Topping PA5 Review (Amplifier)

[solderdude]

What's with the door stoppers ?

 

[gfinlays]

Those ZAPH ZRT's must sound excellent. Which cap is in it for that 80uf value ?

They do sound pretty darned good to my ears! The 80s are made up from Amp Ohm FP-CA-AU polypropylene audio caps.

 

[mocenigo]

They are 120W 4 ohm 89 dB sensitivity

D'appolito Seas Prestige, dual 6.5" woofers, 1" dome, cast volcanic ash ported cabinets. Crossovers: ClarityCap CSA, 0.01uf Miflex KPCU bypass caps, 16 gauge Solen Litz Air Core Inductors, Mills resistors, high purity copper polyethylene wire. (Designed by Jack Pasley, sort of an unkown great of loudspeaker engineering. He graduated from Georgia Tech and went to work at Klipsch then designed many speakers for others. He was actually the designer for many of the “legendary” Klipsch speakers of the 80s and 90s. )

The important aspect is how much the impedance dips and where. 4 ohm nominal may still have places where it goes down to, say, 2 ohms or less, and if this happens in the bass, there the amp may run out of breath…

 

[mocenigo]

What's with the door stoppers ?

THEY ARE BEAUTIFUL! Nnn

 

[WonkyDonkey]

What's with the door stoppers ?

Stops the cables moving them out of square, no more, no less. The speaker cables are quite stuff, so the PA5s tend to wander off!

 

[AudioArchitech]

They sound great on the Audiolab 6000A. Have tried PMA-800ne with them as well, good sound. Sound normal on Aiyima A08 too.

 

[Guido]

I tried it in a biamped configuration with PA5 driving mid-range and tweeter and a 20dB gain amp driving lower frequencies/bass. With a digital crossover I was able to match the levels perfectly.

Sure. It depends on the system. In mine the efficiency of the medium/high way is so high that with even the volume control of pa5 completely open i can't match levels

What speakers are you using?

I don' wont to open a useless debate. The

 

[Guido]

Sure. It depends on the system. In mine the efficiency of the medium/high way is so high that with even the volume control of pa5 completely open i can't match levels.

Pa5 " terrible" ? I don' wont to open a useless debate but the only possible answer is that Monecigos sample is defective. I confirm that in my experience Topping pa5 is excellent not only for the price but in absolute terms.

 

[GiBo61]

One good, two mo betta?

View attachment 182364

What's on the top of them???

 

[antcollinet]

What's on the top of them???

Weights (post 3285)

 

[Xulonn]

Ok, maybe burn in is a real thing?

Burn-in often seems to be more of a thing for the ear-brain system than for electronic components...

 

[AudioArchitech]

What do guys think of the soundstage and imaging? I still need to compare, maybe it's the PecanPi... but I find the center imaging is not as good.

 

[AudioArchitech]

Burn-in often seems to be more of a thing for the ear-brain system than for electronic components...

I switched back to the same tunes the next day and flipped between the A08 and PA5 again to see, and to my surprise, there was clearly a difference. But who knows, maybe there was some human error there?

 

[antcollinet]

Burn-in often seems to be more of a thing for the ear-brain system than for electronic components...

Possibly a good time for me to repost this from a post I made in the "do speakers break in thread" back in September...

So here is an interesting take.

I've just "broken in" a pair of Dali Oberon 5's. Manufacturer states that "You will experience a gradual increase in quality" and "You should expect up to 100 hours of playback until maximum performance is reached"

This is my subjective experience.

On first use, I found them flat/dull - not surprising, that is what I'd read to expect. The first change I noticed was an increase in treble, progressing to horrible brightness / harshness. So bad I was convinced I would have to return them (I had a 30 day return window). After some experimentation, I managed to tame the harshness by moving them closer to the wall.

Next the bass started to come in. I had to move the speakers back away from the wall to balance the sound again.

