It's Balanced input > Unbalanced Output
I think Balanced is not that important as an output, Amps these days masures really well that it does not need a balanced output to decrease distortion and pumping extra power, it's 5.5W already that's more than enough for 95% of headphones.
verifonixits because a lot of people prefer toppings smaller / cheaper dacs to pair with a diffferent, so they put a pre amp in the DAC instead, also means you can run monitors off Just the dac as well vs having to buy both.
Topping really misjudged the price on this one. Gustard H16 runs circles around it - it's fully balanced with remote, a true preamp function, r2r volume control and only $50 more...
It says that the input is passed through when the power is off, but what does it do when the power is on?!?
I would like to put this as an insert between my main XLR stereo outs and my studio monitors. Ideally it would pass the input through to the TRS output continuously.
Any insight into this wound and and I think
it is only a passthrough output, no preamp ability. you would have to control the volume at source or the monitors. as it is a passthrough design i would assume (can not personally verify) that even with headphones plugged it the signal would carry on, no headphone cutoff circuit.