[ToneDeafMonk]

Many out there that have heard both, including myself, feel like the A90D does sound different in a better way compared to the original A90. I didn't expect it to sound different knowing Topping but it does. I'm sure saying that might trigger someone but that's just how it is for me. It's VERY worth an audition in my opinion just for the fact that it has a ton of power and stepped volume at an insanely good price.

Agree 100% I paired mine with a AKM J2 DAC and exceedingly happy with the results. Endgame achieved!

 

[borkenarrou]

Just got my A90D yesterday, liked the pairing with the Cayin RU6, just have to crank the volume bit higher than I have to with the D90LE, very musical and absolutely 0 sibilance and fatigue free listening, I wonder what it will be with a higher end R2R like Aries 2 or Bifrost 2.

 

[bgtip]

I have the nagging suspicion that I suffer from a confirmation bias.
First time listened with my HD650, and what struck me immediately is the soundstage. It's out of my head, which I don't think that I've ever experienced with my other amps.
Can somebody share his experience?

 

[jlemaster1957]

I have the nagging suspicion that I suffer from a confirmation bias.
First time listened with my HD650, and what struck me immediately is the soundstage. It's out of my head, which I don't think that I've ever experienced with my other amps.
Can somebody share his experience?

What is in tbe rest of your chain pls? DAC is SMSL-SU 9?

 

[Currawong]

Better Ask this question in ASR because of 2 things.
1. Lot of folks are antiTopping here
2. Topping like Rme, Benchmark focuses on performance.

1. Every manufacturer has people who like and dislike them.
2. They focus on SINAD and THD, which relate only a tiny amount to how the amp performs, but which is being touted as all that matters.

Unlike ASR, if you criticise the way the owner of Head-Fi goes about things, you wont get banned immediately. In fact, as long as you're not trolling or being offensive, reasoned criticism is quite welcome. Nobody here is trying to push a misleading narrative for money.

 

[Marlowe]

I read ASR for roughly one part useful information and two parts laughs. It's sort of a personality cult (like one major political party I could name here in the US, but rather less dangerous). However, I rather like Topping; the D90 MQA (the OG AKM 4499 version) is the DAC in my main music setup. And I'm seriously considering the A90D for some upgrades I'm planning next year, though I'm leaning towards saving another couple of months and getting the Burson Soloist 3X (which Amir, no surprise, hated, even though he admitted that the distortion he complained about could not be heard at anything near listenable volume). FWIW, I feel far more constrained in posting unpopular opinions on ASR (I pretty much just don't; it's not worth the tsuris) than I do here (though SBAF is even worse; dissenters there are met with virtual tar and feathering).

 

[Arniesb]

1. Every manufacturer has people who like and dislike them.
2. They focus on SINAD and THD, which relate only a tiny amount to how the amp performs, but which is being touted as all that matters.

Unlike ASR, if you criticise the way the owner of Head-Fi goes about things, you wont get banned immediately. In fact, as long as you're not trolling or being offensive, reasoned criticism is quite welcome. Nobody here is trying to push a misleading narrative for money.

Its all subjective stuff. Many r2r dacs sound slow, veiled and with poor dynamics yet i dont go to some forums to say: Oh this one sucks! This headphones power hungry or very expensive thus you need equally expensive amp to sound good!
I find it very laughable that price is the biggest reason why amp can be good or not.
Many reviewers said: This ofcourse dont sound as good as the price suggest... I mean why people even say that? Enginerring prowess doesnt matter? Better slap many exensive parts that might or not matter at all and also lets forget why everything cost less from China.

Topping a90 discreete is much less pricy than Chord Anni for example, but looks way more costly...

Ofc Measurements doesnt matter! Why the hell then Holo Audio, Matrix Audio, Mola Mola Tambaqui have great measurements and sound good?
Schiit audio, Audio GD tune everything by ears until they achieve enough distortion.
Also each and every Flagship speakers, headphones have less distortion than lesser speakers and headphones! If that doesnt matter, why bother?

 

[bgtip]

What is in tbe rest of your chain pls? DAC is SMSL-SU 9?

Yes, fully balanced chain:
foobar2000 - SMSL SU-9 - Topping A90D - HD650
Mind you, the soundstage is nowhere near to Arya Stealth's depth, and even width, but HD650 seem definitely more spacious with A90D.
There is no such difference with the Arya though, the soundstage with A90D seems the same to me in comparison to my other amps.

 

[duffer5]

I have the age old question regarding the preamp settings when connecting the A90 Discrete headphone amp. Which option do I select on the Hifi Rose 150b's Preout options (see pic)

I plan on using the A90 Discrete headphone amps with my HifiRose 150b and setting the 150b to fixed volume while using the variable volume of the headphone amp(s).

Topping A90 Discrete:

Input sensitivity (XLR balanced in / out)

9.3Vrms @G=L

3.0Vrms @G=H

I will be using XLR in and Out so fully balanced.

Preamp settings available via Hifi Rose 150b (see attached image)

 

[inscythe]

I have the nagging suspicion that I suffer from a confirmation bias.
First time listened with my HD650, and what struck me immediately is the soundstage. It's out of my head, which I don't think that I've ever experienced with my other amps.
Can somebody share his experience?

I can confirm this as well. For the longest time, I've been avoiding using my HD650 with my old OG A90 as it makes the HD650 sounds thin. After upgrading to A90D, it does open up the HD650 noticeably. Layering and instrument separation are improved as a result, but the detail retrieval is roughly the same.

 

[Currawong]

Its all subjective stuff. Many r2r dacs sound slow, veiled and with poor dynamics yet i dont go to some forums to say: Oh this one sucks! This headphones power hungry or very expensive thus you need equally expensive amp to sound good!

