Chinesium product: Copied from good designs without any insight into why and how.
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Yes and just very very badly copied.
I have purchased the l30 from aliexpress. I contacted the store where i bought my unit and asked about the issue. Fit they just told me that everything is fine. Then later they asked to send the serialnr. Now they are sending me a replacement unit which is supposed to be safe
I really like this one.
#Chinesium, it’s perfect.
that, trash response from topping, them not compensating people for what? expensive headphone in the mix but well under 10k is it really worth the negative press and loss of income from people saying fuck no to toppings?
The only truth that makes any sense is Topping is SCARED more will explode no matter what they say and they will owe lots of money, that is the only good explanation, if they were sure everyone else was good they would have easily looked at the few thousand and said we will do the right thing, clearly they are worried it will keep happening and cost them a lot of money if they are willing to throw their entire brand name into the garbage that fast and just shrug it off like if it happened again on this or future models they would just say "sorry your on your own"
90% of the customer who bought that model and read this are regretting their decisions, if anyone is full YOLO check ebay and you can probably get a good price on that model, not a good look topping
I wasn’t particularly interested in topping but I was also considering them at like top 2 if I ever decided I want a budget AMP, now i’m saying fuck no for that stinking putrid hot garbage response…
Cannot imagine how many people with actual expensive headsets are going to also say no and how much sales they will lose just from top end parts will be over 10k from this especially if im sitting here with like only a few thousand in gear and thinking it’s too big a risk
@Finite this is how Topping “fixed” the grounding issue:
That is a 5ct pogo pin. Better than sandwiching a wire in the case, worse than adding a screwed connection to the case.
This is not a QC failure, this is systematic R&D oversight or negligence. If you can’t test for ESD resilience in house, then pay someone to test it for you!
If your protection circuit is known to be dysfunctional, then WHY would that “protection” make it to market?
That “JohnYang”-guy works for Topping.
Him talking about missing protection in other amps is semi-true. Schiit Audio (who has a fuse in all their amps to prevent a fault like the one in the L30 from burning your house down) will however replace headphones their amplifiers damage, the JDS Labs Atom has DC-offset protection built into its output buffers (I think the EL-Amp uses the same configuration, would have to check though).
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Figured I’d post about it, I actually got my replacement shipped in like 3 days via dhl to mexico, my old one was still working fine since I bought it in September, pretty good service imo…
supposedly they added the fix into all the 2012 S/N they had on stock but there’s probably a few 2012s in the wild without it, I’d buy something else just to be safe but tbh I’d have to pay the ass in import taxes and shipping, plus this is the only thing that does the preamp function right at this price so whatever, not like other amps at this price point are reaally safer either (after the fix) ¯_(ツ)_/¯
About that:
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JDS Labs Atom - Output buffer (not Op-Amps or integrated/discrete anything) is a DC-Servo meaning the buffers will compensate out any parasitic DC component.
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Schiit Magni - Fused power input (so it does not catch fire under fault conditions)
I am not 100% sure, but I think they have a diode on the output to open the relay responsible for start up delay when DC makes it to the output. Would need to stick some probes on the PCB to confirm. -
iFi Zen CAN - Has some Op-Amp grid monitoring input and output, possibly feeding back to a quite powerful uController. Impossible to tell what the thing does without probing around the PCB (is a super complex board for what it is)
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Monolith Liquid Spark - No idea. The black PCB successfully inhibits my curiosity from figuring out what is going on.
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SMSL SAP9 - More complex input filtering and internal power supply than the L30, also has some chip on the output. Can’t tell what it is.
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You realize you just said “no idea” or “not sure” on all of those? we actually have an idea of how safe the l30 is after all the scrutiny…
It should be fine lol
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Keyword here is “reasonable doubt”.
Yes we do. And it is bad!
The circuit marked DC_Det is known to be “less than functional” (if that actually got fixed is yet to be seen), there is no fuse or other system for limiting current under fault condition. But hey! At least Topping was so gracious to bodge in a grounding contact…
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Assumption the mother of all fuck ups…wouldn’t touch an L30 with your bargepole tbh, unless they do a total and tech transparent L30.2.
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topping needs to make plastic see thru cases with schematics lined up to the parts, you know they wouldn’t fuck up if they did that
A Geshelli, Topping, Drop L30XXXX Collab?..now there’s a thing.
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How many instances are there of other amps at this price point exploding and taking out headphones? I have not seen any reports of the Heresy or Atom having such a catastrophic failure wherein the drivers of the headphone actually exploded. It is really not at all a common problem with amps at this price point or even at a lower price point. I havent even seen reports of cheap ass dongles actually blowing the headphone driver in a way that would cause injury.
I would not recommend the L30 to anyone until its 100% clear that its a safe product, especially considering there are other solid options for the same price or less. The supposed fix hasnt been tested extensively and the pictures out there of the “fix” really dont inspire great confidence. Really has to be repeated again that its not just that people are getting their headphones damaged, there is a serious risk of physical injury here if you get a catastrophic failure of that magnitude and have the headphones on your head. It is actually dangerous to just assume the product is now “fine”, someone could get severe burns, hearing damage or worse.
Unless some independent agent actually extensively tests the L30 and verifies that it now has solid protections in place to prevent these failures, including documented attempts to set off a catastrophic failure no one should buy this product under any circumstances.
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that l30 repair is shameful. the fact that they posted that and the topping guy said “thats how i want to see the repair on all of them” and people just kept talking is MIND BLOWING. if my modius had anything inside it like that i would demand a refund. no wonder they banned the word chi fi on that forum. its all they have left.
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Lol
(lol at you guys thinking schiit or anyone puts better protections or has better quality just for not being chinese, not the poor guy, also schiit didn’t cover his headphones)
Just because people seem to not get past their tribal “Us vs Them”-think:
One fuckup does not un-fuck another fuckup.
Yes, Schiit needs to get that looked into and fixed.
However: Two faulty products in a row with the exact same failure mode is a bit odd.
Edit: Anyone got a photo of the underside of the heresey’s PCB?
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The topping fails were caused by lack of esd protection and that’s been solved, you’re the one making it tribal focusing on them like they’re the only ones that can have faulty units, and recommending other amps like you know sh*t about their reliability
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Dude, just chill out.
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