Topping A70 Pro HP & Preamp Review

[PeteL]

Let's see Topping open a manufacturing facility in NY (or any other 'business friendly low tax' state LOL), hire someone to man the phones and the other relevant staff, including accountants, HR, janitors, etc. (and pay their salaries, Social Security, possibly a 401K benefit, medical insurance, and so forth), deal with OSHA, offer a five year warranty, a 30 day money back trial, and include all of the features of the DAC 3 HGC.

As good as the Chinese product is, you can't just say, "why can't ________ (fill in the blank with a US company) offer something as good for the same dollars as a (pick your Asian) foreign company. That makes absolutely no sense.

And as far as 'performance', other than on the 'scope, how are you going to actually hear these miniscule distortion numbers? What will they mean to person in his living room?

Please don't think I'm anti-Topping, or anti-Chinese. Nothing could be farther from the truth. Just asking for a little perspective.

Topping obviously can't do all that, but they could have a North American distributor tough. The serious ones also normally have service and parts center already in place. They do marketing, etc They would save on freight, by shipping bulk. They would sell much more volume. They would have to give some margin, but I think it's the main issue with these company, not that they are necessarily less reliable, it's because when something happen you are pretty much helpless. For a folk in the western world, sending something to China is prohibitive and complicated. Their higher end lines are still affordable maybe but it's still in the pricing area that you want to buy for a long time. Iy's not 50 bucks basic electronics that you accept as disposable.

 

[BossBunos]

You are a funny guy...

It is not input, VAS and output, i.e. it is not a 3-gain structure. It is a 3 stage feedback structure. Feedback, got it?

Feedback is not required in every amp. The amount of feedback used shows how good the design actually is. The best-sounding amps are those with very little or no feedback.

What topping did here, is they just cranked the feedback to the nth degree... until they were ready to approach Amir, so that the AP plot could look amazing.

Any proof (blind testing for example) that amps without feedback sound better? Please show us evidence.

 

[Doodski]

I see the post by amir and I see the likes your post is getting but I guess I'm just to old (and im not even that old) to understand the overly sensitive community. Chi-fi (Chinese hi-fi) is just what it is. Hifi products from china. Let me emphasize on HIFI! Hifi in itself is a compliment... HIGH FIDELITY, is that not what we want? The things topping is doing are insane IMO. So please don't be (how could you be?) insulted by the term.... What a fuzz.

@ ASR we don't use the term Chi-Fi. If you don't like it then maybe this is not the appropriate website for you.

 

[AdamG]

I see the post by amir and I see the likes your post is getting but I guess I'm just to old (and im not even that old) to understand the overly sensitive community. Chi-fi (Chinese hi-fi) is just what it is. Hifi products from china. Let me emphasize on HIFI! Hifi in itself is a compliment... HIGH FIDELITY, is that not what we want? The things topping is doing are insane IMO. So please don't be (how could you be?) insulted by the term.... What a fuzz.

It’s not about what you think it means or how it comes across to you. It’s about how people and companies who produce Chinese Hi-Fi feel about this term and how it has been used as a derogatory term. If you don’t get that than please feel free to not post further about it and move along.

 

[shuppatsu]

Topping obviously can't do all that, but they could have a North American distributor tough. The serious ones also normally have service and parts center already in place. They do marketing, etc They would save on freight, by shipping bulk. They would sell much more volume. They would have to give some margin, but I think it's the main issue with these company, not that they are necessarily less reliable, it's because when something happen you are pretty much helpless. For a folk in the western world, sending something to China is prohibitive and complicated. Their higher end lines are still affordable maybe but it's still in the pricing area that you want to buy for a long time. Iy's not 50 bucks basic electronics that you accept as disposable.

Totally fair to include all that into the value proposition. Yet here I am with a broken ebike covered under warranty from a Seattle-based company that the company has refused to fix since February.

 

[ribonucleic]

Amusing myself thinking how this measures against the McIntosh MHA150 - discontinued but with limited quantities still available at 11 times the price.

Of course the Topping doesn't have blue meters.

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[ribonucleic]

So is it fair to say that we're in endgame territory here?

There are no longer any meaningful improvements that can be made to the measurements or output. All that's left is to make prettier screens, more full-featured remote controls, or other peripheral concerns.

 

[Ziroz]

I see the post by amir and I see the likes your post is getting but I guess I'm just to old (and im not even that old) to understand the overly sensitive community. Chi-fi (Chinese hi-fi) is just what it is. Hifi products from china. Let me emphasize on HIFI! Hifi in itself is a compliment... HIGH FIDELITY, is that not what we want? The things topping is doing are insane IMO. So please don't be (how could you be?) insulted by the term.... What a fuzz.

Such term seem rather derogatory since there isn't anyone referring to audio products as Jap-fi/Euro-fi/Ameri-fi because of their respective place of origin.

 

[Doodski]

Such term seem rather derogatory since there isn't anyone calling audio products Jap-fi/Euro-fi/Ameri-fi because of their respective country of origin.

