While L30 II will indeed provide yet more power, that should not be an issue with 9Vrms capable Atom Amp 2. Do you have your system volume set to 100%?
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Topping L30 II Review (Headphone Amp)
- Thread starter amirm
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System settings nominal. Again it’s not for normal listening, the JDS is perfect for that. I’m talking about really quiet passages or fade ins/outs where I want to boost to hear details/noises. It pushes the ATH-M40x there, but doesn’t quite get to that level with the HD600, so I’m wondering if the Topping would with the extra power. It’s not that expensive so I might just buy it to see for myself.
So you need gain, the maximum possble gain on a HP amp. If I'm not wrong, your amp has a max gain of +7dB, while the L30 II has 16.5 dBs, so it should give you colse to 10 dBs more perceived volume on very quiet passages.
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This is important because with system volume below 100% your DAC is not sending full 2Vrms level signal into the Amp and hence, cutting the output power of the amp considerably. Atom Amp 2 was measured to output 288mW at 300Ohm which is 9.3Vrms output at 2Vrms input, the power handling of HD600 according to the manual is 200mW (7.7Vrms), meaning with everything cranked up Atom Amp 2 is already overdriving the headphones. If you are running at 100% already, and you are willing to take that risk, then fine.
Roland68
Major Contributor
Does anyone know exactly what DIN 45580 says about this? It's 50 years old and at least 35 years since I looked at it.
You're overlooking two important things here: not every recording is equally loud, and @fws explicitly pointed out that the volume isn't sufficient for him in quiet passages. That is, where, even with the volume control turned all the way up, it only consumes a few mW, and probably well under 100 mW. It simply lacks the gain factor that the L30 II has.
Pulkass
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Somehow l soldered back in the transformer, no plastic upper cup, it broke in the fall, but it works. Thanks
Roland68
Major Contributor
It's perfect.
See if someone in your circle of friends, or in a maker lab, can print a simple top shell with ventilation slots, perhaps made of ABS. You can then simply glue it on.
Ian Knight
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This is a review, detailed measurements and listening test of Topping L30 II. It was sent to me by the company and costs US $149.
View attachment 220536
It comes in a number of colors. Usability could not be better with positive clicking switches for power/pre and gains. Three gains are provided with the low gain being very negative (-14 dB?) which should be very useful to drive sensitive IEMs.
Power is provided through an AC transformer:
View attachment 220538
In use the unit ran warm but noting concerning. It survived my multiple overload tests.
Topping L30 II Measurements
As usual we start with our "unity gain" dashboard of 2 volts in/2 volts out which required using medium gain:
View attachment 220539
Wow, check out that distortion. We are talking -148 dB which is basically what the analyzer itself generates! Noise level is also very low:
View attachment 220540
Check out how low it is when I adjust the output to just 50 mv:
View attachment 220541
This shatters all previous records:
View attachment 220542
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!
Back to distortion, here is our multitone:
View attachment 220543
Frequency response is the flattest I have measured of any amplifier I think, extending to beyond 100 kHz!
View attachment 220544
Beyond noise, power is everything for a headphone amp so let's see how much we have:
View attachment 220545
Am I seeing right? Nearly 0.6 watts into 300 ohm? Are you kidding me? All of you with high impedance headphones rejoice!!!
Power into 32 ohm is no slouch either:
View attachment 220546
There is plenty of drive for every load you throw at it:
View attachment 220547
Importantly there is no clipping at 300 ohm and higher meaning if you hear distortion, it is your headphone!
Finally, here is channel match:
View attachment 220548
There is an initial glitch with a deviation of 0.7 db but then things get better and you get plenty of attenuation.
Topping L30 II Listening Tests
I paired the L300 II with its companion E30II DAC for testing. I started with my difficult to drive Dan Clark Stealth headphone. In high gain, the L30 II had no trouble driving it to incredible volume and dynamics. Except in one rare case, I could not get the amp to produce anything but pure, clean distortion-free response with amazing detail.
Switching to Sennheiser HD300 meant there was more power than you ever wanted. In high gain, I could get the headphone to produce superb bass response that rattles your skull like you have your head in a drum set!
I wanted to just sit there and listen to this. Alas, it is past 1:00am in the morning and I have to get this review out...
Conclusions
Just when I thought boredom was setting in in this class of headphone amplifier, here comes Topping raising the bar so much. Not only does it set new record as far as noise performance, but it delivers incredible amount of power. And does it for US $149!!! I mean lunch at McDonald's for two is starting to get close to $30. And here we have an audio product that obsoletes even my made of phrase of "instrument grade!"
It is my pleasure to recommend Topping L30 II. This is engineering at its ultimate best.
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As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Any donations are much appreciated using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
Well I grabbed the L30ii to A/B. For what it's worth, they're fairly comparable. The L30ii is able to provide a little bit more gain at the extreme end, which is what I was curious about. That being said I don't think I'll keep it. The character of the amp to my ears seems a bit flatter/leaner/less lively/less energetic/duller. There might be a hair more separation/clarity/focus with the top end and transients, though I found it to be bordering the edge of sharp. With both the HD600 and the ATH-M40x, the Atom Amp 2 seems to produce a thicker/fuller sound (kind of like saturation) with more bottom, and it seems more balanced in general to me across the frequency range. I tend to do my editing with the ATH-M40x anyway so the Atom Amp 2 gets plenty loud. There were just a few recordings that I tried with the HD600 and the Atom Amp 2 where it would have been nice to have a little more gain to expose certain things, but I don't think it's worth sacrificing that preferred tonal character to get a bit more gain on the L30ii.
