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Product Description
Finding the right amp for your headphones doesn’t have to lead to a pile of research, or a pile of amps for every pair you own. With the L30 Headphone Amplifier from Topping—now available in four colors—you get fine-tuned amplification and certified Hi-Res audio for headphones and IEMs of all kinds Read More
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This is the original L30, which is now EOL, not the recently released L30 II which has some newer components and costs about 25% more (which is still less that the original price of this model).
If you want clean output for your single-ended (unbalanced) headphones and pre-out for your powered speakers with analogue RCA inputs with a couple of colourful options, then at this price (now $85) you won't go wrong. Stacked on the E30 in a complimentary or contrasting colour, it looks great. The problem with the first production run was resolved long ago.
The difficulty for shoppers looking for a DAC and amp is that newer combos such as the FiiO K7 Balanced which has "better" components and performance at a lower price than the E30+L30 stack, though they are not as colourful.
If colour is a major factor in your choice, then be aware that the red is more of a metallic crimson which appears more orange-ish in photos.
As for Drop's pricing, repeated failure to show photos of the backs on devices where the connections are, shipping costs and other issues, these seem to be consistent since the change from Massdrop. I purchased my E30 and L30 from another vendor which does better and offers price matching.
I had the L30 for a couple of weeks and found the sound boring and the power was not as strong as their specs stated. The other new amp I have is the IFI Zen Can and I prefer it much better for overall sound and power. It drives my Beyerdynamic 250 ohm Dt 770's and Dt 990's with more authority and they just sound better. I also like the synergy with the HD58X and Zen Can. My DAC is a Schiit Modi 2 Uber. I sent the L30 back. I didn't know about the problem with the L30 and was lucky it didn't blow up my phones.
Be careful before you plug in any expensive headphones to this amp! JohnYang over at ASR has done so much handwaving to avoid admitting Topping have no clue on if the 'fix' works or not. Buyer be-very-ware!
If you are familiar with the process, do you mind going into more detail on the process and places where he could of improved, such as using higher voltages? What corrective actions are usually taken in scenarios where the product fails?
Providing those details would go far to educate others on the issue then just saying a company "sucks" over and over.
As far as additional failures, I haven't seen any where more headphones are blowing up which means DC protection is probably working. Some failures seem to be due to the ESD mitigations not being installed correctly on 2012 SN models. People are still getting replacements for failures.
GiantHeadphoneSquid was spreading fud on them not replacing headphones and provided a poor summary on the fixes implemented.
I had an early SN L30 that failed and sent DC out to the headphones. Luckily it didn't damage anything. Got my money back, waited a bit for newer revisions, and now I have one with the mitigations. If it fails again I'll be sure to post back here.
I love my L30. I got it for $120 on amazon, so this price is way too high. This is one of the best performing amplifiers in existence right now with a SINAD of >120 dB.
Statement from Topping: https://www.facebook.com/2495577743786403/posts/3978806902130139/?d=n
They are offering to exchange all units with serial number starting with 2011 or less.
UPDATE: Topping customer service has informed me that replacement service for Drop customers is provided by shenzhenaudio.
I also reached out to Topping customer service and they replied saying that shenzhenaudio will provide replacement services directly to Drop customers. I have contacted support@shenzhenaudio.com and let's see how they handle this.
Once upon a time I tried to get shenzhenaudio to price match Drop.com (for an xDuoo I think), and they replied saying that they will not price match Drop.com since "Drop doesn't provide after-sale services" and they do. I guess this is what they mean... But I'm glad that Topping made arrangements with shenzhenaudio to take care of us.
iucoenThanks for the heads up! I just sent them an email as well. I've gotten mixed reviews over Drop's customer service but this will probably be my last purchase here. I'd rather have the ability to exchange in case anything goes wrong over saving $24.