Topping L30 II Review (Headphone Amp)

[Veri]

some original L30 exploded, does L30 ii suffer from that too

Obviously they fixed the original flaw in the design. Besides initial batches, L30 already had that fixed. L30 ii has no such recurring problem.. it would be PR madness if it would. In any case I'm seeing 0 weird cases so far. Surely they have in point now... also 'exploding' is a bit silly, it originally had a problem with ESD shocks.
The wallwart is a simple VAC transformer, which although very rare can also fail. Not explode, fail

 

[Hamrin]

I just purchased a Dan Clark Aeon RT Closed set of headphones. Can anybody please tell me if this is of sufficient quality and power to drive these headphones? If not, can you please recommend a headphone amp under $800.00 that can suffice?

The Aeon are well refined cans... I'd use something more "fine tuned" and versatile.
If you want to stay in the "Topping world" I'd go for an A30Pro (can be found at the same price of the L50) or the new L70.

 

[Southall-1998]

Thinking about getting one of these. I'm based in the UK. Which is the correct shop to purchase the L30 II?

S.

 

[Cuprajake]

Amazon

 

[Maurito]

Greetings! I bought l30ii and on my 50 ohm headphones the volume is set to 50% (high gain). This means that if there were 300 ohm headphones, then the volume knob would need to be unscrewed all the way.

 

[staticV3]

This means that if there were 300 ohm headphones, then the volume knob would need to be unscrewed all the way.

It does not.

 

[Veri]

Greetings! I bought l30ii and on my 50 ohm headphones the volume is set to 50% (high gain). This means that if there were 300 ohm headphones, then the volume knob would need to be unscrewed all the way.

Read this more carefully. Follow the color lines and see how much output voltage you get. Those ohms do not have the linear relation you're thinking of.

 

[Maurito]

I thought there would be more volume margin, I did not expect it to be at around 12 hours with high gain. Does everyone it? Maybe some problem in my l30?

 

[staticV3]

@Maurito it's possible that your DAC is outputting barely any voltage and that's why you have to turn up the Amp so much.
You can check if the Amp is fine and how much voltage your DAC is outputting with a basic $10 multimeter.

 

[anderl1962]

i think it´s on the amp. My amp has an output bout 240 mV, and it works well with 0 gain.

 

[Georgeadv]

so ideally I move in the last quarter?!

View attachment 224603

Shouldnt the best position be the other way around? To max?

 

[anderl1962]

why should this high position be better (best ) ?

 

[trenino]

I am considering the topping l30ii to drive my hd600.
There is the mark i version on offer and I am wondering if it will drive the hd600 fine. If so, any reason to get the mark ii ?

 

[Jayzqa]

I am considering the topping l30ii to drive my hd600.
There is the mark i version on offer and I am wondering if it will drive the hd600 fine. If so, any reason to get the mark ii ?

the price difference is so smol compared how much more power you get that I would just take mark ii. But both will make you happy.

And I haven't heard original e30, only e30 II and dx3 pro+ that I'll assume is very similar to e30 (minus some power). They practically sound the same for HD600.

There may be more bass on e30 II but can easily be just placebo.

 

[trenino]

Thanks Jayzqa. Do you think it will be a big difference moving from my Meridian Explorer (first version)?

 

[Jayzqa]

Thanks Jayzqa. Do you think it will be a big difference moving from my Meridian Explorer (first version)?

I cannot say anything about that. I want to have at least a few days of exposure about gear that I can recommend or not.

 

[Rja4000]

Check out how low it is when I adjust the output to just 50 mv:

This shatters all previous records:

We are talking a 5 dB gain over the best before! Considering that the analyzer noise is also in there, this is a remarkable achievement. Translating, even at 50 mv output, your noise floor is well below that of CD's 16 bit format!

I have a hard time understanding this.

This doesn't seem to match the other plots:

The plot at 300 ohm, for 8µW shows -92dB or so...
(unless there is a lot of distortion, which seems unlikely at such level)

Or am I missing something ?

(Granted, this is 600 ohm, not 300. But we see similar figures for 300 ohms and 32 ohms. And output impedance is very low, anyway.)

The only potential explanation I see is if the AP is not using the same generator for those 2 purposes,
and the one for measuring the THD+N vs Power is (much) noisier than the one used for the SNR.

(I'm able to measure >93dB SNR for a headphones amp output at 50mV, so I guess the SNR figure is correct)

 

[staticV3]

I have a hard time understanding this.
This doesn't seem to match the other plots: The plot at 300 ohm, for 8µW shows -92dB or so...

From my understanding, 100dB 50mV SNR is also plainly impossible to measure with the APx555, unless you add an external LNA

From the APx555 B datasheet:

if you convert that to 50mV SNR, you get:
20*log10(50mV/-117.8dBu)=93.997dB

which is almost exactly what Amir got in the sweep:


Then, here's what Wolf measured on his 555B setup, which generally is about 2-3dB cleaner than Amir's (see here):

97.3dB directly into the Analyzer and 105.3dB with a Cosmos APU LNA between Amp and Analyzer.

 

[Rja4000]

From my understanding, 100dB 50mV SNR is also plainly impossible to measure with the APx555, unless you add an external LNA

From the APx555 B datasheet:
View attachment 247967
if you convert that to 50mV SNR, you get:
20*log10(50mV/-117.8dBu)=93.997dB

which is almost exactly what Amir got in the sweep:
View attachment 247969

Then, here's what Wolf measured on his 555B setup, which generally is about 2-3dB cleaner than Amir's (see here):
View attachment 247970
97.3dB directly into the Analyzer and 105.3dB with a Cosmos APU LNA between Amp and Analyzer.

I guess the AP uses some additional analog line amplifier for SNR indeed.

 

[staticV3]

I guess the AP uses some additional analog line amplifier for SNR indeed.

Doesn't answer the problem at hand though. Amir measured something that afaik is physically impossible with the hardware he uses.