Topping L30 Headphone Amplifier Review

[Michael YYZ]

Where is this company/brand, Topping, based?

 

[Doodski]

Where is this company/brand, Topping, based?

China.

 

[tecnogadget]

I love ChinaFi haha. Specially IEMS

 

[Doodski]

I love ChinaFi haha. Specially IEMS

@ the rate of releasing this kind of well spec'd electronic product ChinaFi will be a major tour de force globally. Push the wankers to release some proper better product.

 

[boXem]

M400 RCA output supposedly have buffer but they fked up the LPF. It pairs with E30 and D10s so no issue from my point of view. 2.5K is low in your book. But higher than 600ohm means high to me.

Seriously? You achieved engineering excellence on the performance side, and I sincerely admire what you did there (even a bit jealous tbh).
But you can't just say that since it pairs well with two of your employer's current offerings your job is done.

600 ohms is high in the mind of somebody designing an headphone amp, somebody designing a line output stage is expecting much more.

 

[Bob-23]

Performance is impressive. But who needs such a performance which is way beyond audibility? And how about longevity of the unit? And repairability?

 

[Bamboszek]

It's all about engineering choices and compromises. Potentially you can place buffer in front of pot like in o2. That might degrade noise and SINAD a bit in exchange for higher and constant input impedance.
I can agree that ordinary customer shouldn't worry about impedances and etc. but if you want absolute best performance it's really hard to design one size fits all amplifier. Especially when in same time you try to squeeze every dollar and dB of performance.
Like I said before, for me it is OK as long you pair TOTL amp with TOTL DAC. Most important thing that device needs to be safe for headphones. Absolutely no DC at output and stability under all realistic conditions.

 

[Doodski]

Performance is impressive. But who needs such a performance which is way beyond audibility? And how about longevity of the unit? And repairability?

You'de need $100.00 in tools to service it. It's a $130.00 amp. sigh*

 

[JohnYang1997]

Seriously? You achieved engineering excellence on the performance side, and I sincerely admire what you did there (even a bit jealous tbh).
But you can't just say that since it pairs well with two of your employer's current offerings your job is done.

600 ohms is high in the mind of somebody designing an headphone amp, somebody designing a line output stage is expecting much more.

I value interference rejection more. The cable can pick up a lot of noises. Also majority of products on the market have 100 ohm output impedance. If you have higher output impedance, all you can lose is a bit of volume. If the output filter transfer function is depending on the downstream input impedance, then it's a fail product.

 

[NDC]

I'm almost tempted to get another L30 instead of an A90 to match my D90 given the performance! Wow @JohnYang1997 this is incredible performance at the price...

 

[Nango]

In Wolfs test of a pre-production unit it was really bad.

You never know what will be available in the shops.

 

[rajapruk]

@JohnYang1997 which dac do you recommend together with this amp, E30 or D10s?

 

[3125b]

True, but JohnYang said they had implemented a qc process to insure better channel matching. They probably won't all be perfect like this, but good enough. With the available gain options, it's not that much of a problem.

 

[JohnYang1997]

@JohnYang1997 which dac do you recommend together with this amp, E30 or D10s?

Either. E30 is better on the look. D10s is cheaper with less functionalities but essentially the same performance.

 

[August]

One year ago @JohnYang1997 he claimed to challenge the best performance in the world at a very low price, and many people questioned him. Now he did it! Thank you very much @JohnYang1997 and look forward to more products in the future！

 

[boXem]

I value interference rejection more. The cable can pick up a lot of noises. Also majority of products on the market have 100 ohm output impedance. If you have higher output impedance, all you can lose is a bit of volume. If the output filter transfer function is depending on the downstream input impedance, then it's a fail product.

We are on the same line here but I had something else in mind.
If you have an output buffer to design while chasing THD+N, you know better than I do that the lower the feedback resistors value, the lower the N, but the higher the output current, which means higher THD (for the same amount of feedback). So a compromise has to be done while assuming a typical load.
If the requirement is best ASR SINAD, target load will be the AP555 input impedance, i.e. 100k.
Real word matching requirement would be something like 20k to 50k.
I am maintaining that 2.5k is low.

 

[JohnYang1997]

We are on the same line here but I had something else in mind.
If you have an output buffer to design while chasing THD+N, you know better than I do that the lower the feedback resistors value, the lower the N, but the higher the output current, which means higher THD (for the same amount of feedback). So a compromise has to be done while assuming a typical load.
If the requirement is best ASR SINAD, target load will be the AP555 input impedance, i.e. 100k.
Real word matching requirement would be something like 20k to 50k.
I am maintaining that 2.5k is low.

It's fine. Ap does have selection of 300 600 and 100k ohm load selection tho. But imo irrelevant to the point. 2.5k is relatively low among different products, yes.

 

[boXem]

Either. E30 is better on the look. D10s is cheaper with less functionalities but essentially the same performance.

Out of curiosity, would it be possible to have 3 multitone measurements from E30, L30, and E30+L30? (or D10s instead of E30, don't care).

 

[q3cpma]

I feel almost vindicated for saying that DACs and headphone amps were solved problems in another thread.

 

[Vini darko]

Rolling right over thx and benchmark for £120, remarkable.
Is there any word on the additional colour ways yet? I want a red one, cos red ones go faster