Topping A50 III Headphone Amp Review

[shuppatsu]

I think I’d prefer the L30 II for $150 or the L50 for $170 for a balanced input setup. SE power is preferable to me for a desktop setup. I also prefer a 3-way switch for gain over a button, and a preamp output instead of none.

I’m not sure what the A50III brings to the table other than a trigger and some marginal efficiency gains. I guess maybe a smaller wall wart too?

 

[PenguinMusic]

Hi,

As usual, Topping measurements are stellar.
But am I the only one having some problems keeping up with the release of their products ?

And Topping is the perfect proof that I do not like perfection
I have owned several Topping headphones amp.
Bought them after reading these reviews from Amirm...
Never liked the sound.
Conclusion : I like "coloured" sound better than "neutral" sound.
So be it !

 

[Music1969]

Looks the goods, thanks for testing.

Pics;

View attachment 481080

View attachment 481082


JSmith

no heat sink?

 

[NeverBetter]

no heat sink?

I'm running Hifiman Organics through my A50iii on high setting and the unit doesn't get hot or warm. My Topping L30ii I run Hifiman Nanos through on High setting and it gets noticeably warm.

 

[solderdude]

Can it be as recommended as Topping l30 ii and Topping L50 , @solderdude

I see no reason not to recommend it when one is looking for technical performance, connectivity, ergonomics and looks matching this particular device and are in need of an headphone amplifier..
Can't say anything about longevity and problems it may or may not have (in the future).
This one is not using the TPA6120A but a newer chip THS6182 which is intended to be used in the 100MHz range (full range ADSL distribution driver).
In the amp it will certainly have a heatsink (can source up to 0.6A and can handle up to +/-16V power supply rails).
The idle current of the chip can be set very low and thus remain cool.
The slew-rate is extremely fast 450V/μs.

Obviously it also performs well in the audible range

 

[amirm]

How does the inside look? In terms of heat sink / encapsulated parts ?

I did not open but felt the bottom and top after severe stress testing and they were room temp. The protection circuits are computer controlled and triggered in stress testing.

 

[Bleib]

It's the same price as the new Fosi ZH3, but I think this Topping tops it in virtually all measured aspects? Amazing.

Perhaps not a fair comparison, ZH3 also includes a DAC, remote etc
Although I'd say most would do fine with even weaker amps

 

[holbob]

As always, Caveat emptor on Topping products. It is impossible to check long term reliability on a test. Measured performance, as always, is as good as it gets. Do your research and make your choice.

 

[Roland68]

As always, Caveat emptor on Topping products. It is impossible to check long term reliability on a test. Measured performance, as always, is as good as it gets. Do your research and make your choice.

You're referring to a handful of products that had a problem with the potting compound and the modules encapsulated with it, and the first L30, which had an ESD issue with 3-5 units. Topping replaced both the L30 and the PA5, and these problems haven't recurred in any of the newer models.
The failure rates for the other devices are as low or lower than those of other manufacturers.

 

[AudioSceptic]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping A50III balanced headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US$199.
View attachment 480983
The A50 III is solidly built and is about as thin as you want it to be. User interface is simple: short press of the power button cycles through three separate gain settings. Both 1/4 unblanaced and 4.4mm "balanced" (really differential) headphone jacks are provided. Volume control is purely analog. A very small external switching power supply is provided:

View attachment 480984
Nice to see universal inclusion of trigger automation in Topping products. The toggle switch is easy to find by feel so not an issue for it being on the back as the single control.

Balanced is provided through 1/4 jacks. You can either get an adapter from XLR or do as I have: use a cable that is 1/4 at one end of XLR at the other. They are quite common and cheap.

Topping A50 III Measurements
I started with balanced input and output:
View attachment 480985
While excellent with incredibly low distortion, results are still below the standard Topping has set. So I tested unbalanced input/output:
View attachment 480986
Distortion is now stunningly low at -145 dB! Overall noise has gone down even though we now have a tiny bit of mains noise. The new SINAD places the A50 III shoulder to shoulder with other state of the art headphone amplifiers:
View attachment 480987

Per company spec, you can achieve the above results with either balanced or unbalanced inputs. It is the balanced output which has slightly lower performance in exchange for a lot more power.

