Topping L50 Review (Headphone Amp)

[gino1961]

You can save yourself this trouble entirely, as it provides no information at all about your own device.
All potentiometers, even from the same production batch, are different and have variations in channel balance. So, you can be lucky or unlucky with your device. These variations can occur especially at the very beginning and end of the range.
This has nothing to do with cheap or expensive, but rather a fundamental problem in potentiometer production. However, a potentiometer is the cheapest type of volume control, and truly high-quality ones have long since ceased to be manufactured. But you can measure it yourself.

Hi thank you very much for the kind and precious advice You are very right The performance can vary from one part to another
this part must be very cheap considering the price of the unit i guess that also the tiny size is not helping

If you want to avoid this completely, you can use devices with ICs for volume control or relay-based volume controls. Both are absolutely precise.
Potentiometers based on switchable individual resistors are only available for retrofitting and don't fit into most devices, including the L50.

thanks a lot again May i ask what would be your 1st choice ? i am even willing to use a passive good quality attenuator before the L50 with the pot at max or even bypassed with a little mod ( soldering two pieced of wires)
i did some test years ago with a cheap resistors attenuator of the series type a 20klog dual channel unit using Holco resistors
i was shocked by the transparency the sounds were cutting the space like blades ... impressive
with the pots the edges are like smoothed out ... i am not good with words
maybe a high quality passive attenuators is the way

 

[Roland68]

Hi thank you very much for the kind and precious advice You are very right The performance can vary from one part to another
this part must be very cheap considering the price of the unit i guess that also the tiny size is not helping

thanks a lot again May i ask what would be your 1st choice ? i am even willing to use a passive good quality attenuator before the L50 with the pot at max or even bypassed with a little mod ( soldering two pieced of wires)
i did some test years ago with a cheap resistors attenuator of the series type a 20klog dual channel unit using Holco resistors
i was shocked by the transparency the sounds were cutting the space like blades ... impressive
with the pots the edges are like smoothed out ... i am not good with words
maybe a high quality passive attenuators is the way

As I said, price and size don't play a role in terms of synchronization with conventional potentiometers. Measure your device first before you worry about it. Maybe everything is perfect.

You have to decide for yourself whether a modification makes sense for you. There's always the risk of damaging the device/circuit board. Incidentally, the L50 has a quad potentiometer built in. However, I haven't measured whether it's used as a quad potentiometer or whether two channels are always connected together.
Perhaps the L70 would be the more sensible solution with absolutely channel-equal relay-based volume control, true balanced and SE mode, remote control, preamp function, more than twice the power of the HPA, etc.

You were probably blinded in your test, or something else had a significant influence.
We've done these tests several times with different potentiometers compared to single resistors, voltage dividers, resistor-based potentiometers, ICs, etc., but completely blinded.
Guess what the result was... It's definitely not worth converting a device for this reason, except for channel matching issues.

I wouldn't even touch Holco resistors with pliers, and I definitely wouldn't let them near my devices.

 

[gino1961]

As I said, price and size don't play a role in terms of synchronization with conventional potentiometers. Measure your device first before you worry about it. Maybe everything is perfect.
You have to decide for yourself whether a modification makes sense for you. There's always the risk of damaging the device/circuit board. Incidentally, the L50 has a quad potentiometer built in. However, I haven't measured whether it's used as a quad potentiometer or whether two channels are always connected together.
Perhaps the L70 would be the more sensible solution with absolutely channel-equal relay-based volume control, true balanced and SE mode, remote control, preamp function, more than twice the power of the HPA, etc.

Thank you so much again a four sections pot is quite difficult to replace No way
I guess i should really go for the L70 It has also a remote control And XLR ins and outs Everything i could need

You were probably blinded in your test, or something else had a significant influence.
We've done these tests several times with different potentiometers compared to single resistors, voltage dividers, resistor-based potentiometers, ICs, etc., but completely blinded.
Guess what the result was... It's definitely not worth converting a device for this reason, except for channel matching issues.

ok i see Issue closed

I wouldn't even touch Holco resistors with pliers, and I definitely wouldn't let them near my devices.

wow ... are that bad ? in the audiophile world they were well considered