Topping B100 Amplifier Review

[EJ3]

What's bad about the power supply? Topping has been using such power supplies for a few years now and we've never heard anything negative about them. It can't be that bad, the measurements speak for themselves.
And nobody is stopping you from connecting a different power supply, it's actually very easy.
A larger case with a built-in power supply would make the device significantly more expensive and require additional checks and tests, which would also have to be paid for by the buyers. At the same time, the higher price would significantly reduce the number of units sold, meaning that the total costs would have to be spread over far fewer devices, which would again make the device significantly more expensive.

The power supply is limiting the market from my perspective. I have one item with an external power supply.
NEVER AGAIN!
I'll happily pay more to not have an external power supply.

 

[DSJR]

"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:"

If only more people LISTENED to their music instead of starring at jumping needles or flashing lights. Oh well, they will get it after the puberty

I love my music and my power amp of choice right now, which is transparent to the recordings presented through it, looks like this (Pic of the actual unit I bought from its sale advert!) I'd love the once optional front panel for it though, but they're rarer than hens teeth sadly and the last one I cogitated too long over, went three years or so ago.

 

[terryforsythe]

The power supply is limiting the market from my perspective.

True.

But, there are many, many amplifiers on the market with internal power supplies. Nothing wrong with targeting a certain market segment that does not mind, or even prefers, an external power supply.

An advantage to having an external power supply is that if it fails, it can be replaced fairly inexpensively without sending the amplifier out for repair. It also makes it easier to diagnose whether a problem is due to the power supply - if you have a problem with one amplifier, plug it into the other amplifier's power supply and see if it works.

 

[Negatywny]

I'll happily pay more to not have an external power supply.

The separate power supply is second greatest thing ever since sliced bread

The thing is that you can't connect a $10k audiophile power cable to it, right?

This solution is super cheap, extremely easy to replace for pennies, its potential failure does not immobilize the entire amplifier, the heat of the power supply does not cause additional thermal load in the amplifier.

The only thing I would improve here is the directions from which the cables come out of these bricks, cable management would be much easier if the output and input were on the same side...

 

[NoMoFoNo]

Considering what's available from Fosi and Aiyima, I cannot see how this is competitive. For less than half the price I can get DOUBLE the power with PFFB and very high performance from the V3 monos. Topping is not a luxury nor legacy manufacturer and their prices seem high considering that they bring along an awful recent reliability and warranty history.

High SINAD. Great. All the rest is not competitive IMO.

 

[terryforsythe]

Considering what's available from Fosi and Aiyima, I cannot see how this is competitive. For less than half the price I can get DOUBLE the power with PFFB and very high performance from the V3 monos. Topping is not a luxury nor legacy manufacturer and their prices seem high considering that they bring along an awful recent reliability and warranty history.

High SINAD. Great. All the rest is not competitive IMO.

I don't think Topping is trying to compete with Fosi and Aiyima with this product.

 

[capslock]

Wow, when did this enter the market? All the usual dealers including a few in Europe seem to be stocked already.

Not that it matters as the difference is completely inaudible, but Toppings own measurements are consistently better than Amir's, so they did not send him a golden sample. Topping seems to have used A weighting for the dashboard, but that should not make much of a difference for 2nd and 3rd harmonic of 1 kHz:

 

[IPunchCholla]

Numbers are nice, though I would like to see even better PSU (mains) residuals suppression. I think this amp was designed to be measured by Amir.

Is that from an engineering perspective (the 60hz spike and its harmonics could be controlled better) or is it an actual audible or functional concern? I’m still trying to learn some of the finer implications of these charts and when I see mains residuals at -140, I think it’s not an issue.

 

[capslock]

The B200 is excellent, too, in Topping's own measurements, but if one wants to chase << - 130 dB residuals, not on par with the B100. THD also increases more with frequency:

 

[NoMoFoNo]

I don't think Topping is trying to compete with Fosi and Aiyima with this product.

That might not be their intention but as an end user why on earth would I buy this Topping product over one from Fosi or Aiyima? I saw the review, then noted the pricing and power on offer from these and concluded immediately that this is a non-competitive product.

Is the implication that Topping is somehow inherently superior? The same Topping that could not or would not deal effectively with awful failure rates and warranty issues very recently? Why would anyone, including Topping themselves, consider Topping a product worthy of higher pricing?

 

[terryforsythe]

The zero gain setting is a great tell.

Yes. I thought that was strange.

The mid gain setting of 10.4dB also is low. I suspect most people using this amplifier will be using the high gain setting, especially if using DSP.

Other amplifiers with stellar SINAD measurements also have relatively low gain. E.g., Purify's 1ET9040B has a gain of 14.4dB, and it is not even adjustable. I suspect they do that so that it measures well for SINAD. Buckeye uses an I/O board to get higher gain, but that will negatively affect the SINAD measurements a little.

 

[Tovarich007]

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

Mani

Sure, this would be a perfect amp for high sensitivity horn midrange and tweeters, but I guess this is not the niche market Topping has in mind for this amp, which is more certainly aimed at the desktop or bookshelf speakers -with a not too low sensitivity.