Then the bass became horribly boomy. It didn't matter what I did with the positioning - horrible boom/bloat in the bass. Again - I was getting myself ready to send them back. As a last ditch I experimented with a few forms of port bung - from fully blocked, to partly blocked to sculpted bungs carved from water pipe insulation. All of them reduced/controlled the boom - with the best results being one of the carved versions - which really got the sound back to where I was/am very very happy with it.

My subjective opinion right up until yesterday was I'd definitely gone through a mechanical break in process. First the changes weren't subtle - from horrible harshness to unbearable bass boom. This was not the result of listening too hard, and hearing things that didn't exist. Further - neither of those results were expected (exactly the opposite - I was expecting a "gradual increase in quality") so no confirmation bias going on. Obviously the speakers had changed over a period of hours of playing... or had they?

Yesterday I got in our two year old car and put the (Bose Branded) radio on for the first time since getting the speakers. I've been listening to the radio in that car with settings unchanged for 18 months at least. This time, horrible unbearable bass boom. Had to set the 3 band tone controls back to flat from significantly raised treble and bass.

So now, I've no clue. The speakers may or may not have changed during the break in period. But the only thing I know for certain is that my ears (perceptual hearing?) definitely changed.

 

[AudioArchitech]

I'm not trying to debate the whole burn-in thing again. Read about it tons already. Just sharing my hearing experience, take it with a large grain of salt : )

 

[gfinlays]

Speaker drive unit break-in only takes a few hours at most and it's woofers and midwoofers only. The suspension needs a little time to reach full compliance and during break-in, T/S parameters can change by as much as 10 - 15%. I read a really interesting article the other day with comments from some of the major drive unit manufacturers (e.g. ScanSpeak, Tymphany, ATC etc.) and their views on drive unit break in. I can't link it here at the moment as apparently the domain expired yesterday.

 

[Ciobi69]

Hello guys,long lurker here,i did read a lot of this amp,i recently buyed a smsl sa300 but got a little bit roasted by some people I know,would this pa5 be better that the sa300? I would use it to drive a pair of open baffle speaker with 98 db of efficiency and maybe my klipschorns with 103 db of efficiency,what do you think about it? Should I give back the smsl sa300 and take this amplifier that i read is Soo good to be true?


And i forgot to add that i have a topping E30 for a DAC and I will need probably a trs to RCA cable

 

[AudioArchitech]

They do sound pretty darned good to my ears! The 80s are made up from Amp Ohm FP-CA-AU polypropylene audio caps.

Nice. Bet they sound good. If you don't already have bypass caps, try it out, blew me away. The Miflex KPCU 0.01uf is great. I just did the tweeter circuit at first, but later added it them the woofers and heard it there too. I was surprised at how much it improved. I did 1 speaker at a time and compared... I have done a few other speakers and even the Dayton bypass caps are good, Cornell Dublier 0.10uf is good too.

 

[J-Sine]

more listening, kids came home and we threw on their favorite pop songs I’v heard a million times ; ( Again, in my system, my room… with the PA5 there’s great detail, but the highs feel boosted compared to mids and lows. Drums like snares and tom’s sound a bit strange, like a cheap amp sound to them. Bass is a tad on the weak side. bass is better when it gets cranked up loud.

Unfortunately I don't think your perception is wrong. It generally matches most Class D Amps subjective impressions for these possible reasons.

I am not intending to disparage the PA5 in any way as it actual design extracts the most out of the TPA32XX IC design layout. Kudos to topping for "Real World" implementation of this chipset.

Unfortunately it exposes the issue of SINAD being perceived as synonymous with "transparency" . What is more perplexing is why IMD tests and SINAD do not reveal this distortion above 5K.

Since the PA05 SINAD measures so close to the the Highly revered Benchmark AHB2 I will quote John Siau from https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ements-of-benchmark-ahb2-amp.7628/post-180468

"Harmonic distortion may change the sound of a musical instrument long before we can recognize the fact that the music is distorted. The ratios of harmonics to the fundamental give each musical instrument its unique voice. Any time you add harmonic distortion, you make changes to this voicing."

