Poll for Topping PA5 owners only please.

[YSC]

My PA5 works and sounds Great! Listened to it for about 10 hours today so far in 77 - 78 deg F. I am sorry you had such a bad customer service experience, but I recommend you consider fixing up your PA5 and giving it another go. There are other great low power Class D amps for sure, but not sure if any meet the specs or sound as great as a working PA5. I do have a Fosi V3 on the way, and a 2nd SMSL A300 for bridgeable mono, but I can only hope these sound nearly as good as the PA5.

For myself after reading all these, no matter how well topping measures and sounds, I would avoid their high power designs for amps or such. Dac and headphone amp is very likely fine but higher power like speaker amp in a confined box is a no to me since they don’t seems to dare taking the cost to fix their reputation or reliability issue.

Other solutions might likely get u worse sound, but barely perceivable, and no degradation in sq more than a broken amp

 

[MAB]

My PA5 works and sounds Great! Listened to it for about 10 hours today so far in 77 - 78 deg F. I am sorry you had such a bad customer service experience, but I recommend you consider fixing up your PA5 and giving it another go. There are other great low power Class D amps for sure, but not sure if any meet the specs or sound as great as a working PA5. I do have a Fosi V3 on the way, and a 2nd SMSL A300 for bridgeable mono, but I can only hope these sound nearly as good as the PA5.

Ampguy, read my post. It was fixed by gamerpaddy who debugged the problem for Topping! I included links.
I have no interest in fiddling with it. It’s an underpowered amp that sounds fine and breaks for most people. I have other extremely low noise amps to drive speakers with. I bought the PA5 to listen to while I restored my Yamaha CA-2010. While it worked, it sounded no better than the Yamaha, except it has anemic power which effectively limits the sound.

Odd that Topping churns out new stuff like sausage, never bothers to get thing right. Like my A30Pro that gave out. I have the protection relay issue that other people have also reported. I took it apart but to find mostly cold solder joints and the flux left on the PCB which had already cause corrosion and blistering.

So I do hope you PA5 holds up, but honestly it is not a piece that you can trust. And it really doesn’t sound any different or better.

 

[ampguy]

Amp guy, read my post. It was fixed by gamerpaddy who debugged the problem for Topping! I included links.
I have no interest in fiddling with it. It’s an underpowered amp that sounds fine and breaks for most people. I have other extremely low noise amps to drive speakers with. I bought the PA5 to listen to while I restored my Yamaha CA-2010. While it worked, it sounded no better than the Yamaha, except it has anemic power which effectively limits the sound.

Odd that Topping churns out new stuff like sausage, never bothers to get thing right. Like my A30Pro that gave out. I have the protection relay issue that other people have also reported. I took it apart but to find mostly cold solder joints and the flux left on the PCB which had already cause corrosion and blistering.

So I do hope you PA5 holds up, but honestly it is not a piece that you can trust. And it really doesn’t sound any different or better.

Thank you for donating your PA5 to the guy who is making those boards available. Like you, I'm not interested in fiddling with low cost amp internals, but kudos to those who are and can.

You mention that the PA5 is underpowered, can you elaborate on that? I can understand that it's not a high powered amp, but are you saying that it is less powerful than as measured by Amir and others? Can you describe how you had it hooked up and what input sources you used? I'm sure you're probably aware, and it is detailed in the PA5 review thread (around p. 141 or so) about how this amp may have 19db of gain, but to get that, you really need 2.6V or so to meet it's input sensitivity. Those who were using RCA to TRS adapters were the ones having to crank the gain and finding it less powerful than other SE amps. I'm just wondering if that could have been your experience? I drive relatively low sensitivity speakers (Kefs) to reasonably loud levels with this amp, but also have much more powerful, and much less powerful amps. For my Class A 15W JLH 1969 amp, which I only use in winter, for obvious reasons, I pair it with high efficiency Tekton, JBL, and other speakers where it can get unbearably loud without clipping. I'll agree with you that the PA5 should have been built better. I'm trying to understand your comment about underpowered though, and how you were feeding the amp.

 

[MAB]

Thank you for donating your PA5 to the guy who is making those boards available. Like you, I'm not interested in fiddling with low cost amp internals, but kudos to those who are and can.

