Topping L30 Headphone Amplifier Review

[Jose Hidalgo]

Oh, so that would come from the DAC and not from the amp ?
In my case it's an E30 and I have that noise. It's mildly annoying.
Any other people with similar issues ? Has Topping said anything about this ?

 

[krumpol]

I've got D10s with 2101xx serial number, Topping's driver v5.12.0 installed and running foobar2000 v1.6.6 flawlessly without any clicking in my cans both in WASAPI and foo_dsd_asio output mode on Win 10 x64.

 

[half_dog]

Oh, so that would come from the DAC and not from the amp ?
In my case it's an E30 and I have that noise. It's mildly annoying.
Any other people with similar issues ? Has Topping said anything about this ?

As I said, my E30 is a old revision and I think it does not have this implementation - supposing that's the cause. Yes, it's annoying, the D10s is my daily DAC and usually I listen through a Starfield (pretty Sensitivity IEM) with L30 on this maximum volume and it's very audible. But if I put D10s at max and control the on L30, the clicks are almost inaudible.

I've got D10s with 2101xx serial number, Topping's driver v5.12.0 installed and running foobar2000 v1.6.6 flawlessly without any clicking in my cans both in WASAPI and foo_dsd_asio output mode on Win 10 x64.

May I ask how is your rig is setup and which headphone you use with it? But maybe the driver update has mitigated the clicks sound... Mine is not updated.

 

[krumpol]

May I ask how is your rig is setup and which headphone you use with it?

Sure. Nothing special, low-end PC I've built around year 2017 on Gigabyte MOBO with B250 chipset and 7th gen. Intel CPU. DAC is connected to USB 3.1 port on backpanel and L30 powered by Topping's 230/15VAC transformator. Bought it with L30 and there's picture uploaded three pages back in this thread. Haven't connected any other cans than my oldest 250 Ohm DT880 and DT990 to it so far.

 

[Deleted member 27758]

Can someone explain how the L30 power output numbers relates to real life scenario ? L30 sounded decent with my iem, but newly ordered Focal Utopia unfortunately did sound awful. Ears piercing highs, lack of bass, basically too agressive & unlistenable if I try to increase volume. I was on a verge to return Utopias, but did got a chance to listen through vintage luxman p1u amp at friends place and it made a huge difference compared to L30. Everything fell into a place, better layered/detailed, with more bass impact and I could easily push the volume knob very loud without any harshness. Is it a bad synergy or I miss-interpret measurements ? The way I understand if we disregard the size luxman is 4x less powerfull than topping. I'm using L30/E30 stack at home, but now seriously considering an upgrade

Toppings L30
2300mW x 2 @32Ω

Luxman P1U
500mW x @32Ω

 

[infinitesymphony]

Can someone explain how the L30 power output numbers relates to real life scenario ? L30 sounded decent with my iem, but newly ordered Focal Utopia unfortunately did sound awful. Ears piercing highs, lack of bass, basically too agressive & unlistenable if I try to increase volume. I was on a verge to return Utopias, but did got a chance to listen through vintage luxman p1u amp at friends place and it made a huge difference compared to L30. Everything fell into a place, better layered/detailed, with more bass impact and I could easily push the volume knob very loud without any harshness. Is it a bad synergy or I miss-interpret measurements ? The way I understand if we disregard the size luxman is 4x less powerfull than topping. I'm using L30/E30 stack at home, but now seriously considering an upgrade

Toppings L30
2300mW x 2 @32Ω

Luxman P1U
500mW x @32Ω

Either amp will have more than enough power to drive most headphones. Based on the Luxman P1-u's marketing blurb I think it's likely to apply its own frequency response or saturation/harmonic distortion:

"Very powerful and with the sweetness and warmth of Luxman's Class A designs, the P-1u is perhaps the most delicious sounding headphone amp we've ever heard. Luxman's emphasis is on reproducing natural music, with lots of warmth, detail. Easy to listen to and gloriously built, Luxman's engineers are fanatical in their attention to detail; although much time is spent analyzing how components perform on test equipment, the final arbiter for every Luxman piece is listening evaluations. Before a product is released for sale, hours and hours are spent carefully listening to determine whether the product in question will truly play music, convey the emotion of the performance, retrieve the ambience of the venue and accurately reproduce timbre of each instrument. This is why Luxman components are highly coveted the world over, built to exceedingly high quality requirements, they also sound gorgeous.
...
We've found that the P-1u requires several hundred hours of play-time before it really comes into its own. Although it does sound good out of the box, like all high-current devices your patience during the break-in process will be rewarded with truly outstanding performance. For optimal results, we highly recommend leaving the P-1u on all the time."

The Topping L30 should give you the headphones' frequency response, good or bad:

 

[Deleted member 27758]

That's strange I really don't enjoy utopias with topping L30 because of it's harshness and it was not just my ears. When topping is set to low gain -9DB and played quietly it performs ok, setting it to high gain/increasing volume does nothing much to bass and brings piercing highs upfront.

Volume knob as well had to go to 2 o'clock on topping to reach similar level of loudness as on luxman which was set around 9. That shouldn't be the case for L30 which by numbers reads as 4x powerful. I know there are lots of snake oil in audio gear and that's a strong case for me not to fallow numbers blindly as L30 was simply outclassed by this old amp. I don't believe that headphone as utopia was engineered so bad to listen very quietly. In my understanding either L30 runs out of steam or it add's brightness and sharpness up top when increasing volume.

