Schiit Midgard vs Topping A30 Pro

Schiit Midgard

The Midgard is the amp where Schiit's measurements finally matched its cult following: the discrete, op-amp-free Halo topology makes it the best-measuring, highest-power discrete headphone amp the company has built, with owner-run tests showing it besting the Drop x THX AAA 789 in some metrics. Impressions converge on a clarity-and-separation-first presentation: cleaner than the Magni+, more neutral than the warm Asgard tilt, with a midrange that stands out against the pricier Jotunheim 2. Its halo, so to speak, is doing all this at Schiit's usual aggressive pricing; the caveats are the usual Schiit ones: utilitarian styling, clicky relay ergonomics, and a strictly amp-only box that still needs a DAC.

Topping A30 Pro

The A30 Pro is Topping's NFCA desktop headphone amplifier with an internal mains supply, and its reputation rests on bench behavior rather than voicing. Independent measurement put SINAD essentially as good as the test setup can resolve, called the signal-to-noise ratio at 50 mV output class leading, and recorded about 5.5W per channel into 32 ohms and 0.73W into 300 ohms single-ended, with balanced operation adding no meaningful power. Subjective coverage does not converge on a character. One listening account hears a mild euphony, romantic richness through female vocals and an overall warmer tilt, while others hear a sterile and neutral presentation, or a clean, linear one with note weight that is neither heavy nor light. Sensitive in-ear monitors come off well: separate listening tests with multi-driver customs and with an 8.5 ohm, 94 dB in-ear found the headphone outputs dead silent on low and medium gain, helped by three gain steps rated at -14, 0 and +14 dB. Staging is described as airy, with an expansive sense of recording space but elements inside it pulled relatively close, and imaging is called sharp and precisely localized. The complaints are practical rather than sonic: the case gets warm, there is no preamp mode and no remote, the rear pass-through outputs only go live when the amplifier is switched off, and the balanced jacks share the single-ended circuitry rather than doubling power.