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Topping PA5 Review (Amplifier)

Universal Cereal Bus

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If there is a gadget on the market, does not only apply to Hifi stuff, then anyone can, at any time, take it apart and publish pictures.Isn't that pretty obvious?

If it is not on the market, prototype and so on, it is a completely different thing.
A prototype can still be fair game. It depends on the facts of the case. Ideally, Topping would be sending prototypes or pre-release samples to Amir under NDA; otherwise, they would mainly be relying on relationship and reputation.

If I were a reviewer like Amir, I would actually prefer everything sent by manufacturers and distributors to be under NDA, simply to preempt any accusation of favoritism or bias. I wouldn't have to justify keeping a lid on the device for maintaining a relationship (which invites accusations of bias); I would only need to point to the NDA--nothing nefarious about that.
 
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amirm

amirm

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Ideally, Topping would be sending prototypes or pre-release samples to Amir under NDA; otherwise, they would mainly be relying on relationship and reputation.
They only send me production gear. I am not interested in testing prototypes.
 

Tusoli5

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Considering whatever has been said,
it is always a good thing to see 45w @ 8ohms with less distorsion than usual. Having 4500watts with crazy THD (like Devialet uses to deliver in class D, for example) makes me much more anxious... Far more dangerous electrically speaking, and much more useless, fidelity speaking to what the impulse become, passing through 4500watts of highly distorted and unstable power.

So you could sometimes satisfy with less watts and more stability, less distorsion, more fidelity than high power massively distorted.
Our amplifiers are not just about power. Considering how each watt is handeled by the amplifier gives you more fidelity, more accuracy, less need of equalisation, more neutrality and is always more easy to listen to than loads of crappy watts.

You could find some 45w amplifiers highly distorted that really don't please your ears and you could find 45w of non distorted watts that give you a more "full bodied" and "natural" type of feeling than some higher powered amplifiers in low sensitivity speakers. And you'll say that it sounds more powerfull than you thought, but no it just uses each watts in a cleaner way, it is more efficient per watt used.

So yes a 88db or less sensitive speakers could always claim for more power, but when 45w are well done you could drive quite a lot of loads with
great and good or just fine surprises to your audition.

I think all that amir is testing on this forum tends to show and explain exactly that it is not only about sinad, power stability, frequency, all taken appart, for an audio component to be good.
But the sum of all these measures taken in order in one audio component to know that, if it checks all the boxes right, it might be a component to consider as a "good one" its efficiency in all parameters together is far more important to consider than just one aspect of its technical sides.

Of course when you see 100watts or more well managed like Purifi amplifiers, McIntosch or Benchmark, it is quite phenomenal to consider for your experience, because it assures you to be able to drive any load without adding distorsion, comparing to what we find on the market nowadays. Thus these amplifiers remain absolute great powerhorses for hifi, they ensure that you won't need to change your amplifier if you buy less sensitive speakers.
But anyway, at 40watts, this amplifier gives really gooood performances and not long ago everybody was fine with 30 to 70 watts in tube amplifiers with looooooooads of distrosion...
 

Thomas_A

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Nice review and right size of the amp. I just need double power and I am all in. One for the sub and one for the mains. 100W at 8 ohm and 130W peak/short burst power at 1% THD. Volume control not needed but relays and auto-on/off.
 

misterdog

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As a rule, if your amp relies on people being careful to avoid blowing up, you've failed. I can think of a few examples of this.

f4385e78f86a50687f0758c165e386c0.jpg
 

misterdog

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You would need to know output impedance plot vs. frequency. It is very important. Hypex and Purifi show these measurements, @amirm and @JohnYang1997 do not. Hypex datasheets are most trustable to me, so far. Topping still shows some suspicious measurements like this

Bear in mind the Topping measurements include the volume control and switchable input, with Hypex/Purifi you would have to include the noise and distortion from a Pre-amp to compare.
 

misterdog

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Sorry, if it's a stupid question, but why does it give you highest SNR in this case? Could not the pre also be clipping if you (as in this case) drive it to it's max...?

Not if using the Topping Pre90. :)

index.php
 
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I am really wondering what SPL levels most people here are listening to.

32WPC gets you 15 dB on top of the the sensitivity lvl of your speakers. That seems well over the expectations for any nearfield / desktop setup.

I cannot imagine listening to 85+ dB for longer than half an hour a day. I would go deaf really soon otherwise.

This is a great quality amp for the price for anyone who doesn't want to go deaf.

Even purifi amps go about just 4 dB louder than this little beauty.

Would I use it for my main system in the living room? Probably not (I have a purifi based amp). But for everything else it seems to be pushing the boundaries we have known so far. I would not hesitate to buy it for my desktop or bedroom setup. In fact, I will probably get E50 + PA5 combo to replace my Loxjie A30 once the power brick gets certified for use in the EU.
 
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maty

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@amirm Could you do a measurement of the Phase shift like you did for the Hypex NC400?

index.php

YES, please!

Phase shift in class D amplifiers. How it affects the sound?
 

Doodski

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Please @JohnYang1997 - transfer this amplifier technology over to something larger, with balanced inputs, a remote, internal power supply and double the power, and you'll have my money in an instant :)
I was reading yesterday that China is experiencing a shortage of STEM type personnel and they are actively searching for more people to do this sort of stuff. So maybe Topping needs to take this one step at a time?
 

africanus

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Just to be sure:

1. Are TRS inputs regular 6.35 mm (1/4 inch) stereo female jacks? All the information I have been able to collect in this thread and elsewhere refers to TRS inputs but does not mention whether they are 6.35 mm / 3.5 mm or stereo / mono
2. What is the input voltage used in Amir's measurements? 0.5 V?
 

sarumbear

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But my min point is that you can theoretically (and pratically really) have peaks of that are as many dB more as the LUFS value that represent the general listening level.
That is true, hence the term peak. I was commenting only on the suggested comparison to a tone.
 

Dennis_FL

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Yes, there is a bit of "cheating" going on in the form of low gain of 19 dB. In practice, this is not a problem at all since max power was achieved at 2.5 volt which is well within the 4 volt range of balanced DACs.

I don't understand. Does this mean I can skip a preamp and go directly from the DAC balanced output?
 

Dennis_FL

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Just to be sure:

1. Are TRS inputs regular 6.35 mm (1/4 inch) stereo female jacks? All the information I have been able to collect in this thread and elsewhere refers to TRS inputs but does not mention whether they are 6.35 mm / 3.5 mm or stereo / mono
2. What is the input voltage used in Amir's measurements? 0.5 V?
I had a hard time finding it also.....they are 1/4" TRS stereos
 

sarumbear

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...the more dynamic the recording, that same headroom need to be available for how loud these peaks are compare to the volume you listen to.
That is called the crest factor and it is around 5-8 (14-18dB) on most music but it is lower than 3 (10dB) on dance music (ED. This is why broadcast reference standard is -18/20dBFS (US/Europe) allowing large crest factors to be accommodated by the signal chain.

When you listen to music around a nominal (averaged like LUFS) 80dBSPL, you may have peaks of up to 98dBSPL. However, most modern modern music is heavily compressed and you hardly need any headroom more than 6dB (4x power headroom) and less than 3dB (2x power headroom) for EDM.

It this reason that we prefer high power amplifiers, purely to avoid occasional clips while listening music at high SPL.
 
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