Topping A70 Pro HP & Preamp Review

[Trell]

Its rapdily approaching the same level as mobile phones (they're all you need). They wax lyrical about the next identical slab which has simply slotted a new chip in and altered the bezel thickness by a mm and marginally tweaked the camera.

I can see this foretells the possibility of a peq capability but in that case why not wait unless you absolutely need the DAC now as V2 will be here in 6 months time.

This is a desktop headphone amplifier.

 

[nonnyno]

This is a desktop headphone amplifier.

No!!! really.

My point is the differences are so marginal now that the reviews are starting to read the same way. I like the case/display/outputs etc. on this one because I wont hear the difference. If you look at the smsl do200 and 300 you practically can't tell the difference. Perhaps Topping et al could turn their focus on headphones instead and improve those in the same way. I think the d70 pro/L70 pro look great. I might even buy but I cant help feeling i'll be leaping prematurely as they might just bring out another with a peq inbuilt in the next 6 months. Perhaps they can feed some of this tech into the single box solutions like the dx7 pro+ for an end game single box machine.

 

[GDTRFB]

Perhaps an Ext70 on the horizon to match the design aesthetic?

 

[Trell]

No!!! really.

My point is the differences are so marginal now that the reviews are starting to read the same way. I like the case/display/outputs etc. on this one because I wont hear the difference. If you look at the smsl do200 and 300 you practically can't tell the difference. Perhaps Topping et al could turn their focus on headphones instead and improve those in the same way. I think the d70 pro/L70 pro look great. I might even buy but I cant help feeling i'll be leaping prematurely as they might just bring out another with a peq inbuilt in the next 6 months. Perhaps they can feed some of this tech into the single box solutions like the dx7 pro+ for an end game single box machine.

I never claimed there is any differences in sound quality, apart from applying DSP or make mistakes in the implementation of the product.

Report back if you find any post of mine saying otherwise.

 

[nonnyno]

I never claimed there is any differences in sound quality, apart from applying DSP or make mistakes in the implementation of the product.

Report back if you find any post of mine saying otherwise.

No I never claimed you did, but you said this was an amplifier (as in not a phone) and missed the point of what I was saying. I was drawing a parrallel between the development level of these devices and mobile phones. The manufacturers are eaking out largely pointless improvements and the reviewers are having to wax lyrical about nothing. It's not that these aren't impressive devices. It's that the differentiation simply isn't there anymore. They need to focus more now on reliability, cosmetics and features like peq to make them interesting or start focussing on another area where there is room for improvement like headphones.

 

[Trell]

No I never claimed you did, but you said this was an amplifier (as in not a phone) and missed the point of what I was saying. I was drawing a parrallel between the development level of these devices and mobile phones. The manufacturers are eaking out largely pointless improvements and the reviewers are having to wax lyrical about nothing. It's not that these aren't impressive devices. It's that the differentiation simply isn't there anymore. They need to focus more now on reliability, cosmetics and features like peq to make them interesting or start focussing on another area where there is room for improvement like headphones.

I think I got the gist of your post that I replied to, but you, in my opinion, missed the improvements that Topping has done with this release. Instead of me reposting that, please look back at my posts today in this thread. That does not mean that Topping does not has to work on the percieved QC issues, which is real.

I do own the RME ADI-2 DAC FS as well as the RME Fireface UCX II, as I've written in many of my posts.

 

[unpluggged]

How the D70 Pro/A70 Pro stack ($1100) is supposed to compete with the RME ADI-2 DAC ($1000)?

 

[enricoclaudio]

Let's see Benchmark give us this performance for $500.

Sure, not even close in performance but let's see which one hold its value in the long term.....

 

[nonnyno]

I think I got the gist of your post that I replied to, but you, in my opinion, missed the improvements that Topping has done with this release. Instead of me reposting that, please look back at my posts today in this thread. That does not mean that Topping does not has to work on the percieved QC issues, which is real.

