• WANTED: Happy members who like to discuss audio and other topics related to our interest. Desire to learn and share knowledge of science required. There are many reviews of audio hardware and expert members to help answer your questions. Click here to have your audio equipment measured for free!

Topping L30 Headphone Amplifier Review

raistlin65

Major Contributor
Forum Donor
Joined
Nov 13, 2019
Messages
2,279
Likes
3,421
Location
Grand Rapids, MI
Well, although the availability may be understandable, I don't get the price hike.

For $150, it's a tough sell, considering JDS Atom cost $99 regular and sometimes $89 on deals.

But that's only for the US market. Perhaps it's the rest of the world they see as their primary market.
 

ngs428

Active Member
Joined
Nov 21, 2018
Messages
268
Likes
230
On APOS website, it says these are getting an increase in price "due to covid" to 149.99. Not sure if other retailers will reflect same price.
E30 is going up $20 to the same $149 price as the L30. While the L30 is only going up $10.
 

jawbfl

Active Member
Joined
Nov 26, 2020
Messages
122
Likes
70
Location
Morocco
Went up in price on Shenzhenaudio as well and it's not just USD, €114 => €122, £103 => £111 this is a price increase.
 

JohnYang1997

Master Contributor
Technical Expert
Audio Company
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
7,175
Likes
18,292
Location
China
Another report of L30 frying headphones: https://www.reddit.com/r/headphones/comments/knnurb
How worried should I be about my L30?
If you are using it now, I would say mostly no. Electronic fails in short periods of time, then the ones don fail will work in a long time. There will always be sign of something not right when it starts to fail. After gathering some data the tpa6120a2 does fail in a small percentage. But these don't exhibit smokes but a fail and the amp goes into protection. There shouldn't be smokes. There was one case that the failed capacitor blew off the opa1612. But other than that solid. Was that a dead on arrival case? Maybe the transformer is broken or something. But even then it shouldn't fail like that. Perhaps the shipping broke the transformer? We do test every single transformer to comply certain output voltage without and with load as well as the the L30 itself. There were cases where the DC offset is small that the amp doesn't go into protection. But these cases are mild as well may experienced as similar to scratchy pot. This has been improved in newer machines. But if yours has been working alright, it should last.
 
Last edited:

gegebinazzi

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2021
Messages
12
Likes
25
If you are using it now, I would say mostly no. Electronic fails in short periods of time, then the ones don fail will work in a long time. There will always be sign of something not right when it starts to fail. After gathering some data the tpa6120a2 does fail in a small percentage. But these don't exhibit smokes but a fail and the amp goes into protection. There shouldn't be smokes. There was one case that the failed capacitor blew off the opa1612. But other than that solid. Was that a dead on arrival case? Maybe the transformer is broken or something. But even then it shouldn't fail like that. Perhaps the shipping broke the transformer? We do test every single transformer to comply certain output voltage without and with load as well as the the L30 itself. There were cases where the DC offset is small that the amp doesn't go into protection. But these cases are mild as well may experienced as similar to scratchy pot. This has been improved in newer machines. But if yours has been working alright, it should last.

Hi! I'm the guy whose L30 committed suicide, I registered just to give some informations that could be useful. My unit was bought on November 10 and I've been using it since that day. It's an EU power brick unit if that may help. It showed no signs of malfunction, it just worked fine for nearly two months before breaking. It did not smell, the case was never hot to the touch. Hope it helps!
 

Veri

Master Contributor
Joined
Feb 6, 2018
Messages
9,596
Likes
12,036
Hi! I'm the guy whose L30 committed suicide, I registered just to give some informations that could be useful. My unit was bought on November 10 and I've been using it since that day. It's an EU power brick unit if that may help. It showed no signs of malfunction, it just worked fine for nearly two months before breaking. It did not smell, the case was never hot to the touch. Hope it helps!
Thanks for reporting in. Maybe Topping would be interested in you shipping the L30 to them, for investigation..?
 

