Topping LA90 Review (Integrated Amplifier)

[anmpr1]

Some of Crowns commercial amps require 8 Ohm or greater when bridged.
With a Power-Tech or Com-Tech amplifier you need to stay at 8 ohms or greater.

This is a consumer amplifier. I don't want to say it is a joke, but any consumer hi-fi amplifier that cannot handle a four ohm load when bridged is a joke. Why even have the 'feature'? That is what I would ask the designer. My guess is that Topping knew that a 36 watt per channel amp wasn't going to 'look' that strong, from a marketing standpoint, and at its price point. So they needed to beef up the rating. But the basic design just didn't have enough meat in it to match comparable amplifiers, at the price point. So they just said you can't use it into lower impedances in bridged mode.

I could have that totally wrong, but it's the only thing I can come up with to explain it.

As far as Crown? This certainly doesn't have the raw power capability of any Crown amplifier ever made. Ever.

 

[temps]

Yes, as in all things audio, "it depends".



I'm in this thread, and do (I have cheap subs, and I think a fairly good handle on what the squiggly lines are up to), but I'm nobody, so I guess you are technically correct.



I guessticalculate my system as having around an 85dB SINAD, and I've never heard it make any sound other than what was intended to be provoked by the program material.

On that basis, I'll stay with what's here and working and paid for and probably maintaining its $$$ value to some other fool, becoming kinda old and somewhat cranky about things. I try to keep the crankiness under control, lower stress, and all that.

Nice measurement on the Topping, it pushes the boundary for at least one set of limits. Nothing wrong with that. I'm trying to squeeze out as much drag as I can on my new 42 year old glider with vinyl tape over gaps and silicone around the canopy and such, instead of ordering a $150,000 rig with a 2 year wait time.

It has a rating of 36:1 for a glide ratio, but I recently saw 167.5:1 measured during particularly good atmospheric conditions As with most everything "it depends".

I phrased things to the general population of the thread, where it's all "watts are all that matters" "not enough power" "needs more juice" "can't run a 1 ohm load" "too much money" stating a great many things as if everyone is listening on sealed 5" bookshelf speakers. I depend on people to self-exclude themselves from the generalization if they know it doesn't apply to them..

I mean, here's another one. The dumb critiques don't stop coming. We're going to get another 30 or 40 pages of this stuff, at least.

This is a consumer amplifier. I don't want to say it is a joke, but any consumer hi-fi amplifier that cannot handle a four ohm load when bridged is a joke. Why even have the 'feature'? That is what I would ask the designer. My guess is that Topping knew that a 36 watt per channel amp wasn't going to 'look' that strong, from a marketing standpoint, and at its price point. So they needed to beef up the rating. But the basic design just didn't have enough meat in it to match comparable amplifiers, at the price point. So they just said you can't use it into lower impedances in bridged mode.

I could have that totally wrong, but it's the only thing I can come up with to explain it.

As far as Crown? This certainly doesn't have the raw power capability of any Crown amplifier ever made. Ever.

my next mains speaker is going to be a Revel F228Be. That's 8 ohms and 90dB sensitive. I'd get that and run an LA90 bridged per speaker. So you have one of the finest speakers in the world, and the world's finest amplifier works perfectly with it? Okay, great. Weird you couldn't figure out such an incredibly obvious use case.

 

[Ingenieur]

Because the standard is to use the same amplifier voltage.

There are no 8 nor 4 nor any other single value impedance speakers if you look closely at the measurement thereof.

It looks like the standard may be 2 V for a 4 Ohm rating?

https://peavey.com/PDFs/THE_LOUDSPEAKER_SPEC_SHEET_GAME_2005.pdf

I can't find the referenced portion of this standard

https://www.sis.se/api/document/preview/563033/

 

[Soniclife]

Sure. I wanted to do this but with timing pulled ahead a day, I didn't get a chance.

Given all the talk about limited power how it works into your speakers at your normal volumes would be really interesting. Could you try bridged mode as well on a single speaker (unless you have 2 of them).

To save everyone else looking it up.

