It’s called advancing the state of the art. This amplifier exhibits the lowest sum of noise and distortion within Amir’s measurement parameters. I don’t think “SINAD champ” is a very descriptive summary of the test findings. I think what you should have said is, “if an amp that has distortion and noise measurements lower than any other amplifier on the market makes a certain segment of consumers happy, cool.”
"SINAD champ" hits the nail on the head. It's pretty pointless and impractical, you end up with four boxes and a $1,600 hole for very modest power and no remote control and basically SINAD bragging rights, because if the distortion is well below inaudible, then what difference do a few SINAD points make to what you hear?
According to the manufacturer:
" The LA90 maintains low distortion while outputting high power." Who are they kidding?
TOPPING unveils its LA90 exceptional performance class AB power amplifier, allowing it to take advantage of outputting high power. The TOPPING LA90 can be configured in a common stereo two-channel mode, or can be configured in a high-power mono mode. In the first case, it is capable of...
de.shenzhenaudio.com
For little more than the price of one of these units you can get a very nice 200w Nord nCore NC252 integrated with remote control.
I used a 93w Class AB for a couple of years, the CXA81 that Amir hated, but in reality it was designed to measure just well enough, with inaudible distortion measurements, but which packed a massive load of functionality into one box that, again, cost little more than one of these things.
There are loads of 40-60w Class AB integrated units that measure perfectly OK and have massively more features and are considerably cheaper. This is just SINAD-chasing and it's quite obvious from the manufacturer's own website.
Ironically, the manufacturer site also says:
"When used as pure power amplifier, Pre90 pre-amplifier is recommended. The Pre90 brings better volume control, remote control, more inputs, and a high-power combination of 1x Pre90 + 2x LA90 can easily be achieved." So they are effectively admitting the volume control isn't very good, and to work as you would expect (i.e. with a remote) you have to spend another $850 and have another two boxes. So you're looking at $2,450 for 95w low distortion Class AB integrated amplifier.