psychotropic
Well-Known Member
Please See detailed review with Pictures at Play It Clear
EDIT: Super Value Amplifier for Rs. 4000...yes....Rs. 4000
The amp has landed. The Topping TP20 Mark 2 amp using the Tripath TA2020 chip, that produces a rated 13W maximum per channel into 8 ohms. But since that is with a 10% THD figure, we'll take the 7W per channel figure which is the maximum power into 8 ohms with a THD of 0.01% as the more relevant figure. Here's the datasheet for the geeks.
My review is below. It's going to appear in parts (i'll keep editing the first post), with pictures (now that I have a Fujifilm Finepix F200 EXR, and don't have to rely on my crappy blackberry camera), but do give me a bit of time..thanks.
Packaging and Appearance
The amp comes by air mail from Hong Kong, well packed in a cardboard box with foam lining. No customs duty was applicable, so the cost for my friend was 90 USD including shipping (4195 INR) with a tracking number.
The amp itself is very well constructed. Tiny little fellow. About 5 inches deep, 3 inches wide and an inch and half tall on its four rubber feet. Metal case, machined aluminium faceplate, good looking volume pot and power switch. Gold plated RCAs and binding posts. The binding posts are clear plasic on the outside and are not the easiest things to turn because they're smoooth, a slightly textured and less pretty binding post would have been nicer, but hey, it's a 4000 buck amp, i should be happy they're not spring clips. Looks like it takes banana plugs. I'm using bare (lamp) wire.
The power supply is a fairly robust looking switching supply rated at 12v, 5A. Held it up to my ear and didn't hear any noise, which was encouraging (as opposed to the audioengine's power supply which had a faint hum, pointed out to me by Mr. Ramesh aka hifipal4all).
Sound - Initial Impressions
These are initial impressions, possibly coloured by expectation bias, ownership bias and every other bias that exists, but still, let me pen them down before I do a more rigorous comparison when I get the time.
Okay, I am giving up on sounding measured and mature. Golly gee wiz, this thing kicks ass! Superb detail, excellent soundstaging and imaging. Excellent transients, nice airy extended highs, tight, tuneful bass, and some seriously liquid midrange. I mean Mark Knopfler's guitar never sounded so 'alive' on my NAD. Brothers in arms baby....brothers in arms! Again keep in mind that my exposure to hi fi is pretty limited and my raves are that of a relative newbie, but ya....i love the critter. It's more than sufficient for the Usher S520s (rated at 86 dB sensitivity) in my 10 by 10 room, but would probably run out of steam in a large room. In my room it gives me my optimum listening volume at 12 o'clock to 1 o'clock (on good non-compressed CDs) and it's LOUD by 2 o'clck - beyond which it starts to audibly distort. still very listenable but not as clean as before. More than sufficient for my room and speakers, and probably for a lot of people with slightly larger rooms but speakers rated at 89-90dB or more.
I've listened to Donald Fagen's Morph the Cat and Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms CDs and they sounded sublime. I am fairly sure I am not imagining the fact that my setup has never sounded so good before. I can't stop grinning while listening to it.
Before I go out and make proclamations that this 4k fellow soundly kicks the ass of an NAD amp the equivalent of which would cost about 28k now, I will do rigorous comparisons and post them, but one thing I can say for sure, if you have a small room and/or efficient speakers then this is something that you should just grab for the heck of it.....just to see what 4000 rupees can buy you in the audio sphere and to have your jaw drop when this tiny little thing digs deep to give you those convincing cello notes and percussion, and the crackling, molten, liquid sound of mark knopfler's guitar.
Sound - Further Impressions
It is empirically and without question more detailed in the high frequencies than the NAD. My standard test is the song "heavy fuel" by dire straits (on every street), around 22 seconds or so there are two soft strikes of the ride cymbal emanating from the left channel (ting ting). On the revealing setups I've heard, these cymbal strikes are clear as a bell and well defined as are the guitars at the same time. With my NAD you'd hear them if you looked out for them, but they don't stand clear of the rest of the mix.