Most of the time peeps using the term are racist and ranting about something negative or determining that anything from China is junk and call it Chi-Fi. So, that's why we don't use the term. This is a pretty clean website. I make some silly threads from time to time but otherwise it's pretty good. LoL.

 

[Urib]

This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping A70 Pro balanced headphone amplifier and preamplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $499.
View attachment 285097
Like its companion DAC, the D70 Pro Sabre, the A70 Pro sports the gorgeous and highly responsive display (which can be set to above or graphic VU and spectrum analyzer). While it was nice to have in the DAC, it is essential here given the extensive functionality of this amplifier. Every input and output is selectable independently and in combination. If you need more inputs, you can get the optional Ext90 extension using the compatible connector:

View attachment 285098
Nice to see trigger in/out fully standard on Topping products.

Volume control is implemented using stepped relay to provide perfect channel matching. Normally this functionality comes at a cost of slow volume control response and noise induced into the audio path. Not here. Volume control could not be more responsive with very wide range of 100 dB. While you hear the mechanical relays if you get close to the unit, I could not detect any interruption or noise in the audio path. This is a superb implementation!

Microprocessor controlled protection circuit watches over the conditions of the device and shuts it down in extreme condition. What I like about it is that it auto recovers quickly and without user intervention. Firmware input support is provided for future refinement of this functional if needed.

Note that the extensive functionality makes the device a bit harder to use. You can easily get yourself in modes where you are not getting sound and wondering why. In this case, the level display is super helpful. As is the remote which automates some settings such as gain and RCA vs XLR input. You can also create two provides and recall them using C1 and C2 switches.

There is a ton of functionality here that would take me days to test. So I made a choice to make abbreviated preamp tests and then balanced headphone output.

Topping A70 Pro Preamplifier Measurements
Let's start with balanced input and output with variable volume control:
View attachment 285100

FFT display shows no recognizable distortion spikes other than the signal generator out of my audio analyzer! We are basically bound by signal to noise ratio which sets the overall SINAD to 121 dB (6 dB better than transparency under all conditions). Switching to RCA in/out surprisingly upped the performance a bit:
View attachment 285101

Balanced mode does provide more output though:
View attachment 285102

Finally here is our SNR:
View attachment 285103

Headphone performance should be highly indicative of preamp so let's get into that.

Topping A70 Pro Headphone Amplifier Measurements
As noted, I limited my tests to XLR balanced headphone output. Let's pump 4 volts into it and adjust volume to get 4 volts out:

View attachment 285104
We get the same great performance as we did in pre-amp mode. RCA input this time did cost us a bit as it normally does:
View attachment 285359

These are superb measurements, albeit just a hair off from best there is due to lack of an ultra low gain mode that some other Topping products have:
View attachment 285106

Noise performance shows why XLR input is a bit better:
View attachment 285107

50 mv output mode delivers near top of the class performance:View attachment 285108

Frequency response is exceptionally flat:
View attachment 285109

Multitone performance is superb:
View attachment 285110

Power is just about everything in headphone amplifiers so let's see how we do there:
View attachment 285111
View attachment 285112

Wow, we have over 8 watts driving dual channels simultaneously at 32 ohm! Even low gain with its superbly low noise delivers 2 watts.

Changing the load from 600 ohm down to punishing 12 ohm shows superb ability to hold up the output voltage and hence keep delivering more and more power:
View attachment 285113

This is in entirely different class than any headphone amplifier I have tested!

I usually don't run the channel matching test with R2R relay volume controls but ran it here to show the superb implementation:
View attachment 285114

The dashed blue line shows deviation between the two channels. As you see, all the way down to the limit of -100 dB it remains at 0. Absolutely great!

Topping A70 Pro Headphone Listening Tests
I started testing my with everyday, low impedance and difficult to drive Dan Clark Stealth headphone. Even in low gain the A70 Pro drove these to almost ear bleeding levels and superb dynamics. Switching to high gains provided essentially infinite headroom and extra volume. Try as I might, I could not dare going past -15 dB. With other headphone amps, I could hear distortion at the maximum volume (or not enough volume). Both of those limits are long, long gone with the A70 Pro. You have so much power that any distortion or problems are clearly that of the headphone.

Switching for Sennheiser HD650 once again showed the incredible power reserves of the A70 Pro, allowing these headphones to shine with incredible detail and dynamics. There was no hint of any background noise and as noted, volume control was smooth, responsive and delight to adjust.

Conclusions
With A70 Pro, Topping pushes boundaries on multiple fronts. The device is gorgeous to look at, and informative and highly responsive to use. Power is increased to where it needs to be to drive even the most difficult to drive headphone as if it is a walk in the park. Measured performance is state of the art providing assurance of transparency. Subjective testing results couldn't be better. For a person who pushes amps to their max to see and hear the limits, I was out of a job with A70 Pro! There is not a negative here of any sort or shape. Yes, $499 is the price to pay. I suggest saving up money until you can afford to buy one if you are a serious headphone listener.

