Probably the biggest hype I ever encountered in the headphone kingdom was the announcement of THX AAA 789 headphone amp by Massdrop. People called it as the Holy Grail of headphone amplification, as an End-Game, shift+delete your head-fi account type of amp. Everybody dreamed about it and everybody wanted one. That is not because it was expensive, not at all, at only $400 it was among the cheapest balanced and powerful desktop headphone amp I knew about. Everyone dreamed about it because of the availability of that particular amp, the first batch was sold out in one hour I recon, the second batch sale lasted few hours and only the third one lasted a day or so. I am not that lucky by nature so obviously I forgot to pre-order one and put my hands on it. People were selling it on the used market at higher prices than MSRP! Its demand was much bigger than supply, the hype was real!
This year was such a busy year for TOPPING and I’m sure it was their best one yet. TOPPING released two incredible DACs that can fight in the heavyweight category with bigger boys, D70 and DX7 Pro were such eye-openers that they made me wonder if much higher priced digital to analog converters made any sense. They are still tuning their top-of-the-line AK4499 based D90 DAC, but in the meantime, an update to their smaller and more affordable DAC category just happened with the release of the newest D50s DAC/Preamp and Bluetooth receiver. I’m told there is also an A50 headphone amplifier in the works that should pair nicely with D50s and the dedicated P50 power supply should solve any background noise issues you might have.
If I ask you a few years ago about TOPPINGÂ you would raise your shoulders, however, nowadays it is a different picture as this brand also rhymes with good sound quality at very affordable prices. TOPPINGÂ took by storm the affordable audio market by releasing interesting desktop and portable units, their DX and D lines are still very popular among audio enthusiasts. When TOPPINGÂ released its highest performance D70 DAC not too long ago, it sent shock-waves in the audiophile community, it again raised the bar of what can be achieved with a modest sum of $500.
Apos Audio is proud to be the exclusive TOPPING launch partner for the new TOPPING D90 DAC in the US. The D90 is the newest product by TOPPING and creates a new class of DAC in their ecosystem.It will use the latest D/A chip, the AK4499, produced by the Japanese company AKM.