My estimate of the Revel Ultima Salon2's voltage sensitivity was 86dB(B)/2.83V/m. This is slightly lower than the specified 86.4dB but within experimental error of that figure. The speaker's impedance (fig.1) drops to between 3 and 5 ohms between 17Hz and 600Hz, but as the electrical phase angle is generally low in this region, the Salon2 should not be hard for the partnering amplifier to drive. (From Stereophile)

 

[Ingenieur]

This is a consumer amplifier. I don't want to say it is a joke, but any consumer hi-fi amplifier that cannot handle a four ohm load when bridged is a joke. Why even have the 'feature'? That is what I would ask the designer. My guess is that Topping knew that a 36 watt per channel amp wasn't going to 'look' that strong, from a marketing standpoint, and at its price point. So they needed to beef up the rating. But the basic design just didn't have enough meat in it to match comparable amplifiers, at the price point. So they just said you can't use it into lower impedances in bridged mode.

I could have that totally wrong, but it's the only thing I can come up with to explain it.

As far as Crown? This certainly doesn't have the raw power capability of any Crown amplifier ever made. Ever.

I would think a commercial product would be held to a higher standard.

It can handle a 4 Ohm load bridged.
In fact it can handle a 2 Ohm load/ch
180 W at 1% bridged with a 4 Ohm load.
100 before clipping

The design is excellent..
Just not for you.

 

[mdsimon2]

I phrased things to the general population of the thread, where it's all "watts are all that matters" "not enough power" "needs more juice" "can't run a 1 ohm load" "too much money" stating a great many things as if everyone is listening on sealed 5" bookshelf speakers. I depend on people to self-exclude themselves from the generalization if they know it doesn't apply to them..

I mean, here's another one. The dumb critiques don't stop coming. We're going to get another 30 or 40 pages of this stuff, at least.

my next mains speaker is going to be a Revel F228Be. That's 8 ohms and 90dB sensitive. I'd get that and run an LA90 bridged per speaker. So you have one of the finest speakers in the world, and the world's finest amplifier works perfectly with it? Okay, great. Weird you couldn't figure out such an incredibly obvious use case.

Are you sure that the Revel F228Be is a good match for the LA90 in bridged mode? Stereophile impedance measurements suggest you want an amplifier comfortable driving 4 ohm loads. I understand this is still somewhat of an unknown but on paper this doesn't seem like a good match.

Michael

 

[TimW]

This is a consumer amplifier. I don't want to say it is a joke, but any consumer hi-fi amplifier that cannot handle a four ohm load when bridged is a joke. Why even have the 'feature'? That is what I would ask the designer. My guess is that Topping knew that a 36 watt per channel amp wasn't going to 'look' that strong, from a marketing standpoint, and at its price point. So they needed to beef up the rating. But the basic design just didn't have enough meat in it to match comparable amplifiers, at the price point. So they just said you can't use it into lower impedances in bridged mode.

I could have that totally wrong, but it's the only thing I can come up with to explain it.

As far as Crown? This certainly doesn't have the raw power capability of any Crown amplifier ever made. Ever.

Almost every bridgeable amp I have come across states 8 ohm minimum when bridged.

Here is what my Sony TA-N55ES says:

And here is what my behemoth Parasound HCA-1206 says:

 

[Enkay25]

The meaning of this comment completely escapes me. It is EXACTLY the opposite.
If it were a company that only does shoddy stuff no one would care what they do, but it is precisely because we see enormous potential in Topping as engineering skills applied to audio that we would like it to do more than just an engineering exercise that basically has the sole purpose. to show that IT CAN BE DONE.
Ok, well you can do it, well done. But now let's focus on something that is really useful, putting high level performance in a real integrated with various inputs, integrated dac and maybe two sets of outputs for the speakers, with a nice big case, and well cooled, with internal power supply, with a display that gives useful information ...
Or a real Topping power amp, with a solid case and clean 150/250 watts into 8Ohm.
This isn't meat and it's not fish, it doesn't have the usability and convenience of an integrated, it doesn't have the horsepower to be a real power amp.
This is an engineering exercise.
Someone has written before me, and I agree, that the Cambridge cxa81 / 61 took a headless panther for objectively poor sinad performance but that hardly anyone had noticed, except by plugging their ear into the Tweeter and firing the volume knob to the maximum, but which in its 900/1200 euros included a large number of analog inputs, a whole set of digital inputs (therefore a dac), two sets of speaker outputs, a beautiful case, a motorized volume knob with a nice remote control etc ....
Let's say that users basically asked for two things, after the pa5 topping
- more power
- more functionality
None of these. Topping still gives us sinad, which was more than great 30db ago ....

