As you can see from my signature I have a Topping L30. For a long time I had a very heavily (R.G.) modded Musical Fidelity X-Cans V2, which served me well especially with some of my higher impedance cans. Looking for more valve-rolling ability, I sold the MF V2 and bought a Little Dot MkII which also drove my hungrier cans nicely. However, something about my taste obviously began to change as the valve sound became increasingly unsatisfactory to me. Later I bought a Class A Myryad Z40, again which drove my higher impedance cans nicely. Realising that I was beginning to prefer cleaner sounding electronics rather than valve 'grunginess', I came across a review by Amir of the Topping L30. Looking at the specs whetted my appetite, and I thought I'd dip a toe in the waters. I made sure I got one (in a gorgeous red case) with a serial number which meant it couldn't damage my headphones (2012). Finding out about this amp is what prompted me to join and donate to the forum.
Well the L30 was a revelation. Super-clean, super-fast, I really loved it. I've only had it about a month or so, but have realised that unfortunately, although it could drive my higher impedance cans, there just wasn't much headroom left. Beyerdynamic DT 880 (600 ohms), A.K.G. K240 Sextett (600 ohms), were perfectly listenable but couldn't really rock out. My 300 and 250 ohm cans also felt as though they could do with just a little bit more 'oomph'. So I have kept a hold of my Myryad and Little Dot. I just wished I could get the L30 to really get a grip of my big boys.
So, in search of more power, I was about to pull the trigger on an A30 Pro, or get my credit card out and bite the bullet for an A90, but up popped the review of the L50. I thought it just might fit the bill as it would have (hopefully) the little bit of extra power that was lacking in the L30. Also, having balanced inputs meant I would be able to use the 4 volt balanced XLR outputs of my Cambridge Audio Stream Magic 6 which again should provide another little uptick in power.
So it arrived yesterday, and tonight was the first chance I have had to plumb it in to my rack and have a listen. One nice thing was I only had to swap out the amps, keeping my original L30 power supply in situ (it's the same PSU for both models).
I'm listening at the moment to my DT 880's. I've got the amp on high gain, and I'm about 40% on the volco and it's plenty loud, but with the ability to go much louder if I want to go bat-shit crazy for a few tracks. It goes without saying that for all my lower impedance cans (300, 250 and lower) my ears give up long before the amp does.
I think someone earlier in the thread asked how the L50 sounded. I'd be slightly suspicious of someone telling me how these amps 'sounded'. Flowery audiophile descriptions of the sound is all very well for various Class A or valve amps (or different forums), but these amps have flat FR's and vanishingly low THD, etc, etc. The most I feel comfortable about describing it is to say that it is powerful, neutral, detailed and clean.
I've only been listening for a couple of hours but I know I can now sell my Myryad, Little Dot and all the valves that I bought for it, and also my red L30.
The L50 can drive all my headphones to levels which satisfy me.
P.S. Of course now I'm wondering what improvement I would gain (if any) by buying an E50 balanced DAC, and feeding it from the digital out of my Stream Magic (Network Digital Pre-amp streamer) which is a few years old now and uses Wolfson dual differential WM8740 24-bit/384kHz DACs. Reading the specs for both DACs the Topping looks much better. However I wonder if it would make a significant, audible improvement to the sound? Any thoughts??
From the Stream Magic User Manual :-
D/A Converters Dual Wolfson WM8740 24-bit DACs
Analogue filter 2-Pole Dual Differential Bessel Double
Virtual Earth Balanced
THD @ 1kHz 0dBFs <0.001% 24-bit (at volume set to full)
THD @ 1kHz -10dBFs <0.001% (at volume set to full)
THD @ 20kHz 0dBFs <0.002% (at volume set to full)
Frequency Response 20Hz-20kHz +/- 0.1dB *
Signal to Noise ratio -112dBr (at volume set to full)
Total correlated jitter < 130pS
Crosstalk @ 1kHz < -100dB
Crosstalk @ 20kHz < -90dB
Thanks for reading, any thoughts,comments welcome,
Jeff