Topping L30 xploding and taking headphones out

Discussion in 'All Points Bulletin / Be on the Look Out' started by M3NTAL, Dec 17, 2020.

  1. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    What set me off was them using casework for another manufacturers products rather than a generic case or project box. Then I suspected pirated parts based on sound before but it was unconfirmed. Now it’s known they use knockoff caps.

    So do other manufacturers like Focusrite and RME and MOTU (in old stuff, power supplies, and M2/M4) but they use them “in spec” without substitutions so while they may be fragile or the box DOA, you don’t get a run of RME units that sound warm or a run of Focusrites that don’t sound like Orange Chicken. Focusrite just break like all time and the RME power supplies have a limited lifespan due to heat.
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2021
  2. iFi audio

    iFi audio MOT iFi Audio

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  3. Grattle

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    LOL - someone at ASR is calling it the amplifire. That's a classic right there.
     
  4. Josh83

    Josh83 Friend

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    Several years ago I wanted a cheap remote-controlled chip amp for a cheap secondary speaker system. I bought some SMSL box that emitted sparks when plugged in. Luckily I bought it from Drop, and they took it back.
     
  5. señorhifi

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    Last edited: Jan 6, 2021
  6. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    Some guy with an anime avatar said "Schiit Asgard 1and Lyr 1 back then can kill headphones when power switch was switched off and on. They rectified that with issues with Asgard 2. These days though, Schiit's ESD problem should be minimal but nothing is guaranteed of course. I've had my coffee spilled on my Saga 1 before and it only killed the tube and only cause 60 Hz hum on the Yamaha HS7 speakers during the spill. I switched it off quickly by toggling the power switch to off and I never got electrocuted during that time. It NEVER emitted a smoke whatsoever during the spill. After drying overnight and swapping with a RCA 5692 tube as the previous 5692 tube that got coffee soaked makes humming noise, my Saga worked perfectly to this day like it was never accidentally soaked with coffee prior."

    BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH. Tons of powered monitors emit a DC bump when turned on and off. People plug headphones into mixing consoles all the time. Guess what? NOTHIING DIES. Has anyone seen a blown HD 280, DT 770, MDR 7506, or HD 25? No they haven't. The headphones physically break before the drivers give out.

    Yamaha HS line can have power hum anyway from shitty ass transformers and inadequate filtering caps
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2021
  7. Armaegis

    Armaegis Friend

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    I used to like Topping stuff back in the day when they were just a (smaller) company that had bought up all the Tripath chips after they went bankrupt. Their dacs were meh, but as a freebie pcm-whatever included in a 2x20W speaker amp the size of a fat paperback book for $60, I had no complaints. Too bad it seems like they've flopped over to the dark side these days.
     
  8. M3NTAL

    M3NTAL Friend

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    Here you go...

    IMG_0869.jpg IMG_0870.jpg IMG_0872.jpg IMG_0873.jpg
     
  9. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Undamaged L30 for reference attached.

    L30.jpg

    Will sleuth in the morning. Are the outputs TPA6120s? Looks the the gain stage opamp exploded. Dang pretty bad too. I've killed opamps in experiments, they've cracked and smoked, but they didn't go nuclear meltdown like this.

    IMG_0872.jpg
     
  10. M3NTAL

    M3NTAL Friend

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    [​IMG]

    I gave it all it's got
     
  11. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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  12. purr1n

    purr1n Desire for betterer is endless.

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    Higher rez from ASR. Does Topping scrub out the lettering on the opamp? LOL

    IMG_6886.jpg
    IMG_6891.jpg

    Melted
    IMG_0872 (1).jpg
     
  13. atomicbob

    atomicbob dScope Yoda

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    Topping L30 exploding.jpg

    It happened at power on. That tends to suggest in-rush current stimulated fault. If the in-rush current exceeded the safe-operating-area for the silicon,even for a nanosecond, the result often is for the silicon to fuse into a short circuit. If this was a DC coupled amplifier now it becomes a war between the silicon I^2 * t and the headphone voice coil. Bets are the voice coil loses to thermal overheating and thus either melting or breaking apart somewhere in the winding.
     
  14. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    @purr1n @M3NTAL notice the small cap substitution?
    Decidely not NIchicon. Nichicon small aluminum electrolytics are
    LOT
    VOLTAGE
    SERIES

    And purr1n, whatever that opamp is, it's a pirated part for sure. No frickin way they pay for that. But then again AVID/DAD scrubs the internet of money shots. Empirical Labs scrubs the opamp markings off their drum plasticizers.
     
    Last edited: Jan 6, 2021
  15. Lyander

    Lyander Official SBAF Equitable Empathizer

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    So a "reputable" company is definitely using knockoff components. Lovely to know. Sorry about the i4s, M3NTAL, but hopefully this makes it so fewer people put their gear at risk.
     
  16. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Wow, these are useless

    900C913D-4AFE-4286-9D8E-C3A7537EA633.jpeg
     
  17. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    sometimes it's like that. I've opened up some Schiit amps where you can't read the opamps. I think you can order a reel that way.
     
  18. Baten

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    Arent't those just muting relays against popping noise at power-on/power-off? In a way yes, they're useless for nuclear-meltdown chips failing, true enough :p
     
  19. Psalmanazar

    Psalmanazar Most improved member; A+

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    They’re not knockoffs per say other than being ripped off and cheaped out Japanese caps. Just no name Chinese capacitors that either aren’t to spec or are being used out of their real spec probably here. RME uses them to but their stuff doesn’t blow up. You don’t see dead Firefaces except for the power supply going and frying stuff
     
  20. Cspirou

    Cspirou They call me Sparky

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    Very tempted to buy one just to reverse engineer whatever is going on.

    I know speaker amps with DC protection that will switch the relay when you reach that threshold. I think I've seen headphone amps (neurochrome?) too but those are usually $$$$.

    Regardless, you should still be able to design things to "fail well" so something just doesn't work instead of exploding.
     

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