[vsg28]

My coverage of the EHA5 is published now for those interested: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/quick-look-topping-eha5-electrostatic-headphone-amplifier/

 

[aokman]

My coverage of the EHA5 is published now for those interested: https://www.techpowerup.com/review/quick-look-topping-eha5-electrostatic-headphone-amplifier/

Fantastic, balanced review.

I welcome these sorts of products to the market honestly. I have much respect for the high end direct drive amplifiers and work that has been done but I’m also completely over shunning anything from China / less than audiophile perfection. Topping has certainly torn open other areas of the audio market like the LA90 did.

Hopefully this spurs more manufacturers to enter the market

 

[SolarCetacean]

Nice review, but to me it just reads like "mediocre amp saved by its price", which to me isn't high praise. If it was decisively better than a 353x at half the price, that's an achievement, but if it's slightly worse than the 353x but half the price, that's nothing special, that's every value-oriented product in any market. With all of the fancy specs that Topping bandied about at its announcement, I was hoping for something better from 20 mA of output current and 2000Vpp. Most estats are bright, and if the EHA5 doesn't pair well with bright estats, then it really doesn't pair well with much of anything, especially amongst the lower-end Stax headphones which are the natural load for this sort of amp. Subjective lack of bass will only exacerbate the lack of bass and heighten the perceived treble on most estats, which are the issues that most people have with estats in general. Even if it pairs well with the Corina, that's a $4000 headphone; if someone can afford a $4K headphone, they can afford the 353x or a modded SRM-T1 at the $1K mark. Used SRM-353xs can often be found for <600 USD, which then further diminishes the value proposition unless you need to buy new. The EHA5 is basically running unopposed in the starter amp arena since Stax has discontinued the SRM-252s, but this review didn't instill much confidence in its performance to me.

 

[aokman]

Nice review, but to me it just reads like "mediocre amp saved by its price", which to me isn't high praise. If it was decisively better than a 353x at half the price, that's an achievement, but if it's slightly worse than the 353x but half the price, that's nothing special, that's every value-oriented product in any market. With all of the fancy specs that Topping bandied about at its announcement, I was hoping for something better from 20 mA of output current and 2000Vpp. Most estats are bright, and if the EHA5 doesn't pair well with bright estats, then it really doesn't pair well with much of anything, especially amongst the lower-end Stax headphones which are the natural load for this sort of amp. Subjective lack of bass will only exacerbate the lack of bass and heighten the perceived treble on most estats, which are the issues that most people have with estats in general. Even if it pairs well with the Corina, that's a $4000 headphone; if someone can afford a $4K headphone, they can afford the 353x or a modded SRM-T1 at the $1K mark. Used SRM-353xs can often be found for <600 USD, which then further diminishes the value proposition unless you need to buy new. The EHA5 is basically running unopposed in the starter amp arena since Stax has discontinued the SRM-252s, but this review didn't instill much confidence in its performance to me.

It’s 1/3 the price in Australia, would need someone to hook it up to a measurement load and do proper readings and see how the transformers hold up. That said this should at least be a match for an SRD7…

I wouldn’t be surprised if its actually pretty flat to be honest, except for transformer bass limitations and possibly that the BHSE is actually inflating the bass region for a warmer sound signature being tube based.

 

[dleblanc343]

The EHA5 is a nice sounding amp. Sure it's not going to magically outshine 1K+ amps or custom builds, but it performs quite a bit better than I anticipated in my trial for its asking price.

It is not ideal for harder to drive HP's like SR007, ES-1a lacking a bit of gain and headroom.


If anyone wants to try the amp at a discount, hit me up. It's worth the shot

 

[Miiksu]

The EHA5 is a nice sounding amp. Sure it's not going to magically outshine 1K+ amps or custom builds, but it performs quite a bit better than I anticipated in my trial for its asking price.

It is not ideal for harder to drive HP's like SR007, ES-1a lacking a bit of gain and headroom.


If anyone wants to try the amp at a discount, hit me up. It's worth the shot

what dac is used? did u try a pre-amp to get more headroom?

 

[Hal Rockwell]

The big question for me is whether the EHA5 better than my SRM-212.

 

[Miiksu]

The big question for me is whether the EHA5 better than my SRM-212.

Probably. It's only 399 usd. It has 700 vrms, which is huuge. That may be the reason that people think it sounds tinny or sizzly. In my personal experience changing vrms is that ur estat starts to behave differently and I say more is better. Faster and cleaner transient response.

 

[alxd]

The EHA5 is a nice sounding amp. Sure it's not going to magically outshine 1K+ amps or custom builds, but it performs quite a bit better than I anticipated in my trial for its asking price.

It is not ideal for harder to drive HP's like SR007, ES-1a lacking a bit of gain and headroom.


If anyone wants to try the amp at a discount, hit me up. It's worth the shot

 

[alxd]

Yes I am interested in getting one at a discount and writing a couple of reviews. Initial and then a week or two later after the excitement dies down a bit.

 

[dleblanc343]

Yes I am interested in getting one at a discount and writing a couple of reviews. Initial and then a week or two later after the excitement dies down a bit.

The amp has since been sold to a new owner, sorry.

 

[Svperstar]

So Thanksgiving the only estat and estat amp I had was the Koss 95X.

Now I have the Stax T1S, Stax 717 (considered the best amp Stax ever made according to the "mafia" including their new amps that cost $6,000+), and this topping.

I have spent the last few weeks going back and forth. I can say the Topping EHA5 sounds very similar to the Stax offering, and its much smaller and doesn't get nearly as warm, all good things.

However the one thing that makes me nervous is that it will shut itself off during very busy sections. I am using Equalizer APO as well as a little EQ to taste from my RME ADI-2 FS.

I was unable to get the EHA5 to turn off listening to music, then I was watching YouTube and found a channel with a very loud noise during story transition.

At the 13:00 minute mark of this video there is a very loud swooshing noise, when using EQ and turning the volume up I can get the Topping to EHA5 to reliably shut off:


Neither of my Stax amps exhibit this problem. Other then that it is a solid clean little amp.

If they would revise the EHA5 into the EHA6 or EHA Pro and make it so it doesn't shut off during loud sounds I would rate it much higher.

 

[SolarCetacean]

A user on ASR measured the EHA5 and showed that when trying to produce large bass notes, it would shut down at relatively low output voltages. A 20 Hz sine wave could cause the amp to shut down at only 229 Vrms where the amp was already producing 3% THD. A far cry from the advertised 700 Vrms at 0.001% or whatever THD... The amp gurus say it's due to transformer core overloading. Probably using bigger/better transformers would help, but those would likely need a bigger box and a higher price tag.

 

[Miiksu]

@Svperstar Interesting find. Other Topping offers have some issues and bass heavy situations protection may kick in. You can try this: https://onlinetonegenerator.com/frequency-sweep-generator.html . Sweep 1-20 Hz and see where the problem starts and then use continuous tone for the cause frequency. You can then try a low shelf filter -30 dB at those frequencies where it happens. It may work or make it less likely to happen.

 

[timb5881]

I may be wrong here, but I believe that the output transformers get saturated as they approach 20 Hz. This may well be what is causing the amp to shut down.