Noise performance with same unbalanced in and out is superb:
View attachment 480988

Indeed, at 50 mv output, it tops our charts:
View attachment 480989

If you have a super sensitive IEM, this is the headphone amp for you!

Frequency response is exceptionally wide and flat:
View attachment 480990

There is good bit of exceptionally clean power available using 1/4 unbalanced output:
View attachment 480992
Interestingly, the medium gain has better performance than low gain. Balanced output as mentioned, brings more power but at slightly penalty of objective performance:
View attachment 480993

Same story holds for 32 ohm load:
View attachment 480995
View attachment 480996
Protection circuit kicked in when using balanced output, shutting the unit down. In this mode, the amp doesn't want to clip which made my power sweep test vs impedance difficult. So I ran it with unbalanced output:
View attachment 480998

Distortion increases above 1 volt which you can remedy by using balanced output.

Channel balance is excellent:
View attachment 480999
Conclusions
Topping yet again meets the very high standard we expect from the company in A50 III: Budget prices with state of the art performance! There is a bit of trade off with balanced mode where you get more power but also a bit more noise. But if you need the power, the noise will not be material since the headphone is insensitive to it anyway.

It is my pleasure to recommend the Topping A50 III.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.

Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/

Why would you use twin ¼" sockets for balanced instead of XLR? Is it just for better packaging in the device?

 

[Sokel]

Why would you use twin ¼" sockets for balanced instead of XLR? Is it just for better packaging in the device?

Way too small (2.6 cm) to fit them.

 

[Roland68]

Why would you use twin ¼" sockets for balanced instead of XLR? Is it just for better packaging in the device?

Yes, due to space constraints; two XLRs wouldn't fit.
Personally, I'd prefer mini XLRs, too, but they're more expensive, and balanced connections via 3-pin jacks are very common, even in pro audio.

 

[Sokel]

Yes, due to space constraints; two XLRs wouldn't fit.
Personally, I'd prefer mini XLRs, too, but they're more expensive, and balanced connections via 3-pin jacks are very common, even in pro audio.

XLR are around 3 cm usually.
MiniXLR would be way nicer and most importantly they would relieve the strain from PCB (if properly put, bolted to the chassis that is) and would make a clean hot connection as hot and cold don't need to short to ground at hot plugs.

 

[peng]

Sorry to say it every time, why don't S.M.S.L., Topping, Fosi listen??????? Slow down on piling up 2 channel devices, think subwoofers, launch 3,4,5 channel devices, sell them at higher enough prices and make more profits, please!! Yes we all know you guys can made great DACs that measure exceptionally well, there is no need to prove that point anymore, it is time to focus more, just a little more, or potential customers who have been wanting to do 2.2 with room correction possibility, as we also all know, bass performance is a big part of hi enjoyment, not just 120 dB SINAD.

May be hopefully the newer comers like WiiM would listen.

 

[welwynnick]

This is excellent performance, but don't forget the L30 II which managed 100dB @ 50mV:

I think that test was wrong and I took it out of the ranking for that reason.

It's certainly a conspicuous outlier.
Only thing is, if a test isn't done quite right, you generally get a worse result.
Yet here is a test with a better result. So is that result wrong at all?
Topping publish a lot of specs and test results, and they're invariably very good, perhaps almost too good to believe?
I've studied them closely, and I think what they do, especially with HPAs & preamps, is use the most favourable, perhaps unrealistic, test scenario possible.
That means using high input, high output, high load impedance, low gain, low bandwidth, good cables & connectors, selected hardware, that sort of thing.
So the results are as good as they can possibly be, but I do think they're genuine and honest results.
For most of their HPAs they claim around 0.8µV noise in low or medium gain, when AP measured.
(They also claim as little as 0.3µV noise, when measured using an LNA in front of the AP, which might seem cheating, but I think the results are still genuine. Nonetheless, they never use use this noise measurement to calculate SNR / DNR - which would be even better - they only use the AP results for that).
The IEM / SNR@50mV test seems to show the real noise floor better than the 2V or 4V test, presumably because the analyser DNR is less of a limitation.
Now, the L30 II measured 100dB @ 50mV, which makes the maths easy. The noise floor there is 0.05V/10exp(100/20) = 0.5µV.
That's actually slightly higher than Topping's claim for the LNA test.
Therefore I don't think it's a bad result. It's probably just the result of an unusual combination of low gain and high input level.
L7 Audiolab got some similarly consistent results (L30, L70) as well.
I've been studying this for a bit - do feel free to tell me to get a life..........

