Topping A70 Pro HP & Preamp Review

[Tank81]

Can you please move it far away from your headphones?
This extrusion seems painful!

Dont worry unit is flying back to China .
Im quite sure my left driver aint what it used to be. Some recordings give me these little crackling sounds still.

 

[Veri]

Unrelated, but just had to put my galvanic isolator (HS02) on my A70 Pro as my speakers started purring when watching an F1 stream. It fixed it, kinda weird that there's no isolation on such an expensive DAC though.

What do you mean? A70 Pro is an amp, where did you put the isolator exactly? Isn't it the DAC's fault...

 

[Vantavimeow]

What do you mean? A70 Pro is an amp, where did you put the isolator exactly? Isn't it the DAC's fault...

Yeah I just noticed the typo, I did specifically reference the DAC later in post however.

 

[Sjofelumsk]

n00b Q but, I currently have my DT 1990 connected to the A70 Pro via 6.35 mm jack, and my LCD-X via 4-pin XLR

Is there any way to disable one of these outputs depending on which headphone I use?
Or mute either one?

I'm not a huge fan of re-plugging all the time, and I tend to swap between my headphones often

 

[staticV3]

I currently have my DT 1990 connected to the A70 Pro via 6.35 mm jack, and my LCD-X via 4-pin XLR

Is there any way to disable one of these outputs depending on which headphone I use?

The User Manual can be handy at times:

 

[Sjofelumsk]

I actually overlooked it, looks like the pages was stuck together. Thanks

 

[BigBeard]

how does the listening experience compare to the Topping L70? Would the A70pro fare better with my HD800?
Has anyone listened to the SMSL VMV P2?

 

[Ctom]

Are there any cheap balanced dacs that might pair well with the A70? I’m looking but only found a couple, the SMSL D-6 and the Topping D10

 

[staticV3]

Are there any cheap balanced dacs that might pair well with the A70? I’m looking but only found a couple, the SMSL D-6 and the Topping D10

SMSL M300 SE or Khadas Tone2 if you want something USB-powered (not the Tone2 Pro)

 

[Pulsarre]

Audiophonics came back to me, saying that Topping had assured them that the new batch is not subject to the "HP-DC abnormal" error.
They should send me a replacement, pre-tested, soon enough...

 

[Vantavimeow]

Audiophonics came back to me, saying that Topping had assured them that the new batch is not subject to the "HP-DC abnormal" error.
They should send me a replacement, pre-tested, soon enough...

So do topping know of faulty batches? How do we check?

 

[Pulsarre]

So do topping know of faulty batches? How do we check?

I guess they do, but this is only but a guess...
I have no more information than you at this point, sorry to disappoint !
I only have the information given to me by Audiophonics themselves.

 

[Human Bass]

The HD800 isnt much of a challenge at all. The L70 is way more than enough.

how does the listening experience compare to the Topping L70? Would the A70pro fare better with my HD800?
Has anyone listened to the SMSL VMV P2?

 

[Pulsarre]

Ok, I've got my new unit, just tested it with the DT990 250ohms (the one that crashed my last unit), tried it in both low and high gain at -1db (so extremely loudly), the amp is reacting nicely so far, no problem handling everything I throw at it yet.

Now I can enjoy without it without a problem, might have to buy a balanced dac tho, as well as a XLR cable for my Edition XS, but I wont rush things anyway.

My new unit passed through pre-testing on Audiophonic's part tho, so it might not be resolved for everyone, but I'd give them a thumb up there.

 

[Wisehybred]

Question, if I purchase a new unit how do I know i will be getting the newest version?

Ok, I've got my new unit, just tested it with the DT990 250ohms (the one that crashed my last unit), tried it in both low and high gain at -1db (so extremely loudly), the amp is reacting nicely so far, no problem handling everything I throw at it yet.

Now I can enjoy without it without a problem, might have to buy a balanced dac tho, as well as a XLR cable for my Edition XS, but I wont rush things anyway.

My new unit passed through pre-testing on Audiophonic's part tho, so it might not be resolved for everyone, but I'd give them a thumb up there.

 

[Pulsarre]

Question, if I purchase a new unit how do I know i will be getting the newest version?

I have no idea there, but if you buy at Audiophonics it should be fine... That is, if you are in EU

 

[Phony846]

I had a weird problem with updating my A70 Pro from 1.04 to 1.07. I've used my Mac before for other Topping updates with zero issues. This week on Sonoma every time I dropped the .topping firmware file on the fake topping USB drive, the LCD would say invalid firmware. This exact same process worked before. So I do the same operation on my Windows 11 PC, and viola, worked the first time. On my Mac I even re-downloaded the zip 3x and used two different unarchivers. AND I did a MD5 checksum on both my Mac and PC for the .topping file, and they matched. Weird?

 

[BigBeard]

I am worried the amp I bought a couple of weeks ago may end up with the error too. any way to induce it? They should at least let us know what batch of serial numbers are at least fixed.

 

[prevoid]

I bought my unit 1 juli. Never had a problem with it using my Audeze LCD-X with 4 pin XLR. Just today I wanted to try out my new Focal Radiance with 4.4mm. After aprox 10 seconds of music while turning the volume up at about -50 I heard a loud pop and got the HP DC error message. After this I tried the Headphones on a other headphone amp which worked just fine. (the a70n pro was connected to the d7o pro which was connected to a bluesound node with coax in external mqa dac mode.

 

[da Choge]

. . . They should at least let us know what batch of serial numbers are at least fixed.

Has Topping ever come out stating they have discovered the issue and have effected a definitive fix for it? Guess I must have missed that.