šŸ”· Topping L30

I have not experienced that problem. Iā€™ve used it for extended periods of time (8+ hours) the last few days and the L30 has only been slightly warm and not hot. As a reference, the pot has been around the 11 oā€™clock to 4 oā€™clock range using various headphones/iems (Hd800s, dt1990, Jvc fdx1, blessing 2, u12t), some using eq. It was noticeably less hot compared to heresy and magni 2 that I previously used.

Well would you look at thatā€¦
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I know not every one has a 40mm Noctua fan on hand, works nicely of a 10V PSU I also had :wink:

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Hereā€™s the ASR review of a production unit. Looks like the hype from pre-production measurements was warranted. Canā€™t wait to for my delivery later this week. https://www.audiosciencereview.com/forum/index.php?threads/topping-l30-headphone-amplifier-review.15226/

And just like that, there is no reason to buy the a90 anymore lol. Also mine comes in tomorrow since curiosity got the best of me and I also wanted to make sure what I was predicting about the unit was right

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Yep. John Yang even says in the thread that the L30 is essentially an A90 without the balanced in/out and integrated power supply. Crazy value.

Then this pretty much addresses the direct complaint about the a90 I had, which was price for the most part, now that heā€™s condensed the performance into here is actually something appealing to me lol

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Wonder if this little amp can beat out the asgard 3 :thinking: power and performance of a A90 is no joke.

Generally in some respects I do prefer the asgard 3 to the a90, there are some aspects like tonality and spatial recreation that I think the a3 does better to me, but also I think the a90 should be a similar price to the asgard 3 tbh

this and the fact I feel it adds a bit more color compared to some other amps is what makes me really appreciate a3. I see the l30 and see its cheaper with that much power behind it and start to wonder though ya know? lol. Probably not going to end up going to L30 thoughā€¦ if anything I will probably end up going towards the magnius since I have been looking for a great balanced solid state at a good price point.

Yes the a3 is more colored and not something neutral, as is the modius, generally I think the the l30 is going to pretty great for something neutral. So the magnius is prob going to be more of a competition to the l30 a90 thx or other measurement based amps than the asgard 3 will, but perhaps the l30 might end up winning on single ended? who knows lol

I mean, you picked up both L30 and Magnius. I will just wait till you try them as well as some others before I go pulling the trigger.

hmm, I donā€™t believe I am familiar with this terminology yet M0N. Anything special in this regard? Not even sure if I have tried a measurement based amp honestly lol.

The guinea pig once again lol

Pretty sure you have lol, topping a90, magni heresy, thx, etc, basically something that strives for the best measurements possible (with varying levels of actual sound quality to the ear)

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Itā€™s suggesting that measurements SiNad/THD were a primary driver in designing the amp vs just how it sounds.

Once your noise floor drops below 80dB or so itā€™s basically inaudible, and no longer a relevant measurement but some sites rate amplifiers based on that single metric, and because of the size of that audience manufacturers play to it.

The issue with this is that some of the design tricks used to do that, most notable large amounts of feedback in the amp, cause time domain smearing and a general loss in staging and perceived sound quality.

oh then yeah most definitely I have tried a few. Been frequenting the audio store time and again so I have been able to broaden my horizons quite a bit. Store wouldnā€™t let me borrow the Focal Clears lol.

lol but of course!

Well, that is something I didnā€™t know and quite interesting.

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Generally I have no issues with a more objective performance based amp, until they start dipping their toes into going too far into measurements and sacrifice sound quality (thx is a good example of this lol)

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T1 + THXā€¦ no just no. Never again, not ever.

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You n me both. Feel like buying one of these just to have it.

re: measurement amps. thatā€™s why schiit named their Heresy like they did, because using an op-amp design based on measurements (and not their in-house sound) was ā€œhereticalā€. definitely represented a shift for schiit in terms of caring about measurements and neutral/clean sound.

Why?

You mean the SMSL T1 + 789 right?

How do you guys think the L30 fair against the ADSlabs Atom or to the Liquid Spark ?

I would have to import the Atom or Liquid Spark to Brazil, so they would cost me like 1100 R$ while the L30 would be pretty much only half 600 R$