This is a review and detailed measurements of the Topping PA3 desktop amplifier. I have had a ton of requests to measure this amplifier so I asked the company to send me one. They said they would do so but cautioned me that it would not measure well. The PA3 costs US $120 on Amazon including free shipping.
I must stay, compared to all the budget amplifiers I have tested, the PA3 looks like luxury goods! It comes in a hefty case and oozes quality:
There are dual inputs as you see which you can control using the power button. A massive, Topping branded external power supply is provided which even goes as far as having textured design on the back side:
Most importantly, all the regulatory certifications are there which we know from past examination to be true and certified by third-party labs. This is one budget amplifier I wouldn't hesitate to leave on unattended.
Implementation is based on TDA7498E ST Micro chip amp.
Topping PA3 Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard of 5 watts into 4 ohm using 1 kHz tone:
As you see I adjusted the volume control to give us the nominal 29 dB gain I usually test at. SINAD is dominated by distortion which at 0.036% which correlates well with ST Micro's 0.05% spec at 1 watt. Alas, this is well below average for all amplifiers we have tested and some of the latest chip amp products:
SNR slots in the same bucket of performance:
Crosstalk is pretty good showing good attention to isolation:
Frequency response unfortunately is very load dependent:
We get about 51 watts into 4 ohm with both channels driven with distortion dominating (hence the reason the graph doesn't slope down):
Power naturally drops with 8 ohm load but not as much some others I have seen:
Peak power matches company spec which is a novelty in this space:
Note that there was a really strong protection circuit that would not allow me to push the amp more than I did for max power so I had to settle for lower distortion of 0.5%. It would shut down if I told it to work harder to hit 1%.
Distortion takes off rather quickly with frequency as we see in multitone test:
Same is see in our frequency versus power and distortion+noise:
Fortunately our hearing threshold starts to go up at higher frequencies so audibility is less impacted than our sensibility about good engineering.
Conclusions
It is clear that Topping did what it could to build a reliable, safe and robust desktop platform for this amplifier. Alas, they are held down significantly by the performance of the underlying chip amp which is likely all that was available at the time this product was designed. Being selfish elitist audiophile engineering types that we are, we have no choice but to pass on this amplifier. If you are not picky however and want something that is build safe and well, you could choose otherwise.
So to repeat, I can't recommend the Topping PA3 based on its audio performance. Hopefully there are future products based on a better platform.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/
I must stay, compared to all the budget amplifiers I have tested, the PA3 looks like luxury goods! It comes in a hefty case and oozes quality:
There are dual inputs as you see which you can control using the power button. A massive, Topping branded external power supply is provided which even goes as far as having textured design on the back side:
Most importantly, all the regulatory certifications are there which we know from past examination to be true and certified by third-party labs. This is one budget amplifier I wouldn't hesitate to leave on unattended.
Implementation is based on TDA7498E ST Micro chip amp.
Topping PA3 Measurements
Let's start with our usual dashboard of 5 watts into 4 ohm using 1 kHz tone:
As you see I adjusted the volume control to give us the nominal 29 dB gain I usually test at. SINAD is dominated by distortion which at 0.036% which correlates well with ST Micro's 0.05% spec at 1 watt. Alas, this is well below average for all amplifiers we have tested and some of the latest chip amp products:
SNR slots in the same bucket of performance:
Crosstalk is pretty good showing good attention to isolation:
Frequency response unfortunately is very load dependent:
We get about 51 watts into 4 ohm with both channels driven with distortion dominating (hence the reason the graph doesn't slope down):
Power naturally drops with 8 ohm load but not as much some others I have seen:
Peak power matches company spec which is a novelty in this space:
Note that there was a really strong protection circuit that would not allow me to push the amp more than I did for max power so I had to settle for lower distortion of 0.5%. It would shut down if I told it to work harder to hit 1%.
Distortion takes off rather quickly with frequency as we see in multitone test:
Same is see in our frequency versus power and distortion+noise:
Fortunately our hearing threshold starts to go up at higher frequencies so audibility is less impacted than our sensibility about good engineering.
Conclusions
It is clear that Topping did what it could to build a reliable, safe and robust desktop platform for this amplifier. Alas, they are held down significantly by the performance of the underlying chip amp which is likely all that was available at the time this product was designed. Being selfish elitist audiophile engineering types that we are, we have no choice but to pass on this amplifier. If you are not picky however and want something that is build safe and well, you could choose otherwise.
So to repeat, I can't recommend the Topping PA3 based on its audio performance. Hopefully there are future products based on a better platform.
------------
As always, questions, comments, recommendations, etc. are welcome.
Appreciate any donations using: https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/how-to-support-audio-science-review.8150/