I do own the RME ADI-2 DAC FS as well as the RME Fireface UCX II, as I've written in many of my posts

I dont know anything about their QC issues - it's not that I don't believe you, I just haven't experienced any myself yet - perhaps i've been lucky. I must confess I do wonder if their challenging release schedules contribute to issues. Certainly all manufacturers should focus on QC - shoddy equipment is shoddy equipment.

 

[nagster]

In their marketing Topping claims 106db for 50mv. 93db is quite a gap from that, what happened?

The apx555 has an analyzer residual noise of about 0.6μVrms even at A-wt, so it is not possible to accurately measure the noise performance of recent high-performance products as it is.
Even so, amirm seems to measure noise by directly connecting the DUT to the input of the AP. I think it's because I want to make it the same as the past measurement conditions.

WolfX700 Measurement of Topping A90 Headphone Amp

Why don't you measure the amplifier with real headphone load instead of resistive load? You can read this article. https://benchmarkmedia.com/blogs/application_notes/12838141-headphone-amplifiers-part-1 You could search this forum to find out that this is a useless endeavour...

www.audiosciencereview.com

 

[nagster]

That doesn't look like 16-17W at 16 ohm? I mean we have infinite power anyways, but the specs are far off of this. Why does the specs say this:

17000mW x 2 @16 Ohms THD+N<0.1%
12600mW x 2 @32 Ohms THD+N<0.1%
6000mW x 2 @64 Ohms THD+N<0.1%
1370mW x 2 @300 Ohms THD+N<0.1%
670mW x 2 @600 Ohms THD+N<0.1%

The TOPPING specification says that THD+N is 0.1%, but the staticV3 graph says "clipping: knee", so it seems to be around 0.0003%.

 

[nonnyno]

Sure, not even close in performance but let's see which one hold its value in the long term.....

Holding value is a nefarious concept. How much money have you dropped on it first. How much money have you lost on it? In th emeantime you've got a device which may not even be close performance wise.

 

[Trell]

I dont know anything about their QC issues - it's not that I don't believe you, I just haven't experienced any myself yet - perhaps i've been lucky. I must confess I do wonder if their challenging release schedules contribute to issues. Certainly all manufacturers should focus on QC - shoddy equipment is shoddy equipment.

On this forum there is a number of posts about Topping QC, and with them having so many new releases of products, that is a credible claim to make against them. Now they, Topping, are addressing very poor manuals and have a nice made progress to GUI on their newly released product.

As of QC, we'll see.

 

[Trell]

Holding value is a nefarious concept. How much money have you dropped on it first. How much money have you lost on it? In th emeantime you've got a device which may not even be close performance wise.

I'm pretty sure that you misunderstood @enricoclaudio post.

 

[nonnyno]

On this forum there is a number of posts about Topping QC, and with them having so many new releases of products, that is a credible claim to make against them. Now they, Topping, are addressing very poor manuals and have a nice made progress to GUI on their newly released product.

As of QC, we'll see.

Like I said i just haven't experienced any issues - perhaps I have that to look forward to but I hope not. Hopefully any systemic problems have been largely resolved and they'll improve anyway.

 

[nonnyno]

I'm pretty sure that you misunderstood @enricoclaudio post.

Pretty sure I didn't - it was a simple post. He implied that the Benchmark would hold more of its value. Its second hand value may be higher but I suspect the depreciation cost will be far higher e.g. actual money lost.

 

[oozlum]

@amirm ,

Is RCA input really the same compared to XLR in ‘Topping A70 Pro Headphone Amplifier Measurements’ section of your review?

 

[PeteL]

How the D70 Pro/A70 Pro stack ($1100) is supposed to compete with the RME ADI-2 DAC ($1000)?

Mainly in available power.

 

[PeteL]

Let's see Benchmark give us this performance for $500.

Their HPA4 is 3k.

 

[unpluggged]

Mainly in available power.

It outputs 19.5 V on balanced in high gain mode (input sensitivity of 2 V + 19.8 dB of gain) or about 20 V in low gain mode (but you need to feed it with a 10 V signal in this case). The RME does the same (+22 dBu on SE and +28 dBu on balanced in high gain mode). Besides, the 10 V SE output is already more than enough. The RME is current-limited with lower loads, though, but this still does not convince me.