Anyway, I would prefer a stereo unit with slightly more power, and less expensive than 2 B200 units.

All these tiny Topping boxes are super performing, nice to look at, but it's not very convenient to plug in everything, too many boxes : a DAC, a headphone amp, a line preamp -happily often integrated in the headphone amp, two mono power amp, and each of these items with its external power. Why not, there's certainly a market for this, but Uh, that's a little too much for my taste.

 

[capslock]

All in all, it is a toy, not a serious amplifier.

Well, it takes all the fun out of trying to build the penultimate discrete, linear amplifier. Should I put my stash of vintage transistors for sale immediately?

Joking aside, the sad part is that these stellar number are largely pointless as long as the speaker drives are driven with voltage drive. The sealed modules and likely very much optimized feedback structure do not lend themselves to tinkering with current drive.

It is well possible that a mediocre amp with -90 dB residuals converted to current drive will sound better and give less overall distortion if the distortions of the amp / speaker combo are measured.

 

[terryforsythe]

That might not be their intention but as an end user why on earth would I buy this Topping product over one from Fosi or Aiyima?

You probably wouldn't.

But, ignoring the SINAD measurements, the frequency response curves I have seen for Fosi and Aiyima amplifiers are load dependent. Is it audible? I don't know. It may depend on the room, speakers, age of the person listening (hearing in the high frequency range declines with age), etc.

Amir did not perform a frequency response test with a complex load for this amplifier (unless I missed it). I suspect it will remain flat, but we won't know for sure until someone tests that.

In audio, incremental improvements tend to add increasingly higher costs. The performance vs. cost curve tends to be exponential. My speculation is that Topping has placed this product on that curve in a place where they think there is not a lot of competition. I suspect these will sell well to people who do not need a lot of power, but want really clean amplification.

 

[Power Pop 23]

I am currently happy with the performance of the Hypex NC500 module and cannot perceive lower noise from a (still working) Topping PA5 amplifier. I might put a crowbar in my wallet for an amplifier with lower measured noise if a manufacturer could offer a product that measured its own performance and sent a graphical representation to a tablet, smartphone, computer or front panel display.

 

[WillBrink]

I don't think Topping is trying to compete with Fosi and Aiyima with this product.

It's unclear to me what niche they are targeting that product. Who is the target market for that one?

 

[kemmler3D]

Really interesting device... I tend to agree that an internal PSU would be nicer, but whatever. It's crazy that we can buy a power amp with >110dB SINAD for low 3 figures now. This was not remotely possible 10+ years ago, even 5.

I don't have any use for this thing personally, but if you are really into high sensitivity / horn speakers and in the market for an amp, I think you need a reason not to buy this unit.

 

[terryforsythe]

It's unclear to me what niche they are targeting that product. Who is the target market for that one?

I think the target market is people who don't need a lot of power, but want very clean amplification.

Not everyone needs a lot of power. For example, take a 4 ohm speaker with 86dB/1W sensitivity. This amplifier will drive it to over 104 dB. Assume that the listener listens at 80 dB. There still is 24 dB of available headroom. Moreover, many speakers encounter high distortion and compression above 100 dB, and probably should not be pushed that hard anyway.

As an example, my first home audio amplifier was a Rotel 20W/channel integrated amplifier. I used it with SpeakerCraft No. 4 speakers. I don't recall their sensitivity, but it probably was somewhere around 89 dB or so. That system played plenty loud for me, without distortion, even in a very open room.

 

[kemmler3D]

I think the target market is people who don't need a lot of power, but want very clean amplification.

Not everyone needs a lot of power. For example, take a 4 ohm speaker with 86dB/1W sensitivity. This amplifier will drive it to over 104 dB. Assume that the listener listens at 80 dB. There still is 24 dB of available headroom. Moreover, many speakers encounter high distortion and compression above 100 dB, and probably should not be pushed that hard anyway.

As an example, my first home audio amplifier was a Rotel 20W/channel integrated amplifier. I used it with SpeakerCraft No. 4 speakers. I don't recall their sensitivity, but it probably was somewhere around 89 dB or so. That system played plenty loud for me, without distortion, even in a very open room.

A lot of people here will scoff (maybe wrongly) at 104dB as a peak, but once you hit 93dB sensitivity, 86 watts will get you ~110dB at 2m with 2 speakers... loud enough for me anyway. Leaving aside any convenience / QOL considerations, it's hard to see how this is not endgame performance for sensitive speakers.

There is actually a good chance that your DAC would be the limiting factor on measured sound quality at the speaker terminals in such a system. Maybe this is Topping's plan... make amps that outperform the old DACs so they can sell more DACs... 130dB SINAD DACs for everyone... desktop gear that outperforms the APx555 ... subjectivists still complaining that something sounds "gritty"...

 

[Zwepp]

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.

It's always funny to me that there are so many people who are more power hungry than the average (bookshelf) speaker. I've powered a whole lot of speakers with the 25/50 watts Wadia 151 PowerDAC Mini with great succes. Think about Kef LS50 Meta, JBL HDI-3600, Linn Majik 109, Mission 752 Freedom etc... This Topping amp will do great for many, many users.