You mention that the PA5 is underpowered, can you elaborate on that? I can understand that it's not a high powered amp, but are you saying that it is less powerful than as measured by Amir and others? Can you describe how you had it hooked up and what input sources you used? I'm sure you're probably aware, and it is detailed in the PA5 review thread (around p. 141 or so) about how this amp may have 19db of gain, but to get that, you really need 2.6V or so to meet it's input sensitivity. Those who were using RCA to TRS adapters were the ones having to crank the gain and finding it less powerful than other SE amps. I'm just wondering if that could have been your experience? I drive relatively low sensitivity speakers (Kefs) to reasonably loud levels with this amp, but also have much more powerful, and much less powerful amps. For my Class A 15W JLH 1969 amp, which I only use in winter, for obvious reasons, I pair it with high efficiency Tekton, JBL, and other speakers where it can get unbearably loud without clipping. I'll agree with you that the PA5 should have been built better. I'm trying to understand your comment about underpowered though, and how you were feeding the amp.

RME ADI-2
Amp only hits 73% of published spec at 8 Ohms. It does meet spec at 4 Ohms. That's what I'm talking about. It is discussed in the review thread, please go peruse if you want more. This thread is about the poor reliability.

 

[Anthony T]

PA5 II has been released!
So all issues have been resolved with the old PA5 and Topping can release the new version knowing their customers have reliable MK1 PA5?

There’s a Q and A session with the Topping rep who has just become available again and guess what, they have just released their latest offering and you lot just keep on lapping them up. This guy completely disappeared when issues arose, please use your power of reasoning and step back and be objective, it’s not a pretty situation.

It’s embarrassing watching this charade and the fact that this just goes over just about everyone’s heads. Wake up for goodness sake.

Edited to add: “just about“

 

[john11]

Is there a teardown available for the PA5 II, have read from owners there are more of those potted modules within which caused all the problems with the first unit
Have topping learnt from the PA5 ? It appears not

 

[Toku]

Is there a teardown available for the PA5 II, have read from owners there are more of those potted modules within which caused all the problems with the first unit
Have topping learnt from the PA5 ? It appears not

The release of the PA5 ll has been announced, but I don't think anyone has actually received the product yet.

 

[delta76]

Is there a teardown available for the PA5 II, have read from owners there are more of those potted modules within which caused all the problems with the first unit
Have topping learnt from the PA5 ? It appears not

I'm not sure if that's in Chinese culture to hide the issue (pretty sure issue = embarrassment). but I would expect a company to
- Acknowledge the issue(s), apologize, recall and refund the products
- Publishing a detail post mortem analysis of the issue, or issues, what caused them, and how they can be prevented in future products

so far Topping has done very little to regain customer trust, and what they have said is usually in a dismissive way. Quite disappointing.

 

[Toku]

I think Topping's response is the most drastic move that any company has ever taken.
Some users are still dissatisfied, but there is a limit to what we can do as a company.

Also, it is not desirable to slander the newly released PA5 ll/Plus without grounds.

 

[pjug]

I think Topping's response is the most drastic move that any company has ever taken.

You are joking, right? Here is an example of a company taking proper action to remedy a similar problem where there was not a safety issue but the amplifier stopped working:

IMPORTANT INFORMATION REGARDING A DEFECT IN CERTAIN XTi, CDi & DSi SERIES AMPLIFIERS

 

[Talisman]

I think Topping's response is the most drastic move that any company has ever taken.
Some users are still dissatisfied, but there is a limit to what we can do as a company.

Also, it is not desirable to slander the newly released PA5 ll/Plus without grounds.

I totally disagree.
Once Topping understood the problem, he should have withdrawn the product from the market and offered a refund to the buyers, as he was aware that he had released a product with a design error that leads the product to breakage.
Not only did they not do it, but they continued to sell it without withdrawing it and delegated any warranty refunds to the sellers, creating problems for many users.
This IS NOT serious and trustworthy behavior.
Mistakes can happen to everyone, what matters is how a company reacts to mistakes and the respect it shows for its customers, and in this Topping has failed miserably

 

[YSC]

I totally disagree.
Once Topping understood the problem, he should have withdrawn the product from the market and offered a refund to the buyers, as he was aware that he had released a product with a design error that leads the product to breakage.
Not only did they not do it, but they continued to sell it without withdrawing it and delegated any warranty refunds to the sellers, creating problems for many users.
This IS NOT serious and trustworthy behavior.
Mistakes can happen to everyone, what matters is how a company reacts to mistakes and the respect it shows for its customers, and in this Topping has failed miserably

