Topping L30 Headphone Amplifier Review

[BDWoody]

It is the difference in sound quality what forces audiophiles to use HQPlayer. All other things are significantly less important.

Except, no one so far has shown this to be anything but anecdotal...

And it is really not about a "sensational but mistaken information" what forces people to do high quality upsampling.

Yes, it really is.

Until someone... Anyone... Actually does more than say 'I hear it too!! I'm in the super special club!! Can't YOU hear it?!"

Nonsense... Do more than troll about it with a lot of mixed up WTF.

 

[bogi]

You are entirely misguided on these things I'm afraid. What is "pure" delta sigma, anyway.

Think a bit before you write a post. 'Pure' in the meaning of 'only and nothing else'.
To all: Infantile comments don't bring anything into discussion. And regarding DACs, educate yourself.

 

[Mr:River]

Imagining stack 30 + P30 psu

 

[Vini darko]

Imagining stack 30 + P30 psu

View attachment 85076

Buy a box off ebay. Stick the l30 transformer and a phone charger in there. Bamm p30

 

[Atanasi]

Buy a box off ebay. Stick the l30 transformer and a phone charger in there. Bamm p30

Does someone produce a linear version of a 5 V phone charger?

 

[Vini darko]

Yes but the cost is completely unjustified. I see no point at all in doing it.

 

[Mr:River]

Buy a box off ebay. Stick the l30 transformer and a phone charger in there. Bamm p30

Yes!!
Psu L30 + psu diy E30 = box

 

[jkm]

The gain issue.

The setup: Windows 10 and Spotify. Equalizer APO with PEACE to max out the signal without clipping. Khadas Tone Board DAC. L30 with max gain and volume to the max. Hifiman 4xx headphones. Equals to around 70dB.

It's not loud enough!!! I know it's ok'ish with some other headphones but please give us some headroom. I know Schiit mastered this.

 

[AllanDavidson]

Yes but the cost is completely unjustified. I see no point at all in doing it.
View attachment 85082View attachment 85083

L30 is 15W AC, not DC

 

[Vini darko]

The gain issue.

The setup: Windows 10 and Spotify. Equalizer APO with PEACE to max out the signal without clipping. Khadas Tone Board DAC. L30 with max gain and volume to the max. Hifiman 4xx headphones. Equals to around 70dB.

It's not loud enough!!! I know it's ok'ish with some other headphones but please give us some headroom. I know Schiit mastered this.

That doesn't make alot of sense. The 4xx are 93db per milliwatt with 34 ohm impedance.

 

[bigjacko]

The gain issue.

The setup: Windows 10 and Spotify. Equalizer APO with PEACE to max out the signal without clipping. Khadas Tone Board DAC. L30 with max gain and volume to the max. Hifiman 4xx headphones. Equals to around 70dB.

It's not loud enough!!! I know it's ok'ish with some other headphones but please give us some headroom. I know Schiit mastered this.

Evem my mother board has enough power for my HD800......

 

[Vini darko]

L30 is 15W AC, not DC

That's why in my initial post I said put the l30 transformer and a phone charger in a box.

 

[JohnYang1997]

That's your opinion, based on quality of upsampling you were facing with in the past. Most probably you don't have any experience with quality of HQPlayer filters. Then we are not talking about the same thing. Most probably you are underestimating the result of many years long development, when the developer is long time specialist on low frequency DSP (not only in audio area) and, regarding HQPlayer, concentrated himself mostly on the digital filter development and less on things like GUI and user convenience.

Yes, it is very hard to differentiate PCM HiRes vs CD quality if 44.1k/16bit recording was created using high quality downsampling from HiRes recording.
But when doing it the other way - from CD quality recording and when we include also delta sigma modulation in the path, then the two paths (take into account also the difference how DAC processes them) are much easier distinguished by HQPlayer users. When skipping both complete DAC oversampling and delta sigma modulation, it is possible to find differences between upsampling filters and delta sigma modulators. This is the most usual case how HQPlayer is used. You may not trust me but if you didn't try it (it requires some time to setup things and then some quiet hours for comparisons), then it is hard to find understanding, you will repeat your position and I mine.

I have tries years ago. And did measurements last year and this year on APX555. Someone requested 48KHz based DSD before and someone asked about DSD on linux.
What you guys are lacking is the key here on ASR. If you guys want to do a blind test contest, I think Amir would be happy to help.

 

[solderdude]

The gain issue.

The setup: Windows 10 and Spotify. Equalizer APO with PEACE to max out the signal without clipping. Khadas Tone Board DAC. L30 with max gain and volume to the max. Hifiman 4xx headphones. Equals to around 70dB.

It's not loud enough!!! I know it's ok'ish with some other headphones but please give us some headroom. I know Schiit mastered this.

The HE4xx is 107 dB/V SPL. Assuming you have 70dB average then you'd have peaks of 85 to 90dB SPL.
The peak voltage that goes with these values is 0.14V.
This means at max gain (2.8x) input voltage would be 50mW
Amir measured 2V out peak so is 40x higher.
This would mean you would have set the volume somewhere you don't know (OS ?) to -32dB.
Even when the equalizer was set to -15dB you should still be able to reach 107dB peaks = about 90dB average = very loud.

