Topping PA3s Review (Desktop Amplifier)

[Vini darko]

Nice little desktop amp. Does well at 5W output with 10x power for dynamics. Should be be comfortably loud in near field with low noise and distortion. Thanks for the review amir.
Edit: price from hifigo

 

[Tangband]

Heres a comparison with more bargains, Aiyima a07 with the TI tpa3255 and Allo Volt+D with TI tpa3118.

 

[abdo123]

50W is really little for an amplifier, yet along a Class D amplifier.

I wish the design (or future design) were based on TPA3255 with a proper passive cooling solution, allowing much more clean power for little money.

 

[abdo123]

Neurochrome using the LM3886 shows what you can do with chipamps, though.

It might be a good design but it's not magic

 

[sseppala]

Neurochrome using the LM3886 shows what you can do with chipamps, though.

LM3886 is a class AB design, Neurochrome (Modulus-XXX) modules also use a separate opamp error contol circuit on top of the LM3886 and are in quite higher price range. So they are also quite a different animal.

 

[Vini darko]

Amir could you check unbalanced preformance with a 5w dashboard please? Hopefully it's no difference.

 

[abdo123]

Speaking of Neurochrome designs, @tomchr why not send the Modulus-686 to Amir for free advertisement? even at 26dB gain it competes ferociously with the Benchmark ABH2 with a lot more power and for way less money.

 

[sseppala]

Does anyone know what is the output impedance of this amp or if it uses Post Filter Feedback?

 

[DSJR]

The thing is for bods like us in the UK, the Topping will be available (£120? a bleedin' bargain if you only have one source!!!) In some ways to set the cat amongst the smug 'audiophile-on-a-budget' market (populated I have to say by cheaper vintage gear now which I doubt measures any better!), I'd love Topping to add two or three extra line inputs (single ended RCA is all that's needed at this level) and see if the whole thing could be fitted into a wider case to sell for, say, £150 to £200 or so. Internationally it may not all be viable to make or sell in quantity, but I'm just chucking it out there.

 

[DSJR]

Thanks for the explanation, I will be looking forward to your design. As a small challenge, this is the same/similar kind of measurement on a small class AB amplifier with TMC compensation. I hope you will get better . I tried to keep the same scaling as @amirm for fast comparison.

View attachment 156842
(BTW I need more than 7 minutes for a single plot, these 4 plots take more than 30 minutes)
-----------------------

and Topping as per the review>

Hope you don't mind me asking, but how much could that 'ab' amp you measured above sell for in a similar one-input format? The Topping looks as if it'll be £120 (Euro140?). Is it a viable commercial product (I'm suspecting one of the smaller Yamaha's?)

The cheapest half-decent UK made amp I believe around now is the Rega Io, with phono stage, remote control, clean if low power and selling for £379 or so (I think there's still deep distrust of smps supplies over here ). I believe it's a smaller supply version of the Brio R, which looking at Stereophile measurements, would be absolutely and totally annihilated if tested here -

Rega Brio integrated amplifier Measurements

Sidebar 2: Measurements All of the following measurements, except as noted, were taken with the level control set to a position at which an input of 100mV results in an output of 1W (approximately 2:00 o'clock). The overall gain at this position is 29.2dB; the Brio's gain with the level control...

www.stereophile.com

 

[AudioSceptic]

But you need a huge desk for them.

More like a reinforced floor!

 

[respice finem]

Amazon.de 149€

TOPPING PA3S Endverstärker MA12070*2 Klasse D voll symmetrisch einendig AMP 80W x 2 RCA TRS Endverstärker: Amazon.de: Elektronik & Foto

TOPPING PA3S Endverstärker MA12070*2 Klasse D voll symmetrisch einendig AMP 80W x 2 RCA TRS Endverstärker: Amazon.de: Elektronik & Foto

www.amazon.de

There's a picture of the PCB too. I sometimes wonder why manufacturers aren't building such devices for vertical position and with vents, thus allowing for better cooling, but perhaps in this case it isn't even necessary.

 

[AudioSceptic]

The thing is for bods like us in the UK, the Topping will be available (£120? a bleedin' bargain if you only have one source!!!) In some ways to set the cat amongst the smug 'audiophile-on-a-budget' market (populated I have to say by cheaper vintage gear now which I doubt measures any better!), I'd love Topping to add two or three extra line inputs (single ended RCA is all that's needed at this level) and see if the whole thing could be fitted into a wider case to sell for, say, £150 to £200 or so. Internationally it may not all be viable to make or sell in quantity, but I'm just chucking it out there.