It is my pleasure to recommend the Topping A70 Pro. I am not sure how anything better can be designed but I am sure Topping will keep working at it!

------------
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/

Thanks for another great review of Topping gear. I am abig fan of them. But why they don't provide a decent regular power amplifiers either stereo or monoblocks to support their great pre amps and dacs? I can't understand this! They offer a lot of desktop integrated options but without remote.... really strange.

 

[Doodski]

Thanks for another great review of Topping gear. I am abig fan of them. But why they don't provide a decent regular power amplifiers either stereo or monoblocks to support their great pre amps and dacs? I can't understand this! They offer a lot of desktop integrated options but without remote.... really strange.

It's a small company with limited resources and can't do everything at once. It's surprising they have the selection they do have.

 

[ObjectiveSubjectivist]

What about crosstalk graph?

 

[Ein]

Definitely if driven by a DAC with more performance than that 84 SINAD.

The Fulla2 for example which has slightly more performance (in SINAD) and the Modi2 Multibit (around the same SINAD) vs the Jot was hugely different in terms of DAC output vs a SMSL M8 back in the day. The Topping DX7 definitely brought about a large difference at 107 SINAD (on the "new/current" format of testing). Any song that has things like Cymbals or Violin or even higher piano notes sounded muffled or would "clip" on the lower SINAD parts.
Electronic music often has wide frequency and dynamic ranges so it becomes the most apparent that the music sounds "muffled" or closed off with specific parts of specific songs easier to point out.
So part of how much of a difference you will hear does depend on what music you listen to. I found that like Mainstream rap (which I don't listen to really anymore) has a very poor dynamic range and its much harder to tell a difference between lower end products and SOTA products.

Mhm, source / music quality factor. But also good AMP sounds nice, ultra good (A70P) sounds same. No difference here IMO. When you have for example Topping A90 or DX7P you hear nothing less than A70P. OK, you have nice display here and useful ext. Numbers (fantastic) above our abilities.

 

[Blashyrkh]

Maybe due to low inputs impedance, mismatch with DAC

A70Pro should be much more flexible

I'll wait till Black Friday - not just for sale but for issues to be fixed

sorry but I think you are too obsessed with this input impedance

Sounds kinda veiled. Increasing the volume did not produce the joy I had when increasing volume of ifi zen can, schiit asgard 3 or smsl sp400 which is kinda disappointing considering the price.

This is actually what I feel with the L70 on some extent, but not compared to other similar products, instead compared to "better" gear that doesn't have switching power supply.
The usual problem with these, is that dynmics may suffer and at the end you get a "flatter sound" in complex passages

SMSL for example seems to have more attention for the PS, even if not using anything different from topping. The DO300 does have a much better one if compared to the L70 Velvet

 

[Nango]

Topping obviously can't do all that, but they could have a North American distributor tough.

No, in real they can't. Every other Mfr under this distributor would leave. It is like it is.

 

[Blashyrkh]

by the way, is there a teardown pic or video somwhere?

 

[BDWoody]

instead compared to "better" gear that doesn't have switching power supply.
The usual problem with these, is that dynmics may suffer and at the end you get a "flatter sound" in complex passages

Any evidence for that, or just going with the common belief?

 

[Matias]

I also disagree with the Chi-Fi stigma in ASR but I let it go and follow their rules. They are the hosts, we are the guests, so we abide to their rules in their house, right?

 

[Ein]

But I dont know if its better the A90D or A70pro from PREamp audio perspective. Mmmmhhhh for me the A90D is still better as preamp, what do you think? Thanks

I have A90 and I'm very happy about this. Better? Similar. SQ same (100%), display + (A70pro).

 

[Ein]

Test tracks I was using were as follows: Gogo Penquin's new album Everything is Going to Be OK - Tracks - You're Stronger than you Think & Saturnine, Fleetwood Mac Rumors Album - track - Dreams, Lana Del Rey - Album: Norman Fucking Rockwell - Tracks - Doin' Time and Bartender, Michael Kiwanuka - Album - Love & Hate Album - Track Love & Hate, Massive Attack - Album Mezzanine - Track- Angel, Chet Baker - The Italian Sessions - Track - Well, You Needn't, The Danish String Quartet - Album Last Leaf - Track AE Romeser.

I listen to a whole variety of genres from alternative pop/rock, Electronic, Alternative Dance, Classic Jazz, and Classical music.

All these tracks seem to be well recorded. Some have more of a dynamic range than others. It's an interesting observation on the Jot1 bottlenecking the 2 DACs due to its low SINAD. Only way to see if there is any difference would be able to do some AB blind tests between the Jot1 and another Headphone Amp. See if I am able to pick out any dynamics/clarity between the 2.

Could also just being my hearing at age 48.

Hehe, yes, yes you say that... crucial factor - age factor. Me, 47, and hear less than more. Remember that. If 70+ for example you know (hear) nothing Jon Snow ;-)