JohnYang1997

Master Contributor
Technical Expert
Audio Company
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
7,175
Likes
18,292
Location
China
Hi! I'm the guy whose L30 committed suicide, I registered just to give some informations that could be useful. My unit was bought on November 10 and I've been using it since that day. It's an EU power brick unit if that may help. It showed no signs of malfunction, it just worked fine for nearly two months before breaking. It did not smell, the case was never hot to the touch. Hope it helps!
Have you experienced ESD(electro static discharge)? It's winter time the chance of that happening is getting higher this is the newest information I got. There's a chance this could be the reason. And yeah if you are shipping it back that would be helpful. Contact topping customer service later(on holiday currently til Jan 4th).
 

gegebinazzi

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2021
Messages
12
Likes
25
Thanks for reporting in. Maybe Topping would be interested in you shipping the L30 to them, for investigation..?

Yeah I already wrote them an email, I'll wait a week before sending it back to amazon, if it can help I'll get it to Topping!
 

gegebinazzi

Member
Joined
Jan 1, 2021
Messages
12
Likes
25
Have you experienced ESD(electro static discharge)? It's winter time the chance of that happening is getting higher this is the newest information I got. There's a chance this could be the reason. And yeah if you are shipping it back that would be helpful. Contact topping customer service later(on holiday currently til Jan 4th).

Hi! Not much ESD in my home in this period, I have not experienced a discharge in months, not that I'm aware of. I already wrote an e-mail, I'll wait for a reply to arrange shipping :)
 

Jose Hidalgo

Addicted to Fun and Learning
Joined
Aug 15, 2020
Messages
961
Likes
1,032
Location
France
This has been improved in newer machines.
What specifically are newer machines? Is there a starting S/N so we can check if ours are newer or older?
 

hottyson

Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2019
Messages
9
Likes
27
Hi! I'm the guy whose L30 committed suicide, I registered just to give some informations that could be useful. My unit was bought on November 10 and I've been using it since that day. It's an EU power brick unit if that may help. It showed no signs of malfunction, it just worked fine for nearly two months before breaking. It did not smell, the case was never hot to the touch. Hope it helps!
Mine died too. I posted it on Head-fi:
https://www.head-fi.org/threads/topping-l30-the-new-budget-benchmark.934262/page-23#post-16070819

I will post here for you to read so you won't have to click link:
I purchased my Topping E30 / Topping L30 stack November 10, from Amazon from seller SHENZHENAUDIO. The Topping L30 amplifier amplifier was only $118.99 on sale. However, I had to return my Topping L30 amplifier to Amazon today. It malfunctioned and destroyed the drivers in my Sony headphones. The headphone drivers were making crackling and popping noises on my ears. I unplugged them but too late and now they are fried. This is a darned shame because the Topping L30 made most every headphone sound very good compared to many other $100 amps. The Topping L30 made my Sony MDR-CD780 sound better than any headphone I have ever heard in my life. No other amp has ever done this. I am tempted to get another or possibly try get the Topping A90. This is not the first time I have been burned by buying poorly made Chinese electronics. I once purchased a $500 DAC that only lasted three months. Luckily the Topping E30 DAC still functions and sounds great.

Have you experienced ESD(electro static discharge)? It's winter time the chance of that happening is getting higher this is the newest information I got. There's a chance this could be the reason. And yeah if you are shipping it back that would be helpful. Contact topping customer service later(on holiday currently til Jan 4th).
This might be what happened to mine. I reached for the volume control when it all happened. Perhaps static jumped from my fingers to the amplifier causing amplifire?
 

raif71

Major Contributor
Joined
Sep 7, 2019
Messages
2,333
Likes
2,535
Mine died too. I posted it on Head-fi:
I will post here for you to read so you won't have to click link:​
I purchased my Topping E30 / Topping L30 stack November 10, from Amazon from seller SHENZHENAUDIO. The Topping L30 amplifier amplifier was only $118.99 on sale. However, I had to return my Topping L30 amplifier to Amazon today. It malfunctioned and destroyed the drivers in my Sony headphones. The headphone drivers were making crackling and popping noises on my ears. I unplugged them but too late and now they are fried. This is a darned shame because the Topping L30 made most every headphone sound very good compared to many other $100 amps. The Topping L30 made my Sony MDR-CD780 sound better than any headphone I have ever heard in my life. No other amp has ever done this. I am tempted to get another or possibly try get the Topping A90. This is not the first time I have been burned by buying poorly made Chinese electronics. I once purchased a $500 DAC that only lasted three months. Luckily the Topping E30 DAC still functions and sounds great.


