Topping B100 Amplifier Review

[Julf]

Sure, I wrote down notes years ago when we were doing the tests, but considering that it's blind, I wasn't writing as I was doing it, so my friend just recorded it on a post-it note. I since moved no idea where the post-it notes are, never kept track of them, because why would I? I had a stack of them from me and my friends...

So it was single blind, not double blind. Did you get a 100% score?

To me, high resolution sound is when it sounds like I am actually there with the musicians who are playing live in front of me. As I have had the lucky opportunity to see many musicians play live in classical and jazz scenarios, I know that both of these are quite difficult to capture the real feeling you get when the musicians are playing in front of you.
You really need high quality recordings and high quality reproduction to capture the soul of the instruments used in classical and jazz.

The determining factor for that is the microphones and recording techniques (that we can't influence), our speakers and our listening rooms. The amp, digital source and media has to be truly bad to have any real influence.

 

[Jimster480]

So it was single blind, not double blind. Did you get a 100% score?

The determining factor for that is the microphones and recording techniques (that we can't influence), our speakers and our listening rooms. The amp, digital source and media has to be truly bad to have any real influence.

Idk what constitutes how much blindness. In one test we had a switcher. With a button in it's from 1 source, button out it's another source.
I (and the other listeners) didn't know which source is which.
We closed our eyes and had one source turned on and then the other and then we switched between them. No idea which was which at any point.
We also tried with someone else pushing the button to change the source... However it still makes a small click, so we would know the source changes.

I can tell you that an amp, a digital source, like a DAC, and the media can have a very big impact very quickly. It all depends on the quality of the music and what you are trying to listen to.
If you think that it doesn't really matter and it has to be real bad, then I really don't know what to tell you or even why you're here. Because to me, it's a real night and day difference when it comes to something that's bad versus something that's good.
The differences will be pretty obvious in a very well recorded track, especially tracks that I am very familiar with, and I know which parts of those tracks to go check and see what the approximate resolution is.

If you really can't believe this, then I invite you to purchase an actual high end pair of headphones and a nice DAC amp combo that has over 100 sinad, preferably over 110, and I will give you a set of playlists to listen to.
I will tell you the parts of the songs and what to listen for, and then you can come tell me if you hear what I'm talking about or not.
To me it's literally insane to think that a device with 63 SINAD is "perfect" at all... Or that you won't hear any difference from better... In the distortion test, I literally just heard down to the accuracy of my headphone... And it was the most obvious with the 100hz tone...
I had my wife come try, she put the volume a bit quieter... I just showed her what I meant by the distortion (by fast forwarding the video) and then I made her play it with her eyes closed and just told her to pause when she hears the difference... On the song she got to 0.021 and 0.036, she's bad with electronic music though since she's a violinist... With the 500hz tone she heard it clearly at 0.017 every time... With the 100hz tone she heard it at 0.014 0.015 consistently.
That is 78ish SINAD on headphones at a bit of a lower volume... Likely also the limit of the headphones at that volume...
Distortion is easy to get along with and to mask in music when you aren't focusing... But once you hear something resolving... It's like watching high bit rate 4k and then going back to normal bit rate 1080p...or just playing in 4k and chopping the bit rate in half, and then in half again...

 

[Old_School_Brad]

Idk what constitutes how much blindness. In one test we had a switcher. With a button in it's from 1 source, button out it's another source.
I (and the other listeners) didn't know which source is which.
We closed our eyes and had one source turned on and then the other and then we switched between them. No idea which was which at any point.
We also tried with someone else pushing the button to change the source... However it still makes a small click, so we would know the source changes.

I can tell you that an amp, a digital source, like a DAC, and the media can have a very big impact very quickly. It all depends on the quality of the music and what you are trying to listen to.
If you think that it doesn't really matter and it has to be real bad, then I really don't know what to tell you or even why you're here. Because to me, it's a real night and day difference when it comes to something that's bad versus something that's good.
The differences will be pretty obvious in a very well recorded track, especially tracks that I am very familiar with, and I know which parts of those tracks to go check and see what the approximate resolution is.