The flip side to this is that with both my speakers and the amp being detailed and revealing (or as detailed and revealing as ultra-budget setups can get), some recordings can sound a touch bright. I've not experienced any listening fatigue as yet, but I can imagine that with a poorly recorded or harsh record, it might get a bit difficult. The NAD did a good job of smoothing over bright recordings, which is the positive side of the 'veil' that NAD seems to put over the sound otherwise.
But with good recordings the lifting of the veil (a small lawyer joke here) is very apparent. So much so that even my wife (who is utterly and totally clueless about audio), said that the Topping sounded more 'crisp' on Vinnaithandi Varuvaya.
The good thing about the Topping is that unlike other transparent amps I've heard (not too many) the mid-range is beautiful (euphonic? i don't know) and not clinical.... voices and guitars, and even some percussion instruments have a tone and timbre that are lifelike and appealing. There is a percussion piece on the Usher demo CD that tests the LFE capabilities of a setup quite well, a series of Chinese(?) drums each (presumably) larger, and therefore lower in frequency, than the previous are struck in an arrangement, going lower bar by bar. While the NAD produced the fundamentals of the drum sound well and went down as low as the Topping, what the Topping does is gives the drum a more natural sound, as if it's doing a better job of producing the harmonics of the drum sound. I am not saying the NAD does "one note bass"....not at all, but it sounds like the Topping goes a little more distance in producing accurate and musical low frequencies.
Someone described the sound of the Topping (and the TA2020 chip in general) as 'beguiling'.....I'm forced to agree!
The negatives - Initial Impressions
Detailed Tests and Comparisons
Yesterday I managed to do a fairly detailed comparison of the NAD and the Topping. Fortunately or unfortunately, nothing revolutionary or different from my observations based on memory were observed.
I tested both with the following tracks
Steely Dan - Aja, Deacon Blues
Dire Straits - Heavy Fuel, Fade to Black
Usher Demo CD - Track 9 (the chinese drums)
The Topping is more detailed and more dynamic. The high frequencies are more clearly separated, and there's a lot more air about the sound. The low frequency performance is in fact very similar. I did observe from memory that the Topping seemed to produce more musical bass, but on this comparison I couldn't really make out that distinction.
The sound of the Topping seemed to have smoothed out a bit, and it's sounding quite brilliant. The high frequencies are rich and detailed without being harsh in any way. The mid-range is lively and beautiful (is it a colouration? or is the NAD simply inferior? I don't know). The bass is deep, musical and authoritative.
I think I will just repeat what I said earlier, this is the steal of a century for Rs. 4000. If you have full-range speakers, or high sensitivity speakers or a small room, this amp will most likely match or exceed any budget amp in the sub Rs. 30,000 category.
Of course now I am looking at whether it is possible to bridge these babies and put together a dual-mono combo of these putting out double the effective power (14 clean watts per channel). We could also assemble a kickass multi-channel setup using these buggers.
Another thought was to put a tube pre, 4 toppings and an active crossover to make a dual mono bi-amped setup putting out 28 clean watts per channel, for the cost of a budget amplifier.
Okay, I am getting a bit carried away, and I don't know if any of the above is feasible, but hey.....this is a totally exciting little device and I am sure there are tons of possibilities, even if the ones I've listed are wrong/infeasible. Usually audiophile components at mass-market prices are the exclusive preserve of DIY-ers, but here's an instance where the DIY-challenged noobs can also get a slice of the action. If you've got moderately sensitive speakers (86-87dB or thereabouts) in a smallish room (under 150 sft) or sensitive speakers (90dB and above) in a larger room, and you've got 4000 bucks to spare, then why don't you just pick up this thing?
Note of Caution: One thing that flanker tells me about the tripath amps is to be super careful about shorting the amp at the speaker terminals, one contact and the amp will fry. These are apparently not as forgiving as other amps to short-circuiting.
Pictures
Sorry for not using imageshack, but I am lazy. So please check out the pics on my Picasa album.