This might be what happened to mine. I reached for the volume control when it all happened. Perhaps static jumped from my fingers to the amplifier causing amplifire?
Hopefully not a cause to amplifear at.
 

JohnYang1997

Master Contributor
Technical Expert
Audio Company
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
7,175
Likes
18,292
Location
China
Mine died too. I posted it on Head-fi:
I will post here for you to read so you won't have to click link:​
I purchased my Topping E30 / Topping L30 stack November 10, from Amazon from seller SHENZHENAUDIO. The Topping L30 amplifier amplifier was only $118.99 on sale. However, I had to return my Topping L30 amplifier to Amazon today. It malfunctioned and destroyed the drivers in my Sony headphones. The headphone drivers were making crackling and popping noises on my ears. I unplugged them but too late and now they are fried. This is a darned shame because the Topping L30 made most every headphone sound very good compared to many other $100 amps. The Topping L30 made my Sony MDR-CD780 sound better than any headphone I have ever heard in my life. No other amp has ever done this. I am tempted to get another or possibly try get the Topping A90. This is not the first time I have been burned by buying poorly made Chinese electronics. I once purchased a $500 DAC that only lasted three months. Luckily the Topping E30 DAC still functions and sounds great.


This might be what happened to mine. I reached for the volume control when it all happened. Perhaps static jumped from my fingers to the amplifier causing amplifire?
This is concerning. We had A90 run but haven't seen anything wrong. Probably because it had grounded chassis. Not that it's not ok to have floating chassis otherwise planes wouldn't work. But ESD will much more likely find it's way around the chip in the floating chassis. The ESD rating for the power supply pin on tpa6120 is low but I don't see why that would cause any issue because the capacitors are there.
ESD is very difficult to replicate in a controlled manner. And this is certainly a rare case(in terms of model). Or maybe the ESD also destroyed the microcontroller? Idk. But will definitely check what's really going on and see how to replicate and reduce the chance of it happening.
 

JohnYang1997

Master Contributor
Technical Expert
Audio Company
Joined
Dec 28, 2018
Messages
7,175
Likes
18,292
Location
China
Not exactly an authority source, but
You can see that it's really difficult to replicate it. Yet it happens.
It will make a difference if it's the 1612 or the 6120 was fried first.
 
Last edited:

ZolaIII

Major Contributor
Joined
Jul 28, 2019
Messages
4,069
Likes
2,409
This is concerning. We had A90 run but haven't seen anything wrong. Probably because it had grounded chassis. Not that it's not ok to have floating chassis otherwise planes wouldn't work. But ESD will much more likely find it's way around the chip in the floating chassis. The ESD rating for the power supply pin on tpa6120 is low but I don't see why that would cause any issue because the capacitors are there.
ESD is very difficult to replicate in a controlled manner. And this is certainly a rare case(in terms of model). Or maybe the ESD also destroyed the microcontroller? Idk. But will definitely check what's really going on and see how to replicate and reduce the chance of it happening.
Well mentioned capacitors are the best place to start (and probably get to end of this) and you will need units which misbehave as I suppose you don't have steady supply chain. In my experience I never menaged to brick anything with ESD never used the gloves or antistatic isolation layers while lot of boards and high integrated circuits crossed my hands. Of course it can happen but it will happen really, really rare. On the other hand well a lot of deed condensers and some even went with fireworks.
 
Last edited:

hottyson

Member
Joined
Apr 21, 2019
Messages
9
Likes
27
Not exactly an authority source, but
You can see that it's really difficult to replicate it. Yet it happens.
It will make a difference if it's the 1612 or the 6120 was fried first.
Thank you JohnYang1997 for the detailed replies and thoughts on what might have happened. I reside in Las Vegas, NV which is dry desert. Perhaps this makes static electricity a more common occurrence for me. I think I am going to purchase another Topping L30 next time it goes on sale again for $119 from Amazon. However, I am going to move it to another room that has tile or wood floors to avoid any chance of this happening again. I see this as a learning experience and I am grateful for your shared insight. Thank you very much for your time and wisdom.
 
Top Bottom