If you really can't believe this, then I invite you to purchase an actual high end pair of headphones and a nice DAC amp combo that has over 100 sinad, preferably over 110, and I will give you a set of playlists to listen to.
I will tell you the parts of the songs and what to listen for, and then you can come tell me if you hear what I'm talking about or not.
To me it's literally insane to think that a device with 63 SINAD is "perfect" at all... Or that you won't hear any difference from better... In the distortion test, I literally just heard down to the accuracy of my headphone... And it was the most obvious with the 100hz tone...
I had my wife come try, she put the volume a bit quieter... I just showed her what I meant by the distortion (by fast forwarding the video) and then I made her play it with her eyes closed and just told her to pause when she hears the difference... On the song she got to 0.021 and 0.036, she's bad with electronic music though since she's a violinist... With the 500hz tone she heard it clearly at 0.017 every time... With the 100hz tone she heard it at 0.014 0.015 consistently.
That is 78ish SINAD on headphones at a bit of a lower volume... Likely also the limit of the headphones at that volume...
Distortion is easy to get along with and to mask in music when you aren't focusing... But once you hear something resolving... It's like watching high bit rate 4k and then going back to normal bit rate 1080p...or just playing in 4k and chopping the bit rate in half, and then in half again...

Yes, I think it's clear now -you have exceptionally good hearing.

The important takeaway is that this remains a fringe case. For the vast majority of listeners, an amplifier with a 63 dB SINAD would be considered transparent.

Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:
Axiom Study (LINK)

Spoiler: Conclusion of the study

For detecting distortion at levels of less than 10%, the test frequencies had to be greater than 500 Hz. At 40 Hz, listeners accepted 100% distortion before they complained. The noise test tones had to reach 8,000 Hz and above before 1% distortion became audible, such is the masking effect of music.

 

[Julf]

If you think that it doesn't really matter and it has to be real bad, then I really don't know what to tell you or even why you're here.

I am here because I am an engineer (with 40+ years of experience) who believes in science.

To me it's literally insane to think that a device with 63 SINAD is "perfect" at all...

What do you think the SINAD of the recording path was?

I had my wife come try

The word for that is "anecdote".

 

[Sokel]

Idk what constitutes how much blindness. In one test we had a switcher. With a button in it's from 1 source, button out it's another source.
I (and the other listeners) didn't know which source is which.
We closed our eyes and had one source turned on and then the other and then we switched between them. No idea which was which at any point.
We also tried with someone else pushing the button to change the source... However it still makes a small click, so we would know the source changes.

I can tell you that an amp, a digital source, like a DAC, and the media can have a very big impact very quickly. It all depends on the quality of the music and what you are trying to listen to.
If you think that it doesn't really matter and it has to be real bad, then I really don't know what to tell you or even why you're here. Because to me, it's a real night and day difference when it comes to something that's bad versus something that's good.
The differences will be pretty obvious in a very well recorded track, especially tracks that I am very familiar with, and I know which parts of those tracks to go check and see what the approximate resolution is.

If you really can't believe this, then I invite you to purchase an actual high end pair of headphones and a nice DAC amp combo that has over 100 sinad, preferably over 110, and I will give you a set of playlists to listen to.
I will tell you the parts of the songs and what to listen for, and then you can come tell me if you hear what I'm talking about or not.
To me it's literally insane to think that a device with 63 SINAD is "perfect" at all... Or that you won't hear any difference from better... In the distortion test, I literally just heard down to the accuracy of my headphone... And it was the most obvious with the 100hz tone...
I had my wife come try, she put the volume a bit quieter... I just showed her what I meant by the distortion (by fast forwarding the video) and then I made her play it with her eyes closed and just told her to pause when she hears the difference... On the song she got to 0.021 and 0.036, she's bad with electronic music though since she's a violinist... With the 500hz tone she heard it clearly at 0.017 every time... With the 100hz tone she heard it at 0.014 0.015 consistently.
That is 78ish SINAD on headphones at a bit of a lower volume... Likely also the limit of the headphones at that volume...
Distortion is easy to get along with and to mask in music when you aren't focusing... But once you hear something resolving... It's like watching high bit rate 4k and then going back to normal bit rate 1080p...or just playing in 4k and chopping the bit rate in half, and then in half again...

The DB ABX test is well defined and there's no shortcomings to it.
Either do it properly or don't do it at all.

SPECIALLY when you do it for yourself and base buying decisions to it.
And a hint: if I was to hear anything 0.0x% reported by a device in terms of distortion at my rig I would thoroughly search for faults at the rest of the chain.

 

[Jimster480]

The DB ABX test is well defined and there's no shortcomings to it.
Either do it properly or don't do it at all.

SPECIALLY when you do it for yourself and base buying decisions to it.
And a hint: if I was to hear anything 0.0x% reported by a device in terms of distortion at my rig I would thoroughly search for faults at the rest of the chain.