The only conclusion could be... somewhere a software volume control is set really low.

 

[raif71]

View attachment 85069

Purrr contentment

 

[highpurityusbcable]

The gain issue.

The setup: Windows 10 and Spotify. Equalizer APO with PEACE to max out the signal without clipping. Khadas Tone Board DAC. L30 with max gain and volume to the max. Hifiman 4xx headphones. Equals to around 70dB.

It's not loud enough!!! I know it's ok'ish with some other headphones but please give us some headroom. I know Schiit mastered this.

For HE-400i I'm using rtings eq preset for foobar2000 graphic equalizer which I found on ASR and liked it a lot. It's lowers the overall volume on -5.1db and I still barely reach 11 o'clock on medium gain L30. For IEMs and earbuds I use the -9db gain because it's very loud otherwise. Please check your software settings one more time, there's more than enough headroom.

 

[jkm]

For HE-400i I'm using rtings eq preset for foobar2000 graphic equalizer which I found on ASR and liked it a lot. It's lowers the overall volume on -5.1db and I still barely reach 11 o'clock on medium gain L30. For IEMs and earbuds I use the -9db gain because it's very loud otherwise. Please check your software settings one more time, there's more than enough headroom.

Like I said I'm almost redlining the KTB. It must output less than 2V then. I guess I don't have any other DAC at the moment to try.

 

[frogmeat69]

Like I said I'm almost redlining the KTB. It must output less than 2V then. I guess I don't have any other DAC at the moment to try.

It has 2Vrms output.

 

[jkm]

So it is The Gain Issue. Another rave review: https://soundnews.net/amplifiers/headphone-amps/topping-l30-review-a-little-big-amp/

"II. The Bad / Output power
I will slightly alter my reviewing process as I want to mention all the bad parts of this unit before going forward. When you put the little one driving heaviest loads as Audeze LCD-4, Hifiman Susvara and Arya headphones, then I’m here to say that it was good sounding, but not great sounding. The power output and power storing in those electrolytic caps are the culprits in here. There are few older albums with a super high dynamic range (-13 to -15 DR), like those first albums of Beatles and Deep Purple, Sotho Blue by Abdullah Ibrahim (Tidal / Spotify) is also an excellent example. With such recordings, I was fully maxed out on the highest gain and I still wanted a bit more volume with Audeze LCD-4. Do note that I’ve fed it a stronger signal than usual, Matrix Audio Element X offers 2.3 V Rms of power on the RCA out instead of the standard 2V and yet I wanted to raise the volume a bit higher. With such heavy loads, the little L30 will be struggling in offering you tons of headroom or effortless presentations. Swapping the Element X with something like a Topping D90 or E30, worsened the outcome as the volume dropped by another 1.2 dB. L30 will struggle with heavy loads, especially when a higher dynamic range track starts playing."

The guy earlier might not really push his Hifiman's if he is happy with the 12 o' clock position. And also those posting the specs of HE-4xx really do not understand that the specs do not tell the truth about the volume on Hifiman's. They are hard to drive.

Don't get me wrong. L30 sounds great but I just hope it had slightly more gain.

 

[JohnYang1997]

So it is The Gain Issue. Another rave review: https://soundnews.net/amplifiers/headphone-amps/topping-l30-review-a-little-big-amp/

"II. The Bad / Output power
I will slightly alter my reviewing process as I want to mention all the bad parts of this unit before going forward. When you put the little one driving heaviest loads as Audeze LCD-4, Hifiman Susvara and Arya headphones, then I’m here to say that it was good sounding, but not great sounding. The power output and power storing in those electrolytic caps are the culprits in here. There are few older albums with a super high dynamic range (-13 to -15 DR), like those first albums of Beatles and Deep Purple, Sotho Blue by Abdullah Ibrahim (Tidal / Spotify) is also an excellent example. With such recordings, I was fully maxed out on the highest gain and I still wanted a bit more volume with Audeze LCD-4. Do note that I’ve fed it a stronger signal than usual, Matrix Audio Element X offers 2.3 V Rms of power on the RCA out instead of the standard 2V and yet I wanted to raise the volume a bit higher. With such heavy loads, the little L30 will be struggling in offering you tons of headroom or effortless presentations. Swapping the Element X with something like a Topping D90 or E30, worsened the outcome as the volume dropped by another 1.2 dB. L30 will struggle with heavy loads, especially when a higher dynamic range track starts playing."

The guy earlier might not really push his Hifiman's if he is happy with the 12 o' clock position. And also those posting the specs of HE-4xx really do not understand that the specs do not tell the truth about the volume on Hifiman's. They are hard to drive.

Don't get me wrong. L30 sounds great but I just hope it had slightly more gain.

The amp itself doesn't break a sweat at max volume. So feel free to max it out. Distortion will not increase.
Just checked. Your situation is not remotely normal.
What's your settings on equalizer APO?