 

[Sokel]

Sorry to say it every time, why don't S.M.S.L., Topping, Fosi listen??????? Slow down on piling up 2 channel devices, think subwoofers, launch 3,4,5 channel devices, sell them at higher enough prices and make more profits, please!! Yes we all know you guys can made great DACs that measure exceptionally well, there is no need to prove that point anymore, it is time to focus more, just a little more, or potential customers who have been wanting to do 2.2 with room correction possibility, as we also all know, bass performance is a big part of hi enjoyment, not just 120 dB SINAD.

May be hopefully the newer comers like WiiM would listen.

2.2, 2.1, RC, etc are stuff that demand rock-solid software base and support.
They also demand safety features as not configurable hard limiters so levels are solid, revert to mute if in doubt, etc.

Now, take a look at DX5II thread and tell me if you trust them to do such. Even miniDSP struggles with stuff sometimes and they have decades of experience.

 

[Power Pop 23]

Sorry to say it every time, why don't S.M.S.L., Topping, Fosi listen??????? Slow down on piling up 2 channel devices, think subwoofers, launch 3,4,5 channel devices, sell them at higher enough prices and make more profits, please!! Yes we all know you guys can made great DACs that measure exceptionally well, there is no need to prove that point anymore, it is time to focus more, just a little more, or potential customers who have been wanting to do 2.2 with room correction possibility, as we also all know, bass performance is a big part of hi enjoyment, not just 120 dB SINAD.

May be hopefully the newer comers like WiiM would listen.

Agreed.

I would prefer WiiM develop direct competitors to Topping, SMSL, and Fosi Audio because WiiM seems to devote more time and money for support of software and updates to firmware for their hardware.

 

[Ajax]

Sorry to say it every time, why don't S.M.S.L., Topping, Fosi listen??????? Slow down on piling up 2 channel devices, think subwoofers, launch 3,4,5 channel devices, sell them at higher enough prices and make more profits, please!! Yes we all know you guys can made great DACs that measure exceptionally well, there is no need to prove that point anymore, it is time to focus more, just a little more, or potential customers who have been wanting to do 2.2 with room correction possibility, as we also all know, bass performance is a big part of hi enjoyment, not just 120 dB SINAD.

May be hopefully the newer comers like WiiM would listen.

Hi Peng,

I suggest you check out the WIIM Ultra range, has a great App that covers room correction and sub management really well.

WiiM Ultra Streamer Preamp Review

This is a review and detailed measurements of the WiiM Ultra network streamer, DAC, phono stage and preamplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $329. Physical attribute are modern and attractive enough. Alas, I can't say the same thing about the graphical interface. Icons seem...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[welwynnick]

Sorry to say it every time, why don't S.M.S.L., Topping, Fosi listen??????? Slow down on piling up 2 channel devices, think subwoofers, launch 3,4,5 channel devices, sell them at higher enough prices and make more profits, please!! Yes we all know you guys can made great DACs that measure exceptionally well, there is no need to prove that point anymore, it is time to focus more, just a little more, or potential customers who have been wanting to do 2.2 with room correction possibility, as we also all know, bass performance is a big part of hi enjoyment, not just 120 dB SINAD.

I agree, but I think that would be a job for a DAC, rather than an HPA like the A50 iii, as the crossover (and any EQ) can be done in DSP, upstream of the conversion.

 

[Ajax]

In the old analogue world this unit would have a place as SOTA, however, in the digital world it will always need a DAC so IMO the DX5II makes more sense, less clutter on your desk and a much better buy for another $100.

Topping DX5II Balanced DAC and Headphone Amp Review

This is a review, listening tests and detailed measurements of the Topping DX5 II Smart DAC and balanced headphone amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $299. The DX5II is beautiful to look at especially due to its very high contrast and bright display. Love the extra buttons...

www.audiosciencereview.com