Poll for Topping PA5 owners only please.

[FeliZ]

Hey ASR Community,

I am the owner of 2 x PA5 (1st Gen).

One is heavily used and the other one was used for a couple of hours.

I measured both with the same speaker and the heavy used one has much Higher K2 and K3 distortion measurements.
(Also audible)

I can attach a picture if you want.

Is the Chip slowly dying and what can i do about it?

 

[FeliZ]

Hey ASR Community,

I am the owner of 2 x PA5 (1st Gen).

One is heavily used and the other one was used for a couple of hours.

I measured both with the same speaker and the heavy used one has much Higher K2 and K3 distortion measurements.
(Also audible)

I can attach a picture if you want.

Is the Chip slowly dying and what can i do about it?

Edit:
Topping will send me an replacement unit. Thank you for the help.
Can´t complain now, hopefully the other one will survive =)

 

[xaxxon]

If I paid $2,000 for the PA5, I'd be pretty annoyed. At around $300,, while I'm not thrilled by the likely possibility of having to replace it so soon, it's totally acceptable to me. I've purchased nearly a dozen products from Gustard, S.M.S.L., Topping, Khadas, and other similar companies since joining ASR. Besides some frustrating (but addressable) firmware problems with a couple of them, I've had no failures or other major issues. Given the low prices, I cheerfully accept the risk vs paying 3x to 10x as much for similar products made in the US or EU.

In this world, you rarely get more than you pay for. The saying goes, "Price, Performance, Reliability. Choose two."

I'm getting SOTA performance for little money. There's got to be a compromise somewhere, and I'm okay with that. Folks who are not should avoid brands like like these.

that's a HUGE assumption that $300 shouldn't buy you a completely usable amplifier. It should. Paying MORE than required shouldn't get you more. Paying less than required is a problem but just because some people want to charge too much doesn't mean less is too little.

 

[ampguy]

My original PA5 is now over 3.5 years old and sounds like new. I’ve never believed all would fail, and I think many simply did not heed Toppings advice to used balanced ins, thus used cheap se or non TRS balanced ins, cranking the volume to where the duty cycle was beyond what Topping designed for, thus the relatively high failures.

 

[xaxxon]

My original PA5 is now over 3.5 years old and sounds like new. I’ve never believed all would fail, and I think many simply did not heed Toppings advice to used balanced ins, thus used cheap se or non TRS balanced ins, cranking the volume to where the duty cycle was beyond what Topping designed for, thus the relatively high failures.

mine died. i used balanced ins. Besides, don't release gear with features that break it if you use it.

 

[Power Pop 23]

My original PA5 is now over 3.5 years old and sounds like new. I’ve never believed all would fail, and I think many simply did not heed Toppings advice to used balanced ins, thus used cheap se or non TRS balanced ins, cranking the volume to where the duty cycle was beyond what Topping designed for, thus the relatively high failures.

I ascribe the relatively high failure rate of the PA5 to an attempt by Topping Audio to obscure the design from the competition rather than select owners using the the SE input jacks instead of the TRS jacks.

Topping PA5 fix - D01 Module Replacement for everyone

Ive been working on the PA5 for a while now after mine died suddently, like many others https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/poll-for-topping-pa5-owners-only-please.33293/ Most of the PA5 units develop a crackling, hissing or just go a little silent or completely dead on...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[Holmz]

I ascribe the relatively high failure rate of the PA5 to an attempt by Topping Audio to obscure the design from the competition rather than select owners using the the SE input jacks instead of the TRS jacks.

Topping PA5 fix - D01 Module Replacement for everyone

Ive been working on the PA5 for a while now after mine died suddently, like many others https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/poll-for-topping-pa5-owners-only-please.33293/ Most of the PA5 units develop a crackling, hissing or just go a little silent or completely dead on...

www.audiosciencereview.com

They could have really hurt the competition if the competition had similar failure rates.

 

[Laserjock]

I ascribe the relatively high failure rate of the PA5 to an attempt by Topping Audio to obscure the design from the competition rather than select owners using the the SE input jacks instead of the TRS jacks.

Topping PA5 fix - D01 Module Replacement for everyone

Ive been working on the PA5 for a while now after mine died suddently, like many others https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/poll-for-topping-pa5-owners-only-please.33293/ Most of the PA5 units develop a crackling, hissing or just go a little silent or completely dead on...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The original PA5 is dual input TRS Balanced inputs. SE came in the second generation.

 

[Toku]

I ascribe the relatively high failure rate of the PA5 to an attempt by Topping Audio to obscure the design from the competition rather than select owners using the the SE input jacks instead of the TRS jacks.

Topping PA5 fix - D01 Module Replacement for everyone

Ive been working on the PA5 for a while now after mine died suddently, like many others https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/poll-for-topping-pa5-owners-only-please.33293/ Most of the PA5 units develop a crackling, hissing or just go a little silent or completely dead on...

www.audiosciencereview.com

The problem with PA5 is that the input op-amp circuit is modularized to prevent copying, which causes malfunction due to heat. Topping seems to have adopted this as the best way to prevent copying, but it seems that they were not mature enough to consider the heat generation issue.

 

[mocenigo]

The problem with PA5 is that the input op-amp circuit is modularized to prevent copying, which causes malfunction due to heat. Topping seems to have adopted this as the best way to prevent copying, but it seems that they were not mature enough to consider the heat generation issue.

This is a type of problem that also FM Acoustics has had.

 

[silicon14]

My original PA5 is now over 3.5 years old and sounds like new. I’ve never believed all would fail, and I think many simply did not heed Toppings advice to used balanced ins, thus used cheap se or non TRS balanced ins, cranking the volume to where the duty cycle was beyond what Topping designed for, thus the relatively high failures.

Knock on wood, mine is still going strong as well. I got it in March, 2022. I used it a lot for the first year or so. Recently it only gets light use, around a couple of hours a week. I have a Topping E50 and iFi Audio Zen Phono Preamp connected to it, both balanced. It's also not in an enclosure and I rarely listen with the volume knob past 12 o'clock so it doesn't even get warm.