Practical Question Regarding Newer Topping Amps


I've been trying to decide on a preamp for my chain. The Topping Pre90 was originally high on my list, but I kept reading about how the remote on it (as well as the original A90 and the A90 Discrete) are hard to use due to the amp itself having a narrow reception range. This has dissuaded me from purchasing one of them. I am only now realizing that those are older products and that Topping has since released the A90 Pro as well as L70 amps in a newer design with equal or better performance to the older models. Does anyone have experience with the A90 Pro and/or L70 that can let me know how their experience is using the included remote? Does the amp still require the user to have military sniper aim for it to receive the IR signal from the remote?

Or should I just forget all this Topping headphone amp nonsense and just buy the darn Schiit Kara already? 🤣

-Ed

eddnog

@mlsstl  In comparing the Kara’s active mode versus the Freya+’s SS buffered mode, would you say that the Kara performs better? I’m trying to figure out whether or not I’d be giving something up in SS mode if I chose a Freya+ over Kara to experiment with tube mode.

-Ed

I don't have either a Kara (Schiit's newest preamp) nor a Freya+, but if I were buying one or the other I'd go with the Kara. 

The first Schiit product I bought was a DAC that didn’t DA properly. After determining it wasn’t me I had to argue for them to replace it. Then it worked for about 2 years before total failure. Their response was no fix just buy another.

Never again.

I do most of my music enjoyment on a Topping DAC balanced into a Topping amp, This system saves ~200 watts off my electrical draw over the A system which I feel no compulsion for. It takes any abuse I give it, total silence between program.

I already got my money’s worth