I read this review and thought, nothing special here, but then thought about my first amp, a Cambridge Audio P50II, about £80 in 1973. It was an integrated amp with a full set of inputs, rated at 25 W/channel/8 Ω (measured at 30 in reviews) and seemed easily powerful enough for any sensible use (at the time "big" amps were around 50 W and anything with more was unaffordable exotica). The P50II measured well but I wonder how it would stand up now, considering what £80 in 1973 would be now, probably closer to 800 than to 120!

 

[antcollinet]

So, @JohnYang1997 according to your prices on Amazon you are selling this for EUR149 in Germany but also £149 (16% more) in UK. That is not going to endear you to us Brits.

 

[DSJR]

I seem to recall some issues with those early Cambridge amps (crossover distortion?) - I no longer have the reviews which were tech based back then). The more powerful P80 'sounded' ok I remember but wasn't too good on the bench and we had to send an entire batch of newly launched P60's back as all were faulty... I suspect it was too clever a design and too slim a case coupled with components not quite up to it back then. The late 70's saw the beginnings of better components coming along I think (greater power and capability with less components needed) and I do regret our Uk market not exploiting the best of mid priced far eastern products back then - it was either contrived UK makers 'telling a story,' or a new wave of very expensive US gear with heavy build. I was trying to think Threshold was the first, but we had a good few others before, some of which came from the pro market, tried their luck and then returned to said market.

 

[AudioSceptic]

The thing is for bods like us in the UK, the Topping will be available (£120? a bleedin' bargain if you only have one source!!!) In some ways to set the cat amongst the smug 'audiophile-on-a-budget' market (populated I have to say by cheaper vintage gear now which I doubt measures any better!), I'd love Topping to add two or three extra line inputs (single ended RCA is all that's needed at this level) and see if the whole thing could be fitted into a wider case to sell for, say, £150 to £200 or so. Internationally it may not all be viable to make or sell in quantity, but I'm just chucking it out there.

Drop the balanced input (is it relevant in such a low end device?) and you could easily fit another 2 RCA pairs in their place.

 

[peng]

Hmmm.... Come on!

For your inspiration, Boulder 3050 monoblock

View attachment 156832

That's way too extreme though. How about pick on something closer to the Topping's size:

To beat this $8,100 Denon (okay its integrated used as power amp), Topping simply have to make a bridgeable pair, and then paired it with the A90 and it will still be under $1,000 and may have enough money left for a DAC.

@JohnYang1997, is there plan for a bridgeable version or at least bump the output to 60/100W 8/4 ohms so the product won't be mainly for desktop systems?

power amplifier part:

rated output	50 W + 50 W （8Ω、20 Hz ～ 20 kHz、THD 0.1 %） 100 W + 100 W （4Ω、1 kHz、THD 0.7 %）
total harmonic distortion	0.01% (rated output, at -3 dB), load 8Ω, 1 kHz
output terminals	SPEAKERS: LOAD 4 TO 16 Ω
input sensitivity / input impedance	EXT. PRE: 0.7 V / 25 kΩ Gain Value: 29 dB

 

[MZKM]

We need to identify a prototypical speaker like we have with Sennheiser HD6XXX in headphone land. Then I can work on identifying satisfying level for it as far as power amplifiers.

ELAC DBR62?
$600 is a good middle ground (Klipsch RP-600M sells a lot)
Good general sound
Sensitivity is about average for a bookshelf
LFX of 44Hz is average for a bookshelf
Impedance/Phase is also average (EPDR of ~2.6ohm around 125Hz)

 

[JohnYang1997]

Does anyone know what is the output impedance of this amp or if it uses Post Filter Feedback?

Fast&Simple Review of Topping PA3s （Prototype） - L7Audiolab

台式设备

www.l7audiolab.com

 

[peng]

This is poor, again, same as for many cheap class D amplifiers.

View attachment 156836

Unfortunately, Hypex Ncore and Purifi remain the only well behaving class D amplifiers. Still a lot to learn, @JohnYang1997 .

I think with this kind of distortion level at test signal above 5 kHz, listening tests would be very necessary at least to those with no hearing loss up to 20,000 Hz. People may not mind the 2nd harmonics up to 1% or even higher, and 3rd harmonics of 5 kHz is 15 kHz so those ugly curves may not matter to a lot of people. It behaves erratically but the good thing is that it seems not very dependent on the output level.