Another test MISSING is the KEY test of Linear Phase Response.

I again quote John Siau regarding the Benchmark AHB2

"A non-linear phase response may be more audible than a non-linear frequency response. Errors in the phase response may create the impression that the frequency response is different. The frequency response of the AHB2 extends down to 0.1 HZ and up to 500 kHz so that the phase response is linear within the 20 Hz to 20 kHz audible band."

John Siau really summarizes Amplifier technology design issues in an easy palatable way. His posts on this forum are well worth a read.

Phase linearity and Harmonic Frequency distortion seems to be the "Achilles Heel" in Class-D implementations.
Phase Linearity is vital for proper soundstage and localization. Multichannel DSP uses Phase to localize. Actually your ears and brain do.
HYPEX Ncore and PURIFI foremost are diligently trying to address the 5khz to 20khz Harmonic/Phase linearity issues in Switching AMP design.
High bandwidth Amplifier design in the likes up to 3to600khz is specifically intended to do this to maintain Phase linearity. We as a whole take this for granted in Class A/B designs as a solved issue because it was 30-40 years ago.

I highly doubt the PA05 is transparent in audio in fact I would assert it colorizes high frequencies in different but similar way "tube" designs do.
There is a definite Harmonic frequency distortion above 5k being added. I call it harmonic eq that ads sizzle to say cymbals for example. But at the cost of disturbing timbre, vital localization phase cues and soundstage.
Speakers do this as well but constant directivity designs with time alignment are vastly improving transparency in audio production. The speaker variable is difficult enough, we do not need other devices in the signal path adding more anomalies.

I admittedly have tricked myself before loving the Class-D sound. Embarrassingly recommending it until I realized with much research with said Harmonic/Phase issues that I was doing the same thing as "tube" guys. I perceived it through my own subjective personal bias that this flavor was new and different so it must be better. I had one set of speakers that it really made shine. Since the components of these speakers were extremely high quality it HAD to be my signal chain that was lacking, so I thought...
At the same time, we are all entitled to colorize,DSP, eq and compensate for our inferior home listening environments to what we enjoy.
Speakers are still the weak link.

I myself was excited and about to purchase the PA05( I have a Topping D10s) because I have had great experience with SINAD thanks to this forum's efforts with DACS and headphone amps. The mission of ASR and Amirs work to bring clarity to the industry is to be applauded.

That said, I doubt in a ABX comparison the Topping PA5 would sound the same as an Benchmark AHB2. I haven't even addressed dynamic transient capabilities like high current designs.

This however strikes at the core of the significance of SINAD value as representing "State of the Art" designs. It seems we need SINAD + phase linearity response test and emphasis on Frequency distortion or at least specifically for Class-D designs. Even DAC's output filters could have Phase linearity issues.

Lets just not equate the Topping PA5 and especially 105db SINAD as a representation of "transparent". Hiss free yes!

I am not trying to Disparage Topping, It just shows that if you give a spec like SINAD high value, Someone will design a device to match that.

So what Tests combined with SINAD will show Transparency?

It seems we need a SINAD+* now.


Thanks AudioArchitech for taking a bullet for us and being candid with your impression. Not letting your logic brain and a tech spec warrior mentality bias your impressions. My budget for the PA5 will be shifted towards maybe the EX5 or Gustard X16.

J-Sine

 

[bsas]

Unfortunately I don't think your perception is wrong. It generally matches most Class D Amps subjective impressions for these possible reasons.

View attachment 182403


I am not intending to disparage the PA5 in any way as it actual design extracts the most out of the TPA32XX IC design layout. Kudos to topping for "Real World" implementation of this chipset.

Unfortunately it exposes the issue of SINAD being perceived as synonymous with "transparency" . What is more perplexing is why IMD tests and SINAD do not reveal this distortion above 5K.