You guys shared the YouTube testing video... Now you don't want to believe results and instead blame it elsewhere? Makes no sense...
I didn't do any tests based on buying decisions, I'm very objective.
I would say that in a video like the one you guys shared it's actually much easier because these are all computer generated tones so you don't have to account for the ADC that created the music or anything like that. It's all perfectly digitally created.

In one of the Blind ABX tests:
Funnily enough, we had a Denafrips DAC and I bet my friends that they wouldn't be able to tell the Denafrips apart from my Topping DX7 (since they came over telling me how it was a night and day difference VS any "normal" DAC) and then I had a double bet that we would all "prefer" the DX7..
In blind testing, they either could not tell the two apart, or they preferred mine.
I was the same, 7/10 times..

 

[Julf]

You guys shared the YouTube testing video... Now you don't want to believe results and instead blame it elsewhere? Makes no sense...

A critical attitude is rather essential in science. Remember the famous saying by Richard Feynman:

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”
​

 

[Jimster480]

A critical attitude is rather essential in science. Remember the famous saying by Richard Feynman:

“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.”​

​

I understand that, I'm quite critical of findings myself. However I am extremely objective in many regards, it often becomes a social pain point for me. Just like when my friends were gaga over this Denafrips DAC.

However I don't think I am so extraordinary. I think it just has to do with learning and focus.
Now I'm going to use this video and see how many people I can get to do the test and when they can hear the distortion. I feel like most younger people (and even many older people) will be able to hear very low distortion if they understand what they are listening to or for.
Especially easy in the sine wave tests. Much harder to hear with music (at very low distortion) if you haven't learned to focus and separate the sounds.

What is the most interesting to me in doing this test last night, is that my wife found a totally different point of distortion than I did in the song. I was listening for one sound I noticed would distort. Then I try to listen for when I start to hear the differences in that sound which would be distortion..
When testing 2 competent DACs, it is much more difficult as I typically listen to 5-7 second clips of specific songs, at difficult parts, or parts I have heard distorted before (either in my car, or on my sound bar, or through phone speakers, etc) then I would test again with another device in the same segment and listen for a change.
Sometimes I fool myself thinking there is a change when there is not. So I do 3-10 times (depending on confidence) to see if there is any difference.
Either that or I go listen to songs that I have heard live by the same artist as a starting point.

 

[DualTriode]

This B-100 is cute and little.

It seems to me that this thing needs considerably larger cooling surfaces even cooling fins. It gets very hot to the touch even at at a limited 5 Watts output into a 4R resistor.

Near the end my bench testing doing a 3 second THD+N sweep down from 20 kHz the thermal protection triggered near 40 Hz. That was a surprise.

This B-100 may work just fine powering my Purifi bench top speakers without triggering the thermal protection.

Thanks DT

 

[Jimster480]

This B-100 is cute and little.

It seems to me that this thing needs considerably larger cooling surfaces even cooling fins. It gets very hot to the touch even at at a limited 5 Watts output into a 4R resistor.

Near the end my bench testing doing a 3 second THD+N sweep down from 20 kHz the triggered near 40 Hz. That was a surprise.

This B-100 may work just fine powering my Purifi bench top speakers without triggering the thermal protection.

Thanks DT

When i was just looking at purchasing this for my speakers; I thought the same thing... that the box might be a bit small for the power they want to push out of it... however the Fosi V3 is even smaller and does deliver on the wattage they claim... not sure for how long at full power but at least how I had my speakers wired; I played for 8+ hours at 50% without an issue.
However 50% on the Fosi V3 should be over 100% on this amp.... considering medium gain only delivers around 83W.... Meaning that this amp would have to be able to run near max all the time on larger speakers, but likely would be fine for bookshelf speakers. For me I was driving RP-8060FA II which are giant Klipsch Floorstanding speakers. Essentially their flagship models outside of the RF-7 (10 in driver) Gen III. I even had all the channels on the speaker (including Atmos channel) connected together.
No issues whatsoever... didn't exceed 60% volume as it became way too loud for my tastes.

 

[khaliss]

with that sai

When i was just looking at purchasing this for my speakers; I thought the same thing... that the box might be a bit small for the power they want to push out of it... however the Fosi V3 is even smaller and does deliver on the wattage they claim... not sure for how long at full power but at least how I had my speakers wired; I played for 8+ hours at 50% without an issue.
However 50% on the Fosi V3 should be over 100% on this amp.... considering medium gain only delivers around 83W.... Meaning that this amp would have to be able to run near max all the time on larger speakers, but likely would be fine for bookshelf speakers. For me I was driving RP-8060FA II which are giant Klipsch Floorstanding speakers. Essentially their flagship models outside of the RF-7 (10 in driver) Gen III. I even had all the channels on the speaker (including Atmos channel) connected together.
No issues whatsoever... didn't exceed 60% volume as it became way too loud for my tastes.

with that said, I doubt the B100s can drive my Martin Logan Source electrostatics reliably, at my typical listening volumes (which isn't loud at all)... but I wanna play it safe and not having to deal with problems later down the road. I'm gonna have to return the B100s when they arrive tomorrow, at least I got them from Walmart online, so it shouldn't be much of a hassle.

