Topping L30 xploding and taking headphones out

To be fair, I wouldn't say that they are useless. The problem right now is that we do not understand how the failure occurred. The DC detect and relays are a safeguard, but they are designed for certain kinds of foreseeable failures.

Right now, we only have one photo of a melted opamp and no idea how or why this happened. The four others on ASR have not provided any photos, so we have no idea if the failure mode is the same. It would also appear that there is little incentive to get to the bottom of it at ASR. One owner is unwilling to pop open the case and take photos because he fears that doing so will ruin his chances of getting a refund. Amir is not willing to compensate owners for their broken amps for an analysis. He has mostly stayed silent and will continue to stay silent. Evidence of a cozy relationship between ASR and Topping / SMSL's holding company were uncovered by @ultrabike here (evidence now scrubbed): https://www.superbestaudiofriends.o...science-review-review.9827/page-8#post-316578

I thought I had also seen a photo of a killed voice-coil, but perhaps this was in my head. I've done dumb stuff via DIYing, killed opamps, killed headphones, etc. I've blown up opamps and transistors with fire and smoke and parts flying to to the ceiling, turned capacitors into sizzling fireworks, but the melted opamp with the nuclear China Syndrome deal (char marks on the back the PCB - and pun intended) has my head scratching.

I am curious to the opamp. Supposedly some of these latest and greatest modern opamps can be very sensitive to ESD and ESD was indicated as a possible cause at ASR. One can read through ESD precaution material on TI's site. Evidently ESD damage can be cumulative to transistors inside opamps with no external evidence of such, until boom, a latch to DC.

So I guess John Yang is a manufacturer now instead of an "intern". Didn't he state that he was simply an intern or contractor for Topping? It doesn't matter. He should have been upfront that he was representing the interests of Topping instead of pretending to be a freelancer with plausible deniability, e.g. "happened to pick up side jobs from Topping".

Anyway, science and statistics doesn't work like that and this statement is sidestepping the current issue at hand. Four or five people reporting on the Internets within a short time interval of catastrophic failures with headphones being taken out is very concerning. The reasons are that the vast majority of people do not participate in forums and will not report these results. Heck, even @M3NTAL's post in the middle December of last year flew by everybody's head until ASR folks' L30s started exploding recently. Finally, we don't know what the future holds, if the remaining L30s are ticking time bombs.

We are all familiar with the story of "very low failure" rate when a handful of owners of Audeze headphone started to report dead drivers.

This coming from a MoT who has crapped on competitors products (posts now edited or dialed back) and for a long term of time exercised plausible deniability on his relationship status with Topping / SMSL. I'm sorry, but karma is a bitch.

It's understandable. We do have anti-Topping / SMSL bias. At least SBAF is willing to admit this bias. One would think a representative from Topping would embrace the lessons from How to Make Friends and Influence People. But it's like what I said in another thread. Chinese people, even business people, take things personally and forever to the extent that if they had an opportunity to convert enemies to friends, they would refuse. One of the strengths of Western culture is not taking things personally and the ability to turn events such as these into opportunities.

This is a business decision. Would the expenditure, that is short-term loss, from compensating owners' exploded headphones be worth it to maintain the reputation of the brand? If such a policy is implemented, could there be implications in the future if amplifiers that continue to explode headphones? And if this is a concern, what additional safeguards can be designed into the products to mitigate the risks and how much will this add to the price?

People like to talk about Schiit-gate, but the truth, as @Psalmanazar said, is that a few seconds of DC to 0, will not kill drivers. However, what was demonstrated became a matter of mass hysteria, and many folks probably reported Schiit amps killing their headphones when their amps may not have been the cause. Schiit ate it anyway.

Karma works both ways.

 

I could care less about Topping.

My concern is where is the objectivity and 60 Minutes exposé? Imagine if this happened with a Schiit product. ASR would be all over it. Photos would be posted. The pitchforks would have come out. Amir would be right on it.

ASR members like to pride themselves on objectivity, at least this is what they say. However, objectivity cannot be opportunistic and have differing standards upon scope and depth of investigation. If one is going to score/rank gear and offer levels of recommendation, it's not just measurements, we need process, standards, and criteria.

You can't say: he's a forum friend, so although this is a shitty measuring SS amp, get this if you want a tube amp instead; or I hate this company's marketing tactics, so I will turn up the magnification level on the microscope; or since I write glowing articles for these companies' holding company, I will ignore it when their amps explode headphones.

True objectivity requires the human elements to be controlled.

 

This is assuming that it's ESD. We still have no idea what is the cause or if the cause the same. More data (photos) would help.

Is the case metal or plastic? I cannot tell from the photos.