Topping B100 Brief Impressions

I believe the best way to describe the B100 versus the Fosi amps is that if you haven’t listened to Topping’s amps yet, you’ll believe the Fosis are extremely transparent, which they are, but then once you listen to the B100s, you realize that there’s yet another level of transparency in existence. Additionally, the B100s are just tremendously revealing of what’s upstream. It is easier for me to discern between different DACs when switching DACs and also between preamps when switching preamps. The caveat of course is that the Fosi amps can push WAY more power than the B100s. With my LS50 Metas, the B100s are fine, and only if I decide to really push them to crazy loud (to me) volume levels, like peaks of almost 90dB from my listening position 10 feet away, do I manage to trigger the safety cutoff on them, but that being said, the safety cutoff is extremely conservative on these amps and will kick in WAY before clipping or distortion rears its head. I have found medium gain to be ideal with the LS50 Metas.

I wouldn’t recommend these for speakers needing more push. My dad has Magellan LRS+ and they sound great with the V3 Monos that I gave him. If he were to consider Topping amps, I’d say he would have to spring for the class-AB B200s instead of the Class-B B100s.

-Ed

Just finished reading the ASR measurements—amazing stuff! It blows the Benchmark out of the water (within its power rating) and sets a new standard. Although there’s still some room for improvement compared to the B200, the price proposition is definitely comparable.

One thing I’ve been curious about—on the Fosi V3 / monos, I found the stereo imaging a bit unsatisfactory. With the B100’s 'magic,' did you notice a significant improvement in that area?

If I had to rank the effect each component in the chain had on stereo imaging, I’d rank speakers way first, then DAC, then preamp, and then power amps last. That being said, again, these B100s are more revealing of what’s upstream of them. If you have a well-imaging DAC or preamp, you’ll get more out of it with the B100s. If your DAC or preamp images poorly, you’ll definitely hear that through the B100. 
 

-Ed

The experience one has may depend on the specific gear each individual owns. While room acoustics and gear placement are also factors, let's set those aside for now. In my case, simply swapping out these smaller amps for my Parasound, with everything else unchanged, made an audible difference in the stereo image. In one of my listening spaces, specifically in the second living room, the smaller components actually created a wider soundstage but with less precise imaging compared to the Parasound. YMMV, but that's been my experience.  I simply do not know / experience enough to make a judge call which component influence image more or less.