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Topping B100 Amplifier Review

Rate this amplifier:

  • 1. Poor (headless panther)

    Votes: 23 5.8%
  • 2. Not terrible (postman panther)

    Votes: 22 5.6%
  • 3. Fine (happy panther)

    Votes: 77 19.5%
  • 4. Great (golfing panther)

    Votes: 272 69.0%

  • Total voters
    394

amirm

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This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping B100 "monoblock" amplifier. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $299.
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced review.jpg

I was surprised by the desktop/low profile of the amplifier. I expected something a lot taller/chunkier especially since this is a class B amplifier and not class D. Power supply is of course external:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced back panel power supply review.jpg

Nice to see balanced input, three gain settings and trigger input.

The front panel power button is touch sensitive. You have to learn to just touch and remove your finger for it to power on. When it goes into protection, you have to hold it until error codes disappear and then touch again for powering up.

A wish for a follow up version is a series of tall color LED bars going from left to right for visual enjoyment. Kind of like this:

open-uri20160601-21382-bm78d4.jpg


If you are not familiar with my power amplifier audio measurements, please watch this tutorial:


Topping B100 Amplifier Measurements
Let's start with balanced input at low gain:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced low gain measurement.png

Distortion is vanishingly low at -141 dB. Power supply spikes are taller than it actually. So we are left with noise which is limited by the analyzer. Still, the B100 manages to grab the top spot in our rankings:
Best Hifi amplifier review.png

I know, there is no gain there so let's go up to medium gain:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced medium gain measurement.png

Performance is essentially the same as we again, limited by analyzer inherent noise. This requires a bit higher than 4.5 volt to reach max power. So let's test high gain:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced high gain measurement.png

Now we see a bit more noise limiting SINAD. But even then, we are better than threshold of hearing.

I hope you are using this amplifier with balanced connection but in case you are not, here are the measurements using RCA at medium and high gains (latter needs less than 1 volt for full power):

Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier RCA Medium Gain power into 4 ohm load measurement.png


Edit: this should say high gain, not low:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier RCA High Gain power into 4 ohm load measurement.png


Check out this stunning performance in noise department at 5 watts and max power:
Topping B100 5 Watt SNR Measurement.png

Topping B100 5 Watt SNR at max power Measurement.png


From here on I will stay with medium gain using XLR balanced input.
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced medium gain Multitone measurement.png


We can tell from above graph that there is no increase in distortion at higher frequencies. As a result, our 19+20 kHz result remains excellent as well:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced 19 20 kHz intermodulation distortion measurement.png


Not being a class D amplifier, there is no concern regarding load dependency (an issue with some class D amps):
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced high gain frequency response measurement.png


The protection circuit is aggressive with 4 ohm load, not allowing the amplifier to go into clipping:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced power into 4 ohm load measurement.png

This means that if you hear any distortion, it is somewhere else and not in the power amplifier. I tried to measure power at 1% THD but the protection circuit would not allow it. THD would remain incredibly low and then shut down if I increased input voltage. So 86 watts is what you get for max and peak power. Company spec is 83 watts which is an honest assessment. They do spec 100 watts at < 1% THD which I probably could achieve if I tried harder.

Let's not how the B100 blows the competition out of water with respect to noise level. It was so low that I had to move the graph up to see its results above! The analyzer noise actually takes over around 30 watts as it changes its gain to accommodate higher voltage (the step up).

8 Ohm measurement does allow clipping due to lower currents required:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced power into 8 ohm load measurement.png


Once again we see the massive gap in noise and distortion vs our reference blue line. We are talking 25 dB!

Even more amazing is the fact that B100 maintains its superlative performance at all frequencies, down to 20 Hz!
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced power into 4 ohm load vs frequency measurement.png


Amplifier is ready on power up although I did overserve a tiny improvement after a few minutes:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced warm up measurement.png


The amplifier only got modestly warm after the power testing:

Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced thermal heat top measurement.jpg


P.S. I don't have PowerCube measurements for you due to aforementioned aggressive protection circuit, not allowing me to measure peak power.

Edit: forgot the power on/off noise:
Topping B100 Monoblock amplifier balanced power on off noise measurement.png


EDIT 2: Power Consumption
Standby power consumption is around 1.5 watt. Powered on but not playing, 9.1 watt.

Conclusions
Topping is clearly its own competition, constantly pushing the envelop in noise and distortion. Even when you get used to them delivering on these fronts, they come up with this amplifier where test after test shows excellence in engineering and utmost dedication to highest levels of fidelity. All of this comes in a compact enclosure with a reasonable cost. I have no choice but to bow to their mission and abilities.

It is my absolute pleasure to recommend the Topping B100 monolock amplifier.

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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/
 
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Curiosity for me is, is it possible to gain more output power with a bigger PSU? Obviously the heat and protection would be limiting factor. Still quite a powerful monoblock.
 
Amir,

Thanks for another Review. You really don’t know what a weekend is do you? :p

Still loving the Thermal Imaging and data. Keep that coming Sir. :cool:
 
Two of my least favorite things in an amplifier combined: monoblock and external PSU
And it barely has enough power to drive some bookshelves. Well, one. Not exactly sure who this product is aimed at.
 
Plenty of power for many speakers. End game cleanliness for sure.
Hope to see B200 tested soon, although that goes a bit above my budget
 
If Topping made an integrated stereo amplifier with these blocks and a power supply in the case and with enough analog and digital inputs, then they would have the best amplifier on the market...
 
Excellent little amp, I am impressed. Bravo, Topping!

For 2 x 300 = 600 USD for the mono pair, personally I would spend a little more for an NC502MP based amp (less sinad, much more power) or even more for an NCx500 based amp (slightly less sinad, highest power). But for a small desktop system the lowest noise of the B100 would be more adequate.
 
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Knockout for lower power applications. Would love to see the 8 ohm power v SINAD graph in High Gain so this can be compared to the tests on all other amplifiers. Also the power headroom on bursts to understand dynamics. @amirm
 
Can't say I've seen a class B. Amazing performance.
Class B amps are only used in RF due to crossover distortion. So the common version is a hybrid Class AB, not class B. Here, feedback is used so much as to nullify crossover distortion in class B. Much like the way Hypex amps use a lot of feedback to deal with all sorts of non-linearities in class D.
 
The high feedback and low distortion is also not limited to bass and mids but even to the highs.

Topping's measurements. 0.0001% is -120dB.

B100-EN-11.jpg
 
Not exactly sure who this product is aimed at.

Perfect for active horn systems. (Not a very large market though.)

Mani
 
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