Introduction

TOPPING is an audio brand popular in the PC desktop space for its range of affordable and good quality DACs and headphone amplifiers alike. The Chinese company has recently updated its E-series DACs and L-series amps lineup with the budget-friendly E30 II/L30 II stack and we also covered the impressive E50/L50 stack which bumps things up with a balanced headphone output to accompany the single-ended connector. As such, when TOPPING started teasing its E70/L70 combination, I was left wondering what was going to be added for further product segmentation. As it turns out, TOPPING decided to add in features from its enthusiast-grade D-series DACs and A-series amplifiers line to where it can get confusing if you try to see where things differ but can be great for the end user to have further competition to make the most of your money.


SHENZHENAUDIO offered a sample each of the TOPPING E70 and L70 for review, but it was a weird situation wherein a couple of weeks later we saw the release of the TOPPING E70 VELVET. The TOPPING E70 uses an ESS DAC as with the vast majority of other such sources released in the past few years. Part of this is due to a factory fire in 2019 at Asahi Kasei Microdevices (AKM) and it took until late 2022 for AKM to make a comeback. The AK4499EX is its new flagship DAC that has quickly being adopted by a few brands, including TOPPING in the newer E70 VELVET. As such, today we take a look at three products in total in the form of the E70 and E70 VELVET—also simply referred to as E70V—DACs and the L70 amplifier itself. The AKM-based E70V costs a significant chunk more than the ESS-based E70, so we'll also see whether the price increase is worth it in this review which begins with a look at the product specifications, so be sure to click the images twice to fully open it and go through all the details.

Specifications

TOPPING E70 DAC:


TOPPING E70 VELVET DAC:


TOPPING L70 Amplifier: