Topping L70 Headphone Amp Review

[GPJ]

The ASR polls for the L70 and HPA-1 are interesting .....

8 poor votes for the L70 ..... 7 great votes for the HPA-1 .... correlation?

I love good comedy .... Carry on!

 

[Sokel]

It's not OLED;

View attachment 248048

JSmith

L-A seems as a good option for longevity if it's older (as the friend above explained) OLED.
Because they describe it as "LED screen".
I googled a little but the results didn't return anything similar.

I had the same question.

 

[solderdude]

8 poor votes for the L70 ..... 7 great votes for the HPA-1 .... correlation?

The correlation is: personal opinions have no correlation to measurements.

 

[YSC]

Sorry if I missed, but if there’s linearity and channel balance data? Those are usually among my top list for headphone amp

 

[Jimster480]

I wish my equipment had an easy to read display volume and a 12v trigger.
My two wishes came true here

Topping is listening to people especially on this forum.

I gave it one for the OLED display alone,otherwise I would have given it fine (to give great must be proved reliable over time too)
(I'm in an open war with OLED displays,I like to be able to read a screen more than 1 or 2 years after i get it)

I mean my ~4 year old DX7 had some faded components on it but it had been left on basically all the time for the past 4 years until I got my D70S 2 months ago.
Definitely still was very visible even if the brightness had reduced on the pixels that had been on for years.

 

[PeteL]

Wow. 7W of output power.
This device is useable to replace a single ended 300B amplifier on a high efficiency speaker? White this technical data, this must be amazing.
greetings, Walter

According to this graph posted later in the thread, no, You won't get much power for speaker loads, say 3 to 8 ohms.

 

[Sokel]

To tell my whole truth is not only about function but looks too.It doesn't look nice with faded digits,let's not forget that screen is the first thing that catches the eye.
Hopefully as @JSmith said not the case here,that's not an OLED (I don't have a clue about screens,I rely on you guys).

(Changed my vote too,I want to be fair)

 

[kencreten]

The only negative about all these fantastic headphone amps is, it's kind of a race to the bottom.... Sorry. It's the only bad joke I could come up with. Great equipment.

 

[anphex]

Same same, but different, but still the same.

So DAC manufacturers have gotten into the yearly release cycle like smartphones. Well, who's to blame them as long as it sells and there are actually people who ugprade their DAC every year.

 

[solderdude]

Sorry if I missed, but if there’s linearity and channel balance data? Those are usually among my top list for headphone amp

Linearity is near perfect as there is no distortion so has to be linear.
You might be meaning the volume control though.
Channel balance is near perfect (0.025% = 0.0023dB), at least at the volume setting Amir used.
It has relay volume control (0.5dB steps) so will be fine on other volume levels as well (determined by the tolerance of the used resistors).

 

[Mattx]

Excuse my ignorance but for the 12V trigger input control would this be a correct cable ?

 

[solderdude]

According to this graph posted later in the thread, no, You won't get much power for speaker loads, say 3 to 8 ohms.
View attachment 248091

The L70 is current limited at 0.4Amp so in 8ohm is only 3.3V = 1.4W
In 4 ohm = 0.7W

And, it will go in overload mode as the output chips would get too hot.

Exif68 should consider the A90D if wanting to stay in the Topping range (or LA90)

 

[staticV3]

Sorry if I missed, but if there’s linearity and channel balance data? Those are usually among my top list for headphone amp

Here's the channel balance:

Perfect down to 100dB attenuation.

And here's the linearity of E70+L70 ("NBWL" is what Amir usually shows):


Source

 

[Mattx]

According to this graph posted later in the thread, no, You won't get much power for speaker loads, say 3 to 8 ohms.
View attachment 248091

I am wondering if this matters if you have active speakers attached. I assume it doesn't matter ?

 

[solderdude]

I am wondering if this matters if you have active speakers attached. I assume it doesn't matter ?

You can connect active speakers. These have a high input resistance so do not load the amp.

 

[JSmith]

Excuse my ignorance but for the 12V trigger input control would this be a correct cable ?

That will probably work fine, however all that is needed is a mono 3.5mm TS like;

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002608015733.html

JSmith

 

[PeteL]

The L70 is current limited at 0.4Amp so in 8ohm is only 3.3V = 1.4W
In 4 ohm = 0.7W

And, it will go in overload mode as the output chips would get too hot.

Exif68 should consider the A90D if wanting to stay in the Topping range (or LA90)

I wouldn't consider any 10 Watts into 4 ohms amps to drive speakers, even very efficient ones but that's just me.... The fact that some use low power 300B tube amps don't mean that's right, and we do know that the distortion characteristic is different, It will not clip as hard.

 

[renaudrenaud]

You can connect active speakers. These have a high input resistance so do not load the amp.

That's what I have done. Active speaker, a remote and a screen visible from the sofa. Endgame.

 

[Mattx]

You can connect active speakers. These have a high input resistance so do not load the amp.

That will probably work fine, however all that is needed is a mono 3.5mm TS like;

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005002608015733.html

JSmith

Thank you both!

 

[vintagelove]

Could anyone confirm what the maximum input level on this would be (in low gain mode). I’m considering this for a monitoring solution for a mixer I’m building (Basically think recording studio monitor control). The nearest thing price wise in the studio world clips at +22db, that would be about the same as the L70 right (9.6v rms). The thing is, the L70 is half the price and absolutely humbles it spec wise. Seems like it could be an excellent fit for the purpose.


Also, I assume that in preamp mode, the headphones are muted and vice versa?

Thanks