Every time I see news of a new TOPPING product release, I can't help but wonder which older TOPPING product, or current ones from the competition, just became redundant. TOPPING is in a growth period, where it is putting out more new products than I can count on the fingers of my hands, and almost always to rave reviews. There have been a few hiccups along the way, and one such issue with the original L30 no doubt put more eyes on the newer L50 than before. The E50/L50 stack is positioned at $500 though, so there was still a place left for the actual update intended at the $300 (or $150 each) tier, which we now get in the form of the recently released E30 II DAC and L30 II amplifier. These are not the least expensive of TOPPING's offerings and yet reminds me of a more premium JDS Atom stack almost every which way. The L30 II in particular is so good that it almost makes the L50 covered before seemingly redundant in its own right unless you need that extra power and also the balanced connection there.

TOPPING has a formula it has pretty much perfected now across both its E/L and D/A lines of DACs and amplifiers with the use of ESS or AKM DACs, essentially still giving you the same TOPPING house sound, if you will. We saw before how not all ESS DACs need to sound the same, and this ends up being the other way round with TOPPING's engineers working different DACs to give you a similar experience. The E30 II is perfectly usable and will be a good improvement over onboard audio pretty much always, and really that's the target customer here—someone looking to get their first standalone DAC and headphone amplifier, which can also be a preamp—although not simultaneously. I also appreciate the build quality and colors on offer which allow you to go beyond standard black aesthetics, and the aluminium alloy chassis + switches also go a long way in providing that sense of something more premium, without breaking the bank. I still encourage users to spend their money in priority of headphones/IEMs and then the source itself but $300 is certainly easy to justify, for a stack that ends up performing as well as it does, and will continue to do so in the future.