L30 stud better using warm headphones as Sennheiser HD650. I could get to normal listening level without any ear piercing mids/treble, though it still sounded dead compared to P1U. L30 is nice for it's size, but there is no way it delivers more juice/performance than P1U no matter what numbers say

 

[krumpol]

Since output voltage of your E30 is 2 Vrms and you've listened to P1U at friends place, could it be that input voltage of L30 and P1U was different? You'll never get maximum power out of L30 with less than 5 V 3 V input signal.

edit: fixed

 

[JohnYang1997]

Since output voltage of your E30 is 2 Vrms and you've listened to P1U at friends place, could it be that input voltage of L30 and P1U was different? You'll never get maximum power out of L30 with less than 5 V input signal.

?

 

[krumpol]

@JohnYang1997
Is it possible for L30 to reach 2300mW x 2 @32Ω output (as stated in specs) when connected to E30?

 

[Vini darko]

@JohnYang1997
Is it possible for L30 to reach 2300mW x 2 @32Ω output (as stated in specs) when connected to E30?

No. You need 3v for that. E30 puts out 2.1v.

 

[JohnYang1997]

@JohnYang1997
Is it possible for L30 to reach 2300mW x 2 @32Ω output (as stated in specs) when connected to E30?

3V not 5V. And it essentially reaches stated power for 16ohm.

 

[krumpol]

Thanks, I stand corrected.

 

[veda95]

Hi everyone,
I received my L30 yesterday and been a little disappointed when i've got it, however, i read a lot of topics before buying it.
I have 2 different headphones, an akg k702 and an old akg k340 that i really love, i usually use them both on a little dot mk2 tube amp.
On the little dot the sound seems to me beautiful but not very clean and stereo space is limited, that why i wanted to change.
On the L30 who seems to have almost the same gain specs, the gain is weak, to listen pretty loud on the k340 i have to set the gain to +9 and the volume at maximum and it's not enough. With the k702 it's better but again gain to +9.
The sound immediately appear to be clinical clean with good stereo space, every instrument take place really nicely, but the bass are not so loud, not organic, and the sound seems to be flat without life or emotions (hard to explain).
I think i'm used to hear tube distorsions and that is maybe why i feel things like this but the A/B listening on both headphone amps let me no doubts.

It's not a judgement, just my feelings, i will sell it soon and maybe try a more advanced tube amp or maybe stay with mine finally.

Thank you anyway for this forum who is really useful when we can't hear gears before buying them (and sorry for my poor english maybe

 

[Veri]

Hi everyone,
I received my L30 yesterday and been a little disappointed when i've got it, however, i read a lot of topics before buying it.
I have 2 different headphones, an akg k702 and an old akg k340 that i really love, i usually use them both on a little dot mk2 tube amp.
On the little dot the sound seems to me beautiful but not very clean and stereo space is limited, that why i wanted to change.
On the L30 who seems to have almost the same gain specs, the gain is weak, to listen pretty loud on the k340 i have to set the gain to +9 and the volume at maximum and it's not enough. With the k702 it's better but again gain to +9.

I'm surprised you need that much gain!! Could it be your analog source input has a low voltage out?

 

[Deleted member 27758]

Since output voltage of your E30 is 2 Vrms and you've listened to P1U at friends place, could it be that input voltage of L30 and P1U was different? You'll never get maximum power out of L30 with less than 5 V 3 V input signal.

edit: fixed

I brought E30 together with L30. We tried both amps with chord qutest also so input voltage was the same. L30 could get loud with utopias(not to the extent as p1u) but it was unlistenable experience, loss of bass and very peaky mids/highs. HD650 did not have this behavior, but it still felt under driven compared to P1U.

On very low volumes L30 behaved better, but going further its obvious that L30 falls apart and can’t sustain demanding headphones. What surprised me most that when we looked at specs P1U is only 1/4 of the power output of L30. Either the metric system differs or tests performed on L30 played in favour to have such insane numbers in power output not related to real life scenarios.

I don’t want to moan here too much as L30 is a decent device on the budget and I will keep this stack for portable station, but it is obvious that it is not a miracle like numbers say or how it is praised here. Unfortunate for my wallet I simply need a better amp for utopias

 

[veda95]

Good point, thanks for your answer ! I use a soundcard, focusrite scarlett 8i6 3gen, pugged on second out, i already check the out level is at 0

 

[Sombreuil]

I'm surprised you need that much gain!! Could it be your analog source input has a low voltage out?

Same here with a Focusrite as a DAC with a 58X. With some old classical music songs the +9 wasn't enough. It was loud, but not crazy loud.

 

[Deleted member 27758]

3V not 5V. And it essentially reaches stated power for 16ohm.

We pushed 3v with chord qutest to L30 and I can confirm that it was better, but nowhere near as Luxman p1u which states as 500mw 32ohm amp. The way I heard it L30 plays best with non-demanding and warm sounding headphones

 

[JohnYang1997]

We pushed 3v with chord qutest to L30 and I can confirm that it was better, but nowhere near as Luxman p1u which states as 500mw 32ohm amp. The way I heard it L30 plays best with non-demanding and warm sounding headphones

Utopia has its issues. Hd600 650 are way better in terms of frequency response smoothness.
And no 3V wouldn't change anything. You don't turn the volume all the way up and running in high gain.