Agree here, able to produce objectively excellent and SOTA performance is a wonderful thing, doing it and not breaking the customer's bank is even greated and deserve the success, but all the cost advantage will lose to reliability and trustworthy behaviour, in this time Topping failed miserably, I used to recommend their DACs to my friends whenever they ask for opinion, but now I would not do so again,
Being budget is one thing, the chance of having a dud unit due to design problem and having to deal with a frustrated friend is another problem

 

[MAB]

I think Topping's response is the most drastic move that any company has ever taken.
Some users are still dissatisfied, but there is a limit to what we can do as a company.

Also, it is not desirable to slander the newly released PA5 ll/Plus without grounds.

I also completely disagree. Topping's lack of action speaks louder than the words they said.
Topping and the resellers have said they have an issue. Topping apparently extended the warranty from 1 year to 2 years. That's all they did.
That warranty service is not being fulfilled in any reasonable fashion, she number and breadth of bad stories is astounding. People are still getting ghosted. People paid money for something that Topping and the Vendors know is going to break. It's really quite mystifying.
And faulty units are still being sold, and not supported. So double-disagree.
And, since quality is a reputation that companies build, it is absolutely fair to judge Topping's future offerings. So triple-disagree. Totally not slander.

Sorry, but customers got ripped off on the PA5, and it continues. Topping and the resellers further damage the brand by continuing to sell this systematically unreliable product.

 

[Roland68]

I totally disagree.
Once Topping understood the problem, he should have withdrawn the product from the market and offered a refund to the buyers, as he was aware that he had released a product with a design error that leads the product to breakage.
Not only did they not do it, but they continued to sell it without withdrawing it and delegated any warranty refunds to the sellers, creating problems for many users.
This IS NOT serious and trustworthy behavior.
Mistakes can happen to everyone, what matters is how a company reacts to mistakes and the respect it shows for its customers, and in this Topping has failed miserably

I have a different opinion.
The customers wanted to keep the device, but of course it worked. Returning the defective PA5 was not at all in the interest of most customers.
It would not have been rocket science to have technicians replace the defective circuit boards on site, or to make these circuit boards available to customers. Would have been cheaper than paying for the return postage and a refund for the devices.

The user @gamerpaddy has impressively shown how easy it is to provide a working solution for the affected PA5.

I find it really modest that the defective PA5s are still being sold and were not reclaimed by Topping.
It can hardly be worse.

PS: I'm actually a fan of the topping devices, because many of them are surprisingly good, despite the low prices.
But such behavior cannot be tolerated.

 

[IPunchCholla]

I have one of the still working PA5s. I have a few months left on the 2 year warranty, via APOS. At this point I am kinda hoping it will fail before then as I have no confidence in its long term longevity. Very time I hear a crackle or rustling, I immediately think it is dieing. I’m amazed at how much of my music seems to have those sounds in it. As good as it is, it is really annoying to have that anxiety intrude on my music.

 

[xaon60]

I have one of the still working PA5s. I have a few months left on the 2 year warranty, via APOS. At this point I am kinda hoping it will fail before then as I have no confidence in its long term longevity. Very time I hear a crackle or rustling, I immediately think it is dieing. I’m amazed at how much of my music seems to have those sounds in it. As good as it is, it is really annoying to have that anxiety intrude on my music.

The same for me... Still works, and I pushed the volume very hard again just now. The sound impact on my columns and in the bones, it's impressive

 

[IPunchCholla]

The same for me... Still works, and I pushed the volume very hard again just now. The sound impact on my columns and in the bones, it's impressive

I’m running it into 8 ohm speakers, and never really get above halfway on my volume control (digital - the knob is at 3 o’clock). It can play both loud and clean even with 6 dB of headroom built in to my room correction. Tough to beat at $350. Just really wish the reliability was better.

 

[iLoveCats]

Tough to beat at $350.

The amount of outrage over $350 is... outrageous.

 

[john11]

The release of the PA5 ll has been announced, but I don't think anyone has actually received the product yet.

Nope. Has been available for some time now. eBay item number:285388427931

 

[john11]

It’s an underpowered amp that sounds fine and breaks for most people

Some people compare the PA5 against a hypex purifi, difficult to believe that a tpa3255 based amp, no mater how good the implementation, can compare against a purifi