The L30ii is no slouch though! Great amp. Decent build and small footprint. Lots of gain. Preamp. Just not for me.
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How probable are measurement errors like this? Makes me wonder if readings below 95 db also be error prone?
nanook
Senior Member
Noise: If the noise of the device and the AP are uncorrelated (they are), the summed noise voltage is calculated as En = sqrt(En1^2 + En2^2).
This means if the noise of the device is ca. 3x (ca. 10dB) higher than the noise of the AP, the error is about 10% which is roughly 1dB.
If you measure the noise floor of the AP you can correct the measured noise using the above formula and obtain the approximate device noise.
If it comes to distortion it's getting more complicated. Depending on the phase of the distortion components, they can even cancel each other, so measuring distortion near the distortion level of the measurement equipment is prone to errors that are not predictable.
EDIT: Note that the noise voltages En in the formula above are not in dB, so it requires some more calculation to get from SNR to En.
Both numbers (En of analyzer and measured En) must be given with the same weighting applied (Topping specified in volts with A-weighting https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?attachments/326361/). A-weighting is almost 10dB down at 20kHz so the impact on En will be considerable.
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staticV3
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This is operator error, so who knows ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It's not a measurement error.
It's a not-fully-explained methodology difference.
If you have an analog volume and use it to lower volume for this 50mV test, you'll usually get much better result than by just lowering the digital input level.
We speak >10dB kind of difference.
So, with Amir's 50mV measurement, you just CAN NOT compare digital-volume-only devices with devices with analog volume.
*About the L30 II, I was able to measure 50mV SNR at 101.0dB. This was not using Amir's CCIR-2k weighting though.
Topping L30 II Review (Headphone Amp)
Need that relay volume control for perfect channel matching. Yes, I would pay an additional 50€/$ for such an upgrade...
www.audiosciencereview.com
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danadam
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By my calculations it's about 5% and so less than 0.5 dB.
sqrt( E^2 + (0.33 E) ^2 ) = sqrt( 1.1089 E^2 ) = 1.053 E
nanook
Senior Member
I'm afraid you are right ;-)
Seems I got my rule of thumb "if it's more than a factor of 3 apart you can neglect the smaller one" wrong.
Thank's for correcting !
danadam
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Why? The error is smaller than what you thought. Doesn't it make the rule even better?
Actually this is my rule of thumb too and it is the reason why I calculated this, because 1 dB seemed higher than I remembered.
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Something doesnt add up. All the amplifiers at the top of the list should be using analog volume control, for e.g. both Topping G5 and Topping L30 II. Yet, the latter has a 5 db advantage (against all competition). Is that realistically possible? Also, are you implying all other amps are somehow controlling volume digitally?It's not a measurement error.
It's a not-fully-explained methodology difference.
If you have an analog volume and use it to lower volume for this 50mV test, you'll usually get much better result than by just lowering the digital input level.
We speak >10dB kind of difference.
So, with Amir's 50mV measurement, you just CAN NOT compare digital-volume-only devices with devices with analog volume.
*About the L30 II, I was able to measure 50mV SNR at 101.0dB. This was not using Amir's CCIR-2k weighting though.
Topping L30 II Review (Headphone Amp)
Need that relay volume control for perfect channel matching. Yes, I would pay an additional 50€/$ for such an upgrade...
Roland68
Major Contributor
You have to distinguish between controlling the analog signal and attenuating a digital signal, because for the latter, a digital signal must be present, or generated via an ADC and then converted again using a DAC. However, a DAC in front of it would then be unnecessary.
The situation is different with digital volume controls, which are only controlled digitally but attenuate the analog signal via switched resistor arrays. That's a big difference.
NeverBetter
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What cables for coming out of something like an RME Fireface and into the L30ii? TRS to RCA...anyone have a suggestion/ link for what to get? Thanks
nanook
Senior Member
If we're talking about a Fireface 400 or Fireface UC, the TRS outputs are "servosymmetric". This means, the inverting signal must be shorted to ground and the non-inverted signal will then have the full amplitude (note that this does not hold for the XLR outputs of RME interfaces and is not a general feature for TRS outputs of other interfaces).
The "mono" TRS - so actually TS - shorts the inverting output to sleeve and this is the right cable for you.
Something like this:
www.thomann.de
Maybe you can find a cable TS(male) - RCA(male) if this is more convenient.
If you say which Fireface you have I can look up if it really has a servosymmetric output stage.
It's actually well described in the manual how the wiring needs to be.
The "mono" TRS - so actually TS - shorts the inverting output to sleeve and this is the right cable for you.
Something like this:
pro snake TPA 1003 PB
pro snake TPA 1003 PB, prof. Adapterkabel, Klinke Male > Cinch Female, schwarze Metallstecker mit vergoldeten Kontakten, Länge 0,3 Meter
www.thomann.de
Maybe you can find a cable TS(male) - RCA(male) if this is more convenient.
If you say which Fireface you have I can look up if it really has a servosymmetric output stage.
It's actually well described in the manual how the wiring needs to be.
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