And let's get to the price, now start getting serious, 800 euros is an important expense for a box with two inputs and one entrance, people must find a real reason to buy it thinking that at 500 euros there is hypex ncore by audiophonics hpa s250nc , which offers 150watt at 8 ohms with performance in any case of the highest level, or if that's okay that power can find the topping pa5 but at 350 euros, less than half, with acoustically IDENTICAL performance, and if you are on this site you know that it is ...
In short, I'm sorry because I see it as a wasted opportunity and because I believe that Topping can offer more to the audio market.

I share wholeheartedly this sentiment.

If this was priced $499, the market would have been disrupted. All these low power talk would have been superceded by price/performance.

Lately I feel Topping is inching towards more profiteering (excuse this it's just an opinion) than being famous for disruption. Off course I don't fault that approach.

 

[pma]

Michael, @mdsimon2 , we must take into account both magnitude and phase and it is clear that EPDR of F228Be will fall down to 2 ohm at some frequencies. Equivalent of 2 ohm resistor testing.

 

[Ingenieur]

Almost every bridgeable amp I have come across states 8 ohm minimum when bridged.

Here is what my Sony TA-N55ES says:

And here is what my behemoth Parasound HCA-1206 says:

Pesky facts

Not to mention Amir actually tested at 4 Ohm, stereo and bridged.
It can handle 4 Ohm.
And since it can do 4 Ohm bridged it should have no issue with excursions down to 2.
We are not talking about continuous peak power. Although he did test that.


Why are people saying it can't handle 4 Ohms? He tested at 4 Ohms?!

 

[Ingenieur]

I share wholeheartedly this sentiment.

If this was priced $499, the market would have been disrupted. All these low power talk would have been superceded by price/performance.

Lately I feel Topping is inching towards more profiteering (excuse this it's just an opinion) than being famous for disruption. Off course I don't fault that approach.

Profiteering?
Isn't that the purpose of a business?
If their pricing model is wrong it will be adjusted or fail.

For this quality $800 is fair market.
But WE will not determine this. The market will.

 

[TimW]

Pesky facts

Not to mention Amir actually tested at 4 Ohm, stereo and bridged.
It can handle 4 Ohm.
And since it can do 4 Ohm bridged it should have no issue with excursions down to 2.
We are not talking about continuous peak power. Although he did test that.


Why are people saying it can't handle 4 Ohms? He tested at 4 Ohms?!

I don't see any 4 ohm bridged measurements in the review. Did he do them on a subsequent page?

 

[gvl]

2 of these or a slightly used AHB2? I think I know the answer.

 

[Ingenieur]

I don't see any 4 ohm bridged measurements in the review. Did he do them on a subsequent page?

He only did peak power at 4 Ohm bridged.
Stereo at 4 vs SINAD.
imo no reason to think it would not be similar at 4 Ohm?

 

[Ingenieur]

2 of these or a slightly used AHB2? I think I know the answer.

Find one for $1600
Then buy a preamp of similar quality
I KNOW the answer
$2500 plus preamp
$1600 including preamp

 

[mdsimon2]

He only did peak power at 4 Ohm bridged.
Stereo at 4 vs SINAD.
imo no reason to think it would not be similar at 4 Ohm?

View attachment 202537

I may be wrong but I think that is a typo in the graph as the graph above it refers to 8 ohm bridged. Thoughts @amirm?

Michael

 

[pma]

He measured 8 ohm bridged.

Do not forget that bridged mode every output sees half load impedance.
8 = 4, 4 = 2 seen in bridged mode.

 

[Bleib]

2 of these or a slightly used AHB2? I think I know the answer.

Or

Audiophonics HPA-S400ET Review (Stereo Amplifier)

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[Enkay25]

Profiteering?
Isn't that the purpose of a business?
If their pricing model is wrong it will be adjusted or fail.

For this quality $800 is fair market.
But WE will not determine this. The market will.

True.

Actually I said to be excused. Maybe I was spoilt with toppings non-flagship offerings. Those are VFM.

Somehow I got to sense this feeling (of more profiteering) from D90 onwards. Maybe topping is going more premium. Lol. ( A SINAD tax perhaps lol)

Maybe a Sabaj or an SMSL can spoil topping's game?

 

[solderdude]

180W bridged into 4 ohms which makes sense as in 8 ohm the power is 100W