Indeed, just saying "this sucks!" is immature. Understanding that R2R DACs very often are operated in NOS mode, and can indeed sound as you describe, and thus not to your preference is better. But, what people are specifically saying is that people got better results from some headphones with better amplifiers. But by "better" they don't mean "lower THD", but the ability to resolve more of the finer details in the music, even during complex music passages.

I find it very laughable that price is the biggest reason why amp can be good or not.

The manufacturers with which I'm familiar use a straight mark-up over the cost of parts for the final price. If the aim is linear behaviour with a complex music signal, rather than test-tone performance, the requirements are different.

Ofc Measurements doesnt matter! Why the hell then Holo Audio, Matrix Audio, Mola Mola Tambaqui have great measurements and sound good?
Schiit audio, Audio GD tune everything by ears until they achieve enough distortion.
Also each and every Flagship speakers, headphones have less distortion than lesser speakers and headphones! If that doesnt matter, why bother?

You're looking at one, very limited set of measurements, promoted by one person who regularly performs them poorly, and making a massive over-generalisation.

 

[KPzypher]

You're looking at one, very limited set of measurements, promoted by one person who regularly performs them poorly, and making a massive over-generalisation.

Not trying to be disrespectful and I get your point, but as a reviewer yourself, you really shouldn't make such comments about other reviewers when your own reviews are largely based on your subjective opinions.

Is generalization (your word) based on limited measurements (repeatable) any worse than personal opinions?? If so, please tell us how your reviews are better. Man I watch your reviews time to time for product info, but every time you talk down on other reviewers, it's such a letdown. How is that person coming to his own conclusions based on the measurements he performs (poorly or not) any different than you coming to your own conclusions based on your experience with the product??? Your comment wouldn't have bothered me if you weren't running a monetized channel. But you do. Just food for thought.

 

[DeckHiFi]

I’m a Currawong fan and I don’t see how he did anything different than what Amir says during his reviews. Amir loves to point out how people have subjective thoughts but he is coming with the truth (doesn’t say it exactly like that) and to him it sounds the same. So again to me Currawong didn’t attack Amir. Just rightfully pointed out how Amir does things. It’s also just a good general way to share the differences in the community. Amir is another way of saying everything doesn’t have a sound and everyone has weird subjective thoughts that don’t matter. Then you have all these other people on the other side. Amir speaks for a good amount of people but he is mostly the face for that side is that makes sense. The other side has a bunch of different faces.

 

[Currawong]

Not trying to be disrespectful and I get your point, but as a reviewer yourself, you really shouldn't make such comments about other reviewers when your own reviews are largely based on your subjective opinions.

Is generalization (your word) based on limited measurements (repeatable) any worse than personal opinions?? If so, please tell us how your reviews are better. Man I watch your reviews time to time for product info, but every time you talk down on other reviewers, it's such a letdown. How is that person coming to his own conclusions based on the measurements he performs (poorly or not) any different than you coming to your own conclusions based on your experience with the product??? Your comment wouldn't have bothered me if you weren't running a monetized channel. But you do. Just food for thought.

If a person is being blatantly misleading, should I say nothing?

My reviews are my experiences and opinions about a product. If you've actually watched my reviews, at the end I encourage owners to post their own experiences with a product. Reviews where THD and SINAD are considered important, especially so if they are ranked, encourage manufacturers to game the system, even going as far as posting numbers with extra zeros added after the decimal point (yes, I've seen this) at output levels that they'll never use a product at, just to impress people who don't know any better. Remember the old say "Measurements keep the manufacturers honest"? It's now closer to the opposite. Why do you think the A90D has such a high power output? Better SINAD numbers! I want to see the output of a square wave put through these amps and see how well it can handle an actual fluctuating signal.

 

[KPzypher]

If a person is being blatantly misleading, should I say nothing?

My reviews are my experiences and opinions about a product. If you've actually watched my reviews, at the end I encourage owners to post their own experiences with a product. Reviews where THD and SINAD are considered important, especially so if they are ranked, encourage manufacturers to game the system, even going as far as posting numbers with extra zeros added after the decimal point (yes, I've seen this) at output levels that they'll never use a product at, just to impress people who don't know any better. Remember the old say "Measurements keep the manufacturers honest"? It's now closer to the opposite. Why do you think the A90D has such a high power output? Better SINAD numbers! I want to see the output of a square wave put through these amps and see how well it can handle an actual fluctuating signal.

Are you saying you're so righteous you had to speak up? Where were you when snake oil audio manufacturers were making outlandish claims? J/K J/K.

Reviews encourage manufacturers to game the system, period! Why do you think manufacturers send products to "select" reviewers (like yourself and Amir) ahead of product launch? Tell me that's not misleading.

I agree companies like Topping and SMSL (I have no problem calling them out) are taking advantage of the situation by over emphasizing the importance of certain measurement results (that are well beyond human threshold) when promoting their products, which certainly is contributed by ASR's measurement focused approach. And you're right those numbers are now becoming just numbers to impress people without tangible benefits. But even if those numbers don't benefit us, how does higher SINAD hurt the consumers? And even if it did, isn't that the company's fault for misleading consumers rather than the reviewer's fault for believing those measurements are critical to gauging audio fidelity? How do you evaluate audio equipment? Aren't you doing it based on features or sound you feel are important? So to your logic, if another reviewer disagrees with your conclusion and your methods, can that person say you're misleading others? What you are implying when you say someone else's measurements are done poorly and that person's reviews are over-generalized is the point I'm trying to make. That's all.

Again, this wouldn't be a problem if you weren't a reviewer with some clout who gets paid for the reviews you do. I just wish reviewers would focus on their reviews instead of doing the same things they're accusing of others of doing. And this goes for Amir too.