Topping L30 II Review (Headphone Amp)

[theron_day]

-Active
-Yes it should work fine!

many thanks Veri!

 

[Miiksuli]

Can the Topping L30 II preamp out be connected to a Tube power amp (100K input). Is the preamp section active or passive? Many thanks for your input

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Works really well. I had problems when not using a tube amp as a power amp. This L30 II started to clip at high gain. What amp u have?

 

[theron_day]

Works really well. I had problems when not using a tube amp as a power amp. This L30 II started to clip at high gain. What amp u have?

Conrad Johnson MV-55 (el34 push pull 45 watts)

 

[TjindarSingh]

Is it class A?

 

[Veri]

Is it class A?

Both the L30/L30 II share NFCA amp design by a lot with the all in ones like EX5

https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/amp/topping-ex5.php#gsc.tab=0

appears to be class A almost all the way that's why the power adapter/amp gets hot. A30 Pro gets even hotter.

 

[half_dog]

Is it class A?

Both the L30/L30 II share NFCA amp design by a lot with the all in ones like EX5

https://reference-audio-analyzer.pro/en/report/amp/topping-ex5.php#gsc.tab=0

appears to be class A almost all the way that's why the power adapter/amp gets hot. A30 Pro gets even hotter.

Not completely sure but L30 (II), Atom, Heresy... Amps with dual power supplies usually are AB class.

 

[taner]

Maybe due to insufficient psu filtering.
Is there any photos of V2's inside circuitry? I wonder if they use same size of filter capacitors of V1. V1 has 2*4700uF high quality filter capacitors (V1 photos are at this post).

At first I took this as sarcasm, but it does actually look like a distortion spike at 60Hz from a noisy power implementation in the V2.

The original L30 doesn't have this spike and is cleaner with no spikes above -120:

 

[theron_day]

Im auditioning the ToppingL30II tonight preamp section, first time. Denon DVD 3910 CD player to Topping to an Adcom GFA 565se power amp to JBL 4312 control monitors.

With the Hi setting volume at 8-9 oclock is plenty loud enough. Medium gain equal loudness at 11 oclock.

Crystal clear image, full sounding, sounds good, Clear as a bell.

ONE ISSUE !!! on the high setting when the volume is at absolute Zero there is a small amount of the audio signal still heard in the speakers… Anyone else?

 

[Veri]

ONE ISSUE !!! on the high setting when the volume is at absolute Zero there is a small amount of the audio signal still heard in the speakers… Anyone else?

This is kind of typical for cheaper ($100-150 range) amps. The performance is there but otherwise I guess you 'get what you pay for'.

 

[Miiksuli]

Im auditioning the ToppingL30II tonight preamp section, first time. Denon DVD 3910 CD player to Topping to an Adcom GFA 565se power amp to JBL 4312 control monitors.

With the Hi setting volume at 8-9 oclock is plenty loud enough. Medium gain equal loudness at 11 oclock.

Crystal clear image, full sounding, sounds good, Clear as a bell.

ONE ISSUE !!! on the high setting when the volume is at absolute Zero there is a small amount of the audio signal still heard in the speakers… Anyone else?

Same happens here. A bit bleeding.

 

[theron_day]

Dear Topping can you make a phono preamp please?

 

[Jayzqa]

Just got the II stack on my desk and boy it drives Sennheisers like nobody’s business.

 

[StratsoundFan]

@Jayzqa do you get the same amount og power from Topping L30 ii without using the DAC? Which Sennheiser do you have?

 

[Jayzqa]

@Jayzqa do you get the same amount og power from Topping L30 ii without using the DAC? Which Sennheiser do you have?

I do not have anything else sensible to test that with at the moment sorry. I only have hd660s and atleast they give their peak performance with this little box.

It literally kills all of their combo units. (only thing I haven't heard is the new DX7 pro+)

 

[StratsoundFan]

Ok. Thanks. I see those are 150 ohms. When I'm using my dt 990 pro 250 ohms, I have to set the volume knob at 2 o'clock on high setting. I just wanted to make a comparison

 

[Jayzqa]

Ok. Thanks. I see those are 150 ohms. When I'm using my dt 990 pro 250 ohms, I have to set the volume knob at 2 o'clock on high setting. I just wanted to make a comparison

I drive mine on medium gain but your cans has also a much lower sensitivity so they are pretty hard to drive. You cannot directly compare them by impedance alone.

 

[Merkurio]

I've been without audio gear for a long time, other than a Qudelix-5K which I personally adore and drives all my IEMs with no problem (in fact, my last desktop DAC/Amp was the original DX3 Pro a couple of years ago which I sold due to lack of use), but I'm motivated to buy a DCA Aeon 2 Noire soon and now I wanted something without the distracting orange numbers at low light, so I've ordered the L30 II with the Moondrop Dawn 3.5 version as a DAC to hook it up behind the computer and have a clean desktop setup at night.

Excited to see how the combo performs, at least initially with my IEMs and later with the Aeons.

 

[Jayzqa]

I've been without audio gear for a long time, other than a Qudelix-5K which I personally adore and drives all my IEMs with no problem (in fact, my last desktop DAC/Amp was the original DX3 Pro a couple of years ago which I sold due to lack of use), but I'm motivated to buy a DCA Aeon 2 Noire soon and now I wanted something without the distracting orange numbers at low light, so I've ordered the L30 II with the Moondrop Dawn 3.5 version as a DAC to hook it up behind the computer and have a clean desktop setup at night.

Excited to see how the combo performs, at least initially with my IEMs and later with the Aeons.

You can actually turn the display off from E30 II

 

[Χ Ξ Σ]

Just got the II stack on my desk and boy it drives Sennheisers like nobody’s business.

Your cable is probably harder to drive than your headphones

 

[Merkurio]

You can actually turn the display off from E30 II

But there's no point spending more on another brick above (or below) the L30 if I'm not going to take advantage of the extra connectivity, especially considering that Moondrop Dawn's numbers are very competitive (115 dB SINAD) according to Wolf's measurements at L7AudioLab for less than $70.