EDIT: Super Value Amplifier for Rs. 4000...yes....Rs. 4000
The amp has landed. The Topping TP20 Mark 2 amp using the Tripath TA2020 chip, that produces a rated 13W maximum per channel into 8 ohms. But since that is with a 10% THD figure, we'll take the 7W per channel figure which is the maximum power into 8 ohms with a THD of 0.01% as the more relevant figure. Here's the datasheet for the geeks.
My review is below. It's going to appear in parts (i'll keep editing the first post), with pictures (now that I have a Fujifilm Finepix F200 EXR, and don't have to rely on my crappy blackberry camera), but do give me a bit of time..thanks.
Packaging and Appearance
The amp comes by air mail from Hong Kong, well packed in a cardboard box with foam lining. No customs duty was applicable, so the cost for my friend was 90 USD including shipping (4195 INR) with a tracking number.
The amp itself is very well constructed. Tiny little fellow. About 5 inches deep, 3 inches wide and an inch and half tall on its four rubber feet. Metal case, machined aluminium faceplate, good looking volume pot and power switch. Gold plated RCAs and binding posts. The binding posts are clear plasic on the outside and are not the easiest things to turn because they're smoooth, a slightly textured and less pretty binding post would have been nicer, but hey, it's a 4000 buck amp, i should be happy they're not spring clips. Looks like it takes banana plugs. I'm using bare (lamp) wire.
The power supply is a fairly robust looking switching supply rated at 12v, 5A. Held it up to my ear and didn't hear any noise, which was encouraging (as opposed to the audioengine's power supply which had a faint hum, pointed out to me by Mr. Ramesh aka hifipal4all).
Sound - Initial Impressions
These are initial impressions, possibly coloured by expectation bias, ownership bias and every other bias that exists, but still, let me pen them down before I do a more rigorous comparison when I get the time.
Okay, I am giving up on sounding measured and mature. Golly gee wiz, this thing kicks ass! Superb detail, excellent soundstaging and imaging. Excellent transients, nice airy extended highs, tight, tuneful bass, and some seriously liquid midrange. I mean Mark Knopfler's guitar never sounded so 'alive' on my NAD. Brothers in arms baby....brothers in arms! Again keep in mind that my exposure to hi fi is pretty limited and my raves are that of a relative newbie, but ya....i love the critter. It's more than sufficient for the Usher S520s (rated at 86 dB sensitivity) in my 10 by 10 room, but would probably run out of steam in a large room. In my room it gives me my optimum listening volume at 12 o'clock to 1 o'clock (on good non-compressed CDs) and it's LOUD by 2 o'clck - beyond which it starts to audibly distort. still very listenable but not as clean as before. More than sufficient for my room and speakers, and probably for a lot of people with slightly larger rooms but speakers rated at 89-90dB or more.
I've listened to Donald Fagen's Morph the Cat and Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms CDs and they sounded sublime. I am fairly sure I am not imagining the fact that my setup has never sounded so good before. I can't stop grinning while listening to it.
Before I go out and make proclamations that this 4k fellow soundly kicks the ass of an NAD amp the equivalent of which would cost about 28k now, I will do rigorous comparisons and post them, but one thing I can say for sure, if you have a small room and/or efficient speakers then this is something that you should just grab for the heck of it.....just to see what 4000 rupees can buy you in the audio sphere and to have your jaw drop when this tiny little thing digs deep to give you those convincing cello notes and percussion, and the crackling, molten, liquid sound of mark knopfler's guitar.
Sound - Further Impressions
It is empirically and without question more detailed in the high frequencies than the NAD. My standard test is the song "heavy fuel" by dire straits (on every street), around 22 seconds or so there are two soft strikes of the ride cymbal emanating from the left channel (ting ting). On the revealing setups I've heard, these cymbal strikes are clear as a bell and well defined as are the guitars at the same time. With my NAD you'd hear them if you looked out for them, but they don't stand clear of the rest of the mix.
