Topping PA7 Plus Amplifier Review

[JohnYang1997]

Are there any plans you could disclose about a future Pa5 successor? Something in Pa5 price range.

Yes there are II many plans.

 

[Talisman]

Trattiamola solo come dichiarazione solo tecnica. Non sto dicendo che Topping non sia da biasimare, ma quella critica verso JohnYang1997 è un po' dura IMO. Molto probabilmente non ne è responsabile.

Non voglio rispondere ulteriormente per rispetto di chi apre il thread e vuole leggere di Pa7 e non di altre questioni, quindi chiudo qui l'OT e mi scuso.
Ci sarebbero altri thread in cui rispondere nel merito, ma John non li frequenta da quando si sono scaldati, basti pensare che questa banale spiegazione non è mai stata fornita nel thread specifico dei fallimenti di pa5...
Ma come ho detto mi scuso e chiudo l'ot.

 

[sarumbear]

My PA5 is still in operation, but after seeing nearly 50% of these fail in the ASR population

Do you think Topping sold only to the couple of hundred ASR members? Could it be that as they don’t have a support forum, and known to have unsatisfactory support, every failed owner came to ASR to vent their anger.

You may also have missed their response to the failures.

 

[BoredErica]

Spoiler: Load Dependency

Spoiler: Power v Distortion

Comparison of pa7 vs pa5. Seems in these two metrics pa5 performs better. Then people can argue if it's audible.

 

[pma]

It would be nice to see the plot with Residual ON

 

[192kbps]

The Non plus version has slightly less power for 449 USD.
PA7 is released this long after the PA5, because we spent a very long time identify and fixed the previous failure rate issue of PA5 and made sure it's not an issue anymore on PA7. I'm very confident with the quality of the new PA7 . The non plus version has superior performance to cost ratio and it's highly recommended.

Will you design a three-channel power amplifier or a seven-channel amplifier for home theater users?

 

[anotherhobby]

Do you think Topping sold only to the couple of hundred ASR members? Could it be that as they don’t have a support forum, and known to have unsatisfactory support, every failed owner came to ASR to vent their anger.

You may also have missed their response to the failures.

I don't think it's an unreasonable request to ask if they'd consider an upgrade/trade-in path for PA5 owners that haven't had failures yet. They are fine to say no obviously, but no harm in asking.

 

[xaxxon]

Do you think Topping sold only to the couple of hundred ASR members? Could it be that as they don’t have a support forum, and known to have unsatisfactory support, every failed owner came to ASR to vent their anger.

You may also have missed their response to the failures.

As far as I can tell their response was only talk. They responded to me on multiple platforms (here and reddit) but then suddenly went quiet when I actually asked for help.

So I believe it was just for show.

I have a broken pa5 I've basically given up on at this point - I'm not paying $80 and lying on customs (per their reseller aoshida's instructions) to send my amp to china for warranty work that will get me a temporarily non-broken amp that I'll just have to stress over in the future when it inevitably breaks again.

 

[bud947]

I see that PA7 and LA90/LA90D share the same connector. Would it be possible to use the PA7 power brick (52v/6.5a) with the topping LA90/LA90D ?

@JohnYang1997 any answer on this ?

 

[MAB]

In short, majority of the failures come from the sealed module, and it's the opamps that are overheating. It wouldn't have been an issue at all if someone hadn't copies and patented our earlier designs that we wouldn't need to make the module. Too many opamps in a small package is not a good idea. In report in the repair department, there's pretty much no damage done to the chip itself and no DC would ever appear across the terminals. Anyway lessons learned so no more than 2 opamps in one small module is our rule of thumb.

Thanks. I had been wondering. I will be very happy to see this new PA7 earn a good reliability reputation. I am sure the PA5 experience was as difficult for Topping as it was for the customers. I hope the resellers learned to respect the customer just a bit more too...

 

[okok]

I second that thought.

I purchased a Buckeye NC252 from Dylan for a similar price (US$575 plus shipping to Aus) and am extremely happy as it is very clean (SINAD 94db) and powerful (150W into 8ohms). When you take into consideration US assembled vs China, and the failure rate of recent Topping amps, it is IMO a no brainer.

no one wanna get some no brainers instead of sticking to potential failing or falling apart products despite labeled as new, no move on or hard pass?

 

[spectral85]

@amirm no headroom test?

 

[Billy Budapest]

Yes there are II many plans.

Good to see you back on the forum!

Any plans for Topping to release a pure power amplifier, without volume control and switching? Taking the guts of the PA7 or LA90 and eliminating the volume and source selector at a reduced price would make a lot of sense for a lot of people.

 

[MAB]

Do you think Topping sold only to the couple of hundred ASR members? Could it be that as they don’t have a support forum, and known to have unsatisfactory support, every failed owner came to ASR to vent their anger.

Yeah, it wasn't 50% defect-rate, but... Multiple customers got two bad units, some got a replacement that went bad, and the fail units displayed similar symptoms. So it has the appearance of a pretty large systematic issue, and Topping and the resellers admitted this at various times. Which brings me to:

You may also have missed their response to the failures.

Yes they said this, but that was it... People still struggled to get after-sales service on what should have been straightforward product warranty. It took me almost a year to get warranty on a unit that broke the first week, and this response did nothing.

 

[sarumbear]

Yeah, it wasn't 50% defect-rate, but...

I was only commenting at the figure...

 

[staticV3]

It would be nice to see the plot with Residual ON

View attachment 280030

I guess you're thinking of graphs like this?

source

The residual would have to be scaled up disproportionally to show up as anything but a straight line. Not sure if the APx software does this.

 

[Bleib]

Spoiler: Load Dependency

Spoiler: Power v Distortion

Comparison of pa7 vs pa5. Seems in these two metrics pa5 performs better. Then people can argue if it's audible.

Linearity is where PA7 loses me.
(and it seems I was right to add extra cooling to the PA5 I used to have...one learns a thing or two from years of building PCs)

 

[BoredErica]

I don't think it's an unreasonable request to ask if they'd consider an upgrade/trade-in path for PA5 owners that haven't had failures yet. They are fine to say no obviously, but no harm in asking.

I think that is a pretty cool idea. Even discount worth half of pa5 would be lot better than nothing, and would get customers that feel burned to maybe spend money on another Topping amp.
Uh, not to get *too* OT about this.

 

[Martinvb]

Linearity is where PA7 loses me.
(and it seems I was right to add extra cooling to the PA5 I used to have...one learns a thing or two from years of building PCs)

That’s an interesting idea as a preventive measure… Did you use passive or active cooling?

 

[Bleib]

That’s an interesting idea as a preventive measure… Did you use passive or active cooling?

Passive. I covered the top with a large heatsink and some smaller ones on the bottom as well. Also lifted it up so that air can more easily enter in from the bottom. Made sure no other electronics could heat it up either. So for instance no DAC underneath it.

Any AVR I have I make sure to raise it up a bit so that air can enter in underneath. These above all can become very hot even though it's only used for 2 channel operation.