Topping B100 Amplifier Review

[restorer-john]

Looks pretty simple and nice.

Looks can be deceiving.

Love the bodge board stuck on top of the caps. Obviously realized they needed to be able to disconnect the power supply (that's an IRFxxx Fet). Probably if you unplug the power supply while it's operating.

 

[Doodski]

Looks can be deceiving.

Love the bodge board stuck on top of the caps. Obviously realized they needed to be able to disconnect the power supply (that's an IRFxxx Fet). Probably if you unplug the power supply while it's operating.

What do you suppose that flatpack near the front of the PCB is? A microcontroller/CPU? It has the word Nation on it.
EDIT: Upon reading about the operation of this amp with it's protection feature and soft touch control this must be a microprocessor.

 

[Rja4000]

Incredible performance !
Thanks for testing.

I hope to see B200 measured too...
Although this last one is more expensive than a Purifi.

 

[DWPress]

Wow, perfect tweeter amp by the looks of things. I'll wait a few months and see how people like this thing and if there are any early issues but a nice replacement for the overkill Hypex NC252MP currently in use.

 

[Billy Budapest]

Love the bodge board stuck on top of the caps.

I’m not sure I’d call that a bodge. There is no evidence this was to repair a design mistake or to fix an issue introduced by the production run. It’s pretty creative placement of the daughter board, though.

 

[Koeitje]

Performance is great, but I hate the external power brick. Maybe it's needed to reach this performance, because an internal supply would need more shielding to deal with noise?

I'll stick with my NC400 amplifiers and if I'd buy a new amplifier it would also be class D. You won't hear the difference performance, but they will provide so much power that you can drive any speaker. The B100 doesn't.

 

[posvibes]

The order and progressive capabilities measured in Amir's reviews of equipment are inverse to the capacity and capabilities of my wallet to take advantage of the leaps forward in these types of devices. I wish (not really, really) but I wish I had found and joined this forum later than I did, because the last twelve months or so seems to have stuck such a sweet spot with a plethora of quality engineered components coming one after the other in succession.

Thanks Amir for your work, always a pleasure.

 

[JSmith]

I’m not sure I’d call that a bodge.

Not sure it's actually attached to anything though, only the solder points holding it in place? I noticed that too @restorer-john and thought it looked a bit suspect as well.

Otherwise, it looks like a clean build.


JSmith

 

[DWPress]

@amirm did you do the on/off test to check for potential "pop" sounds? Important for dedicated tweeter amp...

 

[dfuller]

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.

This is exactly where my thought went - 86W into 4R and 50 into 8R is not much power. Unless you're driving horns that were designed for flea watt tube amps, I can't say I see the point.

 

[JSmith]

86W into 4R and 50 into 8R is not much power

True, but probably adequate for most usage and for those that need more power it has a bigger brother in the range;

B200 - - Topping audio

TOPPING, born in 2008, has evolved into a beloved global HIFI brand favored by users worldwide. We firmly believe that higher-quality music playback devices are essential for truly showcasing the allure of music. By investing extensively in professional technology and exceptional industrial...

www.toppingaudio.com

JSmith

 

[amirm]

How is the protection kicking in? Audible artifacts? Just a mute for so many milliseconds? Or does it need to be reset?

The power button starts to blink a code and amp is shut down. You have to power the unit down and power it back up to recover.

 

[amirm]

@amirm did you do the on/off test to check for potential "pop" sounds? Important for dedicated tweeter amp...

Oops. Forgot to include in the review. Just added to the review:

 

[pma]

Perhaps I overlooked something.
1. How does it measure into a simulated speaker load?
2. Any ideas how they made a class B amp so clean?
Thanks.

ad 1 - it would be interesting to know, and also high capacitive load.
ad 2 - sophisticated multipole feedback with highest loopgain possible and probably zero emitter resistors.

I am curious of long term reliability, we need at least one year to know more.

 

[amirm]

High gain is only 19.9 dB? Not 27 or 28? So it won't work well with an AVR even in High gain mode?

It does have 26 dB for RCA input:

Just realized that should say "high gain," not "low gain."

 

[DWPress]

The 10kHz and 15kHz are rising and there's only 2 harmonics for the 15kHz, 3 for the 10kHz. (45kHz measurement BW)

But they're trending down for 8ohm which is a point of interest to me:

 

[pma]

But they're trending down for 8ohm which is a point of interest to me:

Light load, low measuring BW.

 

[DWPress]

Exactly. Nearly perfect tweeter amp for my 8ohm Audax tweeters.

edit: shopping cart via Apos with coupon is $538 delivered. Almost willing to take one for the team here....
edit 2: someone convince me that I'm wrong!

 

[TimF]

I'll bet more than a few of us have spent $600 or more for an amplifier that when all was said and done only effectively put out 50 watts or less. And at the time we may have even thought that the amp delivered nirvana.

 

[DWPress]

@amirm - I use a switch to turn on/off my stack of amps. Does this retain memory of last use state or do you have to touch the button? Can you try powering it on/off with a power strip or external switch?

Thanks for the on/off update on the review.