The concept and products of TOPPING have garnered the recognition of audiophiles worldwide with products like the TOPPING BC3, TOPPING NX1s, TOPPING NX4, TOPPING PA3, TOPPING NX4 DSD and TOPPING NX3S. Today TOPPING strives to push the quality of its products to the next level and products like Topping DAC and Amps are a favourite of countless people around the world. TOPPING always remains true to our original aspiration, adheres to this concept to the pursuit, and explores the road of Hi-Fi. The DragonFly Red has probably the best portrayal of Soundstage width and depth out of any Amp/DAC I’ve tried and is one of the main reasons I tend to recommend it the world over. If you’re familiar with my blog and channel, I tend to really dump on Amps and DACS in general because they mostly sound the same with very marginal differences. The DF Red (and I’ve always said this) does stand out in terms of it really presenting the music well, with loads of openness and fantastic spacing between the instruments. It’s like opening your window and letting a cool breeze in. These sentiments were only re-inforced with this latest demo. And I assume the A50s, by contrast, could be the volume control for the whole system. (Or the DAC could if it has a volume knob.) Verdict –The A50s remains an easy recommendation for its well-rounded design, ultra clean and linear sound and very reasonable price.”

This warranty extends only to personal use & does not extend to any product that has been used for commercial use, rental use, or use that is not intended. There are no warranties other than expressly set forth herein. I have a D50. Its silver. My Decco2 is silver faced. The A50s comes in silver. I like aesthetically matching setups. A50s has a high voltage swing of 42Vp-p, power of 3500mW per channel when both channels are driven and output impedance of less than 0.1Ohm. It easily drives power-hungry headphones with a wide range of different impedance. High power output, exceptional dynamic range, and an unprecedented ultra-low noise floor allows the TOPPING A50s to deliver a performance unmatched by any other headphone amplifier regardless of its topology. 6.35mm SE & Balanced 4.4mm Outputs They present to you the music as is. No coloration, no distortion, no warmth, and NO WARNINGS, BUSTER!DAC Chips: Texas Instruments DAC11001B, Analog Devices 5781 R2R, Xilinx 7 FPGA, ESS 9218p, Cirrus Logic for Apple, AK4499EQ

The other not-so-obvious reason is that Topping products are known to have QC issues and I’d rather you feel great about spending your money on a reliable product from an extremely reputable company. Despite having only single-ended RCA inputs, the TOPPING A50s headphone amplifier’s internal circuitry is internally balanced. The front panel features a 6.35-millimeter single-ended output and a 4.4 -millimeter balanced output. Since the A50s has RCA output connectors for non-headphone devices, there must be no way to use the A50s in balanced mode with active speakers, despite the balanced amplifier circuit ... am I right? (Topping doesn't explicitly say anywhere that balanced mode applies only to headphones with the A50s.) You must return an item in the same condition as it was received. You must also include, in the same condition as it was received:

Meet The New A50s

Accidents, abuse, misuse, improper installation, problems with electrical power, acts of third parties. The L50 has a pass-through line-in/line-out for non-headphone outputs. But it also accepts balanced inputs. Does that mean that balanced inputs are no longer balanced when passed to an external device (non-headphone)? Or (showing my technical naivete, perhaps) is the pass-through somehow transparent enough to maintain balance from external input to amp output? With the L50, due to the pass-through, I assume the volume knob doesn't work with the pass-through signal, as it would with the headphone output. I guess that means that to control a powered speaker with, say, a PC's streaming input signal, the volume control for the whole system could only be the PC's volume control or an external DAC, if there is one?

A50S presents music in a nimble and agile way, it’s fighting in lightweight category so don’t expect very long decays with blues or jazz, as it would happen with tube amps and with few class-A amplifiers. On the other hand, modern music was truly a delight with it, it was keeping up with faster beats, striking fast and ready to do it again. The only area where A50S didn’t shine bright compared to its bigger brother A90 was the thump / slam department. It didn’t pound as hard and didn’t deliver the amount of air needed to feel the music with your whole body, it was good in terms of slam but not exemplary as A90 was. Multiple factors are at play here, it’s limited power output, its limited capacitance stored and of course that switching mode power supply is restricting its performance.As I said earlier, with hindsight, I didn't really need that much power for the Dan Clark headphones. A50S as its predecessor is a simple and straightforward device, it can work as a single ended or balanced headphone amplifier or as a single ended preamplifier, alas without a remote so I don’t expect it to be used that often in a proper loudspeaker setup, maybe with some powered loudspeakers in front of your PC.