View attachment 182414


Since the PA05 SINAD measures so close to the the Highly revered Benchmark AHB2 I will quote John Siau from https://www.audiosciencereview.com/...ements-of-benchmark-ahb2-amp.7628/post-180468

"Harmonic distortion may change the sound of a musical instrument long before we can recognize the fact that the music is distorted. The ratios of harmonics to the fundamental give each musical instrument its unique voice. Any time you add harmonic distortion, you make changes to this voicing."

Another test MISSING is the KEY test of Linear Phase Response.

I again quote John Siau regarding the Benchmark AHB2

"A non-linear phase response may be more audible than a non-linear frequency response. Errors in the phase response may create the impression that the frequency response is different. The frequency response of the AHB2 extends down to 0.1 HZ and up to 500 kHz so that the phase response is linear within the 20 Hz to 20 kHz audible band."

John Siau really summarizes Amplifier technology design issues in an easy palatable way. His posts on this forum are well worth a read.

Phase linearity and Harmonic Frequency distortion seems to be the "Achilles Heel" in Class-D implementations.
Phase Linearity is vital for proper soundstage and localization. Multichannel DSP uses Phase to localize. Actually your ears and brain do.
HYPEX Ncore and PURIFI foremost are diligently trying to address the 5khz to 20khz Harmonic/Phase linearity issues in Switching AMP design.
High bandwidth Amplifier design in the likes up to 3to600khz is specifically intended to do this to maintain Phase linearity. We as a whole take this for granted in Class A/B designs as a solved issue because it was 30-40 years ago.

I highly doubt the PA05 is transparent in audio in fact I would assert it colorizes high frequencies in different but similar way "tube" designs do.
There is a definite Harmonic frequency distortion above 5k being added. I call it harmonic eq that ads sizzle to say cymbals for example. But at the cost of disturbing timbre, vital localization phase cues and soundstage.
Speakers do this as well but constant directivity designs with time alignment are vastly improving transparency in audio production. The speaker variable is difficult enough, we do not need other devices in the signal path adding more anomalies.

I admittedly have tricked myself before loving the Class-D sound. Embarrassingly recommending it until I realized with much research with said Harmonic/Phase issues that I was doing the same thing as "tube" guys. I perceived it through my own subjective personal bias that this flavor was new and different so it must be better. I had one set of speakers that it really made shine. Since the components of these speakers were extremely high quality it HAD to be my signal chain that was lacking, so I thought...
At the same time, we are all entitled to colorize,DSP, eq and compensate for our inferior home listening environments to what we enjoy.
Speakers are still the weak link.

I myself was excited and about to purchase the PA05( I have a Topping D10s) because I have had great experience with SINAD thanks to this forum's efforts with DACS and headphone amps. The mission of ASR and Amirs work to bring clarity to the industry is to be applauded.

That said, I doubt in a ABX comparison the Topping PA5 would sound the same as an Benchmark AHB2. I haven't even addressed dynamic transient capabilities like high current designs.

This however strikes at the core of the significance of SINAD value as representing "State of the Art" designs. It seems we need SINAD + phase linearity response test and emphasis on Frequency distortion or at least specifically for Class-D designs. Even DAC's output filters could have Phase linearity issues.

Lets just not equate the Topping PA5 and especially 105db SINAD as a representation of "transparent". Hiss free yes!

I am not trying to Disparage Topping, It just shows that if you give a spec like SINAD high value, Someone will design a device to match that.

So what Tests combined with SINAD will show Transparency?

It seems we need a SINAD+* now.


Thanks AudioArchitech for taking a bullet for us and being candid with your impression. Not letting your logic brain and a tech spec warrior mentality bias your impressions. My budget for the PA5 will be shifted towards maybe the EX5 or Gustard X16.

J-Sine

I am so happy about this analysis because it proves to myself I am not crazy. I was super excited with my PA5 but I really didn’t like the sound of it compared to my VTV Purifi EVAL-1 and I couldn’t pin point why but your explanation really matches my subjective listening experience.

I really love when science makes sense. Unfortunately our senses are extremely complex and one single magic number like SINAD cannot represent everything related to pure sound reproduction… It’s just not that simple (as it never is)…