Topping L30 Headphone Amplifier Review

[virtua]

Their website has some howlers - the E30 page describes it as:

A "small hot hatch" like DAC

which combines meaninglessness with poor grammar. But it just comes across as charming. The exact same sort of thing I'd do if I had to produce some text in a foreign language!

To be fair I understand what they meant by that, a "hot hatch" is a performance car based on a small hatchback platform. Think Volkswagen Golf GTI, Honda Civic Type R etc. The E30 has very good performance in a small form factor which is the comparison they're trying to make - it's "hot hatch"-like. It sounds a bit strange, but compared to the grammatical errors on that apology letter, it comes across much more naturally lol

 

[Blizz]

Sometimes when I turn on the L30(2012 series) the light will blink once and seem to turn on with no problems. Is this normal? Anyone else experiencing this?

 

[Yoyop]

Sometimes when I turn on the L30(2012 series) the light will blink once and seem to turn on with no problems. Is this normal? Anyone else experiencing this?

Yes I have the same thing, only with my 2012 L30, my older one (2008) never did this.
But it works fine, just sometimes the power led turn on, then off for half a second, then go ON normally.
The "clicking" noise when power is ON is happening after the "second" power led

I don't know how to explain, my english isn't pretty good

 

[solderdude]

Might be because of the updated firmware in the processor that handles the relays and LEDs.
@JohnYang1997 will know for sure.

 

[ngs428]

Sometimes when I turn on the L30(2012 series) the light will blink once and seem to turn on with no problems. Is this normal? Anyone else experiencing this?

Same here.

 

[companyja]

I wish I knew what makes the L30 warm up, sometimes it's lukewarm when I'm blasting music fairly loudly and sometimes it's quite warm when I'm watching youtube on lower volume (and vice-versa). I don't have something to measure it with but I'd say it gets 40Cish or more, and then it'll cool itself down randomly and get warmer again

 

[solderdude]

Could be that the 2 output stages inside the output opamp are warming each other up due to differing DC offset and those outputs being in parallel via low ohm resistors. Seeing these opamps are not in unity gain this might be causing this.
Is there a particular spot that gets warmer or is the process very slow ?
Could be some inaudible high frequency in the source doing this.
Could be mains voltage varying in level.
Could be a very, very high low level oscillation.

The thing is reports have been coming in regularly about L30's getting warmer than expected and people stating the replacement runs much cooler (same power supply).

 

[companyja]

I'd say it slowly gets warmer and cooler over time and it's the whole chassis no particular hot spot. I remember my old Fiio K5 Pro getting warmer and colder over time seemingly randomly as well but to Fiio's credit, that unit was really only lukewarm at best and mostly cold to the touch. Coming from that massive brilliant smooth volume knob to the L30's knob has been quite a shock but it's something I can ignore because the performance is good. All the L30 front controls wiggle a bit though, just doesn't feel as good as the K5 even though the switches look the same, but hey it's not something I'd consider changing the unit over

 

[SeikON]

Should I buy L30 or not. After seeing problems with the product here, I was afraid to buy the L30.
Normally I want to do L30/E30 Stack but after these problems, I consider to buy SMSL M500.

 

[zenki]

If you don't have ESD issue, why not but yeah this thing runs quite hot compared to others?

 

[Veri]

Normally I want to do L30/E30 Stack but after these problems, I consider to buy SMSL M500.

Both are a good choice really. M500 gets you balanced output if you'd ever need that.

 

[raif71]

Should I buy L30 or not. After seeing problems with the product here, I was afraid to buy the L30.
Normally I want to do L30/E30 Stack but after these problems, I consider to buy SMSL M500.

Both are a good choice really. M500 gets you balanced output if you'd ever need that.

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...eded-i-am-exhausted-edition.21368/post-709899
Here @Racheski is saying that m500 has underpowered amp ??

 

[SeikON]

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...eded-i-am-exhausted-edition.21368/post-709899
Here @Racheski is saying that m500 has underpowered amp ??

I don't think so. HD6XX is very loud at half volume on the SMSL M500 on the reviews that i saw and read. It has enough power to drive most headphones.

 

[solderdude]

E30/L30 combo can play 2.5dB louder than M500. That's it.

 

[Racheski]

https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...eded-i-am-exhausted-edition.21368/post-709899
Here @Racheski is saying that m500 has underpowered amp ??

Look at the context of that post please - I am comparing the m500 to other options the OP is considering buying.

 

[Iglo]

Should I buy L30 or not. After seeing problems with the product here, I was afraid to buy the L30.
Normally I want to do L30/E30 Stack but after these problems, I consider to buy SMSL M500.

The L30/E30 stack is very nice. There were some issues with the L30 (but replaced under warranty) and solved in the current version. But the SMSL M500 does have some additional options which could make it a more interesting choice (MQA decoding, more inputs, balanced). I would not hesitate to pick the L30 again, but depending on your use-case the additional features of the M500 could make it a more interesting option.

 

[raif71]

Look at the context of that post please - I am comparing the m500 to other options the OP is considering buying.

noted , sorry if I misunderstood

 

[dgnzcn]

I bought kali lp-6, how can I use it with both headphones and Kali in the l30 + e30 set?

 

[companyja]

You can hook the kalis to the L30's line-out at the back, and then use the OFF-HPA-PRE switch of the L30 to switch from the headphones to the monitors

 

[dgnzcn]

You can hook the kalis to the L30's line-out at the back, and then use the OFF-HPA-PRE switch of the L30 to switch from the headphones to the monitors

Thanks..