TOPPING - L30

I was in the market for something more powerful than my Fiio E10-K to drive my Sundara. I needed to run my powered 2.1 system as well as my headphones off the amp, with an easy to reach switch to toggle between the two.

Spent a lot of time researching various dac/amp combos and stacks. Eventually shortlisted it to the Topping E30/L30 stack or the Modi 3+/Magni Heresy stack..

Further research revealed that the Topping L30/E30 was a much better stack overall compared to the Modi 3+/Magni Heresy stack from a price to performance ratio in India. Some people say that the Heresy is a slightly more powerful amp, but it makes no tangible difference at this price point.

The Topping L30 has measurements similar to the top end A90, at a fraction of the price and provided plenty of power for Sundaras and other headphones I may look to get down the line. It is technically a superior amp compared to the Heresy and comes with a super convenient pre-amp option which I use to feed by powered 2.1 system. Plus the -9 db option is handy to have for using IEMs with my desktop setup when its too noisy to use my Sundaras, which is also not available with the Heresy.

Thankfully, Headphonezone had the revised version (2012+ serial number) versions of L30 which mitigated the risk of your amp exploding and taking out your headphones along with it.

PS - the main reason I did not go for a dedicated Dac/amp combo like the Fiio K5 Pro or the ifi zen dac v2 is because the E30 is a significantly superior to dac to either of those two and can be used with even more powerful amps in the future if needed.

I just received the product. I used it with multiple headphones, most of them min the 80ohms range. Yet to test it with a higher end headphones which might take months to arrive from Drop.

Sennheiser HD 25, Drop HiFi Man H400, Beyerdynamic DT 770 Pro, T51P. It all works flawlessly and the PC's DAC seems more than sufficient for the moment. The 9DB+ dial allows you to get maximum volume on big cans and for connectivity, I used the Amazon RCA to 3.5mm cable. I am not sure how great the Topping A90 could be but it costs $500 and could possibly be 50k or more in India. Maybe years later, should give such high-end stuff a try.

Build quality is quite good and it may be slightly lower than how a Schiit Magni looks but connectivity is better in this Topping. It costs $140 outside India and Headphone Zone made it easy to get it here.

Topping L30 is a very convenient Desktop amplifier.
It has a 2-way toggle switch in the front which works great if you want to use it with your Headphone or use it as a pre-amp to your speaker input and use the provided volume knob.
Sound quality is quite good, it has two gain modes - Low and High which u can select depending on your choice of headphone.

You can even use a mini/portable DAC from your PC or mobile to this amplifier and it will give you a clean and crisp listening experience. But if you already own an advanced high quality Desktop DAC setup with a built in AMP, then you wont see any difference adding this. Hence you can plan on pairing this with a portable DAC or the E30 which will probably suit it best as designed by Topping.
That said, if you do not own demanding / power hungry headphones, this won't be of much help to you. Also this is not for travel use.
Note that the power brick is a very bulky external wall adapter. The package does not include any cables so you need to get a pair of RCA cables before you can use it. So that's it, enjoy your music !

The L30 has had a few problems previously. As per Topping's engineers, it has been fixed for all products beyond the 2012 serial number batch. Hope it works

L30 review:

Got the Topping L30 to power up my DT 990 (250ohms) and fulfills my needs - loud & clear audio. The gain switch also comes in handy switching from Music levels to gaming. Have no complaints with its hardware as well.

Very Ordinary indeed