The flip side to this is that with both my speakers and the amp being detailed and revealing (or as detailed and revealing as ultra-budget setups can get), some recordings can sound a touch bright. I've not experienced any listening fatigue as yet, but I can imagine that with a poorly recorded or harsh record, it might get a bit difficult. The NAD did a good job of smoothing over bright recordings, which is the positive side of the 'veil' that NAD seems to put over the sound otherwise.
But with good recordings the lifting of the veil (a small lawyer joke here) is very apparent. So much so that even my wife (who is utterly and totally clueless about audio), said that the Topping sounded more 'crisp' on Vinnaithandi Varuvaya.
The good thing about the Topping is that unlike other transparent amps I've heard (not too many) the mid-range is beautiful (euphonic? i don't know) and not clinical.... voices and guitars, and even some percussion instruments have a tone and timbre that are lifelike and appealing. There is a percussion piece on the Usher demo CD that tests the LFE capabilities of a setup quite well, a series of Chinese(?) drums each (presumably) larger, and therefore lower in frequency, than the previous are struck in an arrangement, going lower bar by bar. While the NAD produced the fundamentals of the drum sound well and went down as low as the Topping, what the Topping does is gives the drum a more natural sound, as if it's doing a better job of producing the harmonics of the drum sound. I am not saying the NAD does "one note bass"....not at all, but it sounds like the Topping goes a little more distance in producing accurate and musical low frequencies.
Someone described the sound of the Topping (and the TA2020 chip in general) as 'beguiling'.....I'm forced to agree!
The negatives - Initial Impressions
- About 7 clean watts, so not for inefficient speakers and large rooms
- Only one input, so no multiple sources
- No remote
- Smooth binding posts, not easy to turn fully and get a tight fit
Detailed Tests and Comparisons
Yesterday I managed to do a fairly detailed comparison of the NAD and the Topping. Fortunately or unfortunately, nothing revolutionary or different from my observations based on memory were observed.
I tested both with the following tracks
Steely Dan - Aja, Deacon Blues
Dire Straits - Heavy Fuel, Fade to Black
Usher Demo CD - Track 9 (the chinese drums)
The Topping is more detailed and more dynamic. The high frequencies are more clearly separated, and there's a lot more air about the sound. The low frequency performance is in fact very similar. I did observe from memory that the Topping seemed to produce more musical bass, but on this comparison I couldn't really make out that distinction.
The sound of the Topping seemed to have smoothed out a bit, and it's sounding quite brilliant. The high frequencies are rich and detailed without being harsh in any way. The mid-range is lively and beautiful (is it a colouration? or is the NAD simply inferior? I don't know). The bass is deep, musical and authoritative.
I think I will just repeat what I said earlier, this is the steal of a century for Rs. 4000. If you have full-range speakers, or high sensitivity speakers or a small room, this amp will most likely match or exceed any budget amp in the sub Rs. 30,000 category.
Of course now I am looking at whether it is possible to bridge these babies and put together a dual-mono combo of these putting out double the effective power (14 clean watts per channel). We could also assemble a kickass multi-channel setup using these buggers.
Another thought was to put a tube pre, 4 toppings and an active crossover to make a dual mono bi-amped setup putting out 28 clean watts per channel, for the cost of a budget amplifier.
Okay, I am getting a bit carried away, and I don't know if any of the above is feasible, but hey.....this is a totally exciting little device and I am sure there are tons of possibilities, even if the ones I've listed are wrong/infeasible. Usually audiophile components at mass-market prices are the exclusive preserve of DIY-ers, but here's an instance where the DIY-challenged noobs can also get a slice of the action. If you've got moderately sensitive speakers (86-87dB or thereabouts) in a smallish room (under 150 sft) or sensitive speakers (90dB and above) in a larger room, and you've got 4000 bucks to spare, then why don't you just pick up this thing?
Note of Caution: One thing that flanker tells me about the tripath amps is to be super careful about shorting the amp at the speaker terminals, one contact and the amp will fry. These are apparently not as forgiving as other amps to short-circuiting.
Pictures
Sorry for not using imageshack, but I am lazy. So please check out the pics on my Picasa album.
Last edited:
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hyeah:
