noise floor at any listening level. However, on the other side, This amp won’t be very transparent if there is peak clipping or big loud bass.

The same could be said about about any amp, once it clips, it sucks. How many watts would you say is enough then?

With the outstanding performance of the PA5 sold for $ 300 it doesn't make much sense to spend $ 800 on this LA5. The differences would be audible to a bat.

The same could be said about the PA5 and the next in line sorted by SINAD/price.

2R testing might be somewhat useful for the autosound arena, but not for home HiFi. It's just silly.

Any decent amplifier will drive 2 ohm loads, but not at continuous full rated power and certainly not for very long before shutting off. The current flow is enormous, the supply rails dip significantly, the dissipation in the OPTs is huge and it really not needed.

2R is pretty darn close to a short circuit and you'd want your amplifier protected against such an event.

From the specs sheet for the Focal Aria 926, it says 2.9 ohms. I think we should make sure it doesn't catch fire at 2 ohms (or 4 ohms bridged), just to be sure.

This is taking measurement fanaticism to another level.

How dare they measure better than Benchmark! HOW DARE THEY!

Just because it measures nicely it must be great?

Yes.

The truth is that the amplifier is an overpriced paperweight. Why?

1. Price is too high.
2. Power too low.
3. Just look at the back of that thing.

The truth as seen by Peternz.

Why does this thing annoy me so much?

Yes. Why?

Oh crap! Not the same horrid Topping remote.

If it is the same used for the E30, it's ok, does the job. I wish the knobs where plastic instead of rubber, mine collects dust like crazy.

and just because you don’t need more power doesn’t mean other people don’t or that their opinions are invalid.

"and just because you do need more power doesn't mean other people do or that their opinions are invalid."
But seriously, i think this amp can serve a lot of people just fine, pretty sure you can agree to that.

 

[kopczas]

Could you do porn photo session of that beauty ?

 

[Georgrig]

Could you do porn photo session of that beauty ?

That's the best we have for now..

 

[PeteL]

Perhaps the real value in this is that Topping:

1) Have demonstrated that they can!
2) That they have learned a lot in the process and can now apply it in more practical devices with wider user cases.
3) That their expertise extends well beyond the DAC

Reread your 3 bullet points. So you are saying that this amp as a real value for Topping. Does it also have real value for us? I mean, this one, not the future ones that they now have "learned" how to do.

 

[Matias]

There is SINAD 115 with 700W in both 4 and 2 ohms from Hypex that I would (and will) choose over the LA90.

Hypex Announces New and Improved NCOREx Class-D Amplifier Technology

Nice. "The first new module with NCOREx implemented is the NCx500 OEM, and can be used as a drop-in replacement for the existing NC500 OEM module." https://audioxpress.com/news/hypex-announces-new-and-improved-ncorex-class-d-amplifier-technology

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