 

[risandipra]

Hello,

Would Topping B100 be safe for speakers load that dip into 3.8 Ohm (Like Revel M105, 86dB Sensitivity, Rated 8 Ohm) at around 250 Hz, please kindly correct me if I'm wrong, for listening level in small room at 74 dB with dynamic range 25 dB (74 to 99 dB), then the RMS Watt and Max Watt needed, respectively, would be 32 and 68 Watt, at the distance of 4 Feet. Does it means that this amplifier limited max watt, as also measured here should be then used wisely in accordance with the expected speaker load and specific listening environment? Maybe it's appropriate for single person use in nearfield acoustically treated room, or ,with that distortion level, could be louder in bigger room using higher sensitivity speakers ?

 

[antcollinet]

then the RMS Watt and Max Watt needed, respectively, would be 32 and 68 Watt, at the distance of 4 Feet

Hi

Not sure where you are getting your power levels from. Your speakers at 86dB sensitive, which means your 74dB level will be way below 1 watt. At 4ft, probably less than 1/4 of a watt.

However, 99dB peaks (your 25dB dynamic range) are 316x the power of your RMS level. So around 80W.

What on earth are you listening to with 25dB dynamic range? Typical recommended headrooms for power selection are in the 10 to 15dB range.

 

[risandipra]

Hi

Not sure where you are getting your power levels from. Your speakers at 86dB sensitive, which means your 74dB level will be way below 1 watt. At 4ft, probably less than 1/4 of a watt.

However, 99dB peaks (your 25dB dynamic range) are 316x the power of your RMS level. So around 80W.

What on earth are you listening to with 25dB dynamic range? Typical recommended headrooms for power selection are in the 10 to 15dB range.

Thank you for this correction. I'm willing to learn more. Could you please share any recomended apps / calculator, book or source for me to learn more.

Thanks once again
Thank you for this correction. I'm willing to learn more. Could you please share any recomended apps / calculator, book or source for me to learn more.

Thanks once again

Edit:
P.S. You're right about 25 dB Headroom and 10-15 dB. In non-anechoic room nor live performance, room reverberation may add 6 dB gain. Moreover 25 dB is considered for Home Theatre application high resolution with avoidance to potential clipping. Then, 15 dB headroom is acceptable.

 

[taleoffice]

Does anyone has tried these amplifiers with Elac Debut Reference DBR-62 Speakers?

 

[john11]

What do you think of the B100 versus its rival the fosi audio v3

 

[lddo133]

The bad thing about the B100 amp is that it comes with a cheap AC cable made in China. And the connection part is not very durable, so there is some anxiety. After replacing the cable, it works fine, so it is usable. I think the sound quality is also okay.

 

[john11]

I have a business idea.
Take a stylish and classy full-size HiFi case, install one or two B100s in a false bottom and put great-looking fake transformers and fake circuit boards on top of them. Don't forget 10-20 kilos of lead plate.
Invent a phenomenal story about the most transparent 100 watt output that puts all Class A amplifiers in the shade, get a few top influencers on board who can of course keep these phenomenal devices.
$10,000 mono and $20,000 stereo should be a reasonable purchase price for the first 300 devices before increasing to $14,900 and $29,900.
Or is that too cheap?

Even Scrooge McDuck would be jealous...

Add a few go-faster stripes down the side, emblazon on the words " Pro, Mega Upgrade, Super Audiophile " and you can double that price

 

[john11]

The bad thing about the B100 amp is that it comes with a cheap AC cable made in China. And the connection part is not very durable, so there is some anxiety. After replacing the cable, it works fine, so it is usable. I think the sound quality is also okay.

I've got the topping PA5 II and that sounded better with the stock mains cable replaced with standard 13 amp mains cable, and the power supply capacitors with my favourite panasonic fm
The B100 have fosi V3 both have good reviews, obvious big price difference between the two, what differences did you detect between the two

 

[Julf]

I've got the topping PA5 II and that sounded better with the stock mains cable replaced with standard 13 amp mains cable, and the power supply capacitors with my favourite panasonic fm

Objectively verified? Let me guess... No?