Cavalli Audio Liquid Lightning

[jwzhan]

that was way too much bullshit in one post for my liking....

yeah.. you can keep circumventing the real problem and stay in your little bubble of everything is okay as long as no one is harmed yet...

I surely hope that is your last post if those meaning less crap are all that you can come up with.

Edited October 2, 2013 by jwzhan

[roadtonowhere08]

 

no, it's mostly a place full of snake oil salesman and outright frauds.  go fuck yourself.

 

 

Your directness and honesty is quite commendable; it's like pouring peroxide over a gaping wound infected with horse shit.

[eggil]

Mr Cavalli, I consider myself a novice and I can do a better job than you.

That board looks horrible and if you are honest about it you should not be charging 5000.00 for it.

There is no excuse for this kind of work.

Edited October 2, 2013 by eggil

[woosha]

I'm a long time lurker here. It amazes me when someone or some manufacturers can get away with these issues. Some if not most of us are spending countless hours on honest jobs to buy what we want and here we get Cavalli Audio who basically selling craps for 5k?? I applaud those who expose these issues.

[kevin gilmore]

did I see anything about the lack of safety resistors on the outputs of the amp to limit

current in fault conditions? I better go and read that again.

 

No possibility of thermal runaway with bjt's in an amp like this, its pure class A, bias

is fixed by the current sources!  Not possible to build an AB1 amp for electrostats.

[Knuckledragger]

Hey, fucker, that's my .gif  

...which you

[roadtonowhere08]

...which you

 

You and your proof 

[spritzer]

Yeah, I agree with Jacob 100% and that post is just full of BS and lies.  Not that I expected anything different...

 

Now back to fixing this pile of fail.  I'll get some J74's so I don't need to dip into my stash of J109's and I'll order the parts to fix the PSU too.  Having no capacitance to speak of after the regulator makes no sense to me.  Either it is due to the designer being an epic cheap scate or because it likes to blow up with too much capacitance.  Some film caps should be ok though. 

[n_maher]

While many here believe the LL is a (insert profane description) the level of hatred/disgust/disrespect/etc. in this thread is a little surprising.  Alex is nowhere near operating at Mikhail's level of consumer debauchery, in my opinion at least.  Are there issues with the LL, Kevin and Birgir think so, Alex does not.  All I know is that I'm not qualified to enter into that particular discussion other than to say that his products are not the first nor will they be the last to have exposed terminals on the IEC.  I don't find that particular offense all that offensive.  It's probably more risky to have exposed tubes on many of the amps that we use regularly given the potential for serious burns to occur.  But anyway, back to my original point.  HC generally operates with a pretty loose set of rules and we typically (myself included) jump all over the random asshat that comes around trying to start what they believe to be an interesting topic.  But this thread, again in my opinion, should be different.  Birgir is levelling serious criticism and when the manufacturer takes the time to put forth a response the reply that gets applauded is one where he's told to go fuck himself?  If you don't like Alex I'm not going to argue.  If you don't like his products I'm not going to argue.  If you don't like his business model I'm not going to argue.  But the direction this thread is going makes me more than just a little uncomfortable.  

 

What I would like to see is more technical evaluation and discussion of the one serious (potential) problem in the lack of output resistors. 

[dsavitsk]

But the direction this thread is going makes me more than just a little uncomfortable.  

 

+1

[Hopstretch]

While many here believe the LL is a (insert profane description) the level of hatred/disgust/disrespect/etc. in this thread is a little surprising.  Alex is nowhere near operating at Mikhail's level of consumer debauchery, in my opinion at least.  Are there issues with the LL, Kevin and Birgir think so, Alex does not.  All I know is that I'm not qualified to enter into that particular discussion other than to say that his products are not the first nor will they be the last to have exposed terminals on the IEC.  I don't find that particular offense all that offensive.  It's probably more risky to have exposed tubes on many of the amps that we use regularly given the potential for serious burns to occur.  But anyway, back to my original point.  HC generally operates with a pretty loose set of rules and we typically (myself included) jump all over the random asshat that comes around trying to start what they believe to be an interesting topic.  But this thread, again in my opinion, should be different.  Birgir is levelling serious criticism and when the manufacturer takes the time to put forth a response the reply that gets applauded is one where he's told to go fuck himself?  If you don't like Alex I'm not going to argue.  If you don't like his products I'm not going to argue.  If you don't like his business model I'm not going to argue.  But the direction this thread is going makes me more than just a little uncomfortable.  

 

What I would like to see is more technical evaluation and discussion of the one serious (potential) problem in the lack of output resistors. 

 

Fair and reasonable, as ever. You'd be terrific mod on any board that didn't excommunicate people for having any presence anywhere else they might find offensive for any reason!

[spritzer]

But here is the thing, that wasn't a serious reply.  It was just BS leveled on top of more BS.  At the end of the day this is a 5000$ amplifier that is supposed to compete with the stuff Stax made and it quite frankly doesn't.  I'm leaving the BHSE out of this as we all know it doesn't belong in any 5K$ amp comparison regardless of the retail price, it's simply too cheap for what you get. 

 

With the Stax amps you have dealer and distributor networks to think about and building an esoteric product to a price.  They are also stuck in their ways so there are comparisons to be made.  The parts quality in the Stax amps is superior to almost anything found in the LL except maybe those bloody carbon pots they insist on using.  Been using the same stuff from the 70's so, stuck in their ways.  Stax do skimp on PSU design, always have done but then the circuits don't need an overkill PSU to work and work well.  The amps are bulletproof though and will last for decades and decades, even the truly abused ones just need a bit of spit and polish to spring back to life.  They also measure excellently and are easy to service.  Well not the SRA-14S as it is built in the same way as the LL.  Wires everywhere and not a terminal block in sight. 

 

The LL on the other hand has a pretty chassis but at double the cost of the 727 offers no benefits.  It's more powerful but the sound is even worse, fat, bloated and thick.  Then we have the safety issues, no output resistors, ballast resistors on the bias supply that will not work at the 600V they have to hold off in case of short and an earth contact that isn't legal anywhere.  Seriously, who doesn't put a locking washer on the nut?  This is basic safety stuff...  Measurements posted aren't real, not even close and the build quality is appalling.  Pictures don't do it justice, it's just the sheer lack of any common sense that gets to you.  Stuff like the switch circuitry has a ground plane but why on earth doesn't the rest of the amp use it?  Long ground traces, especially on the amp pcb aren't good engineering, especially on the cheapest PCB's money can buy. 

 

Just to be clear, I was agreeing with Jacob that the large majority of the audio market is just snakeoil and BS.  Should have stated that... 

[Voltron]

You're such a cunt.

[Voltron]

But you're our cunt and we love you!  

[grawk]

My take on it is:  

 

How likely is it someone will be harmed by the amp?  (Not financially)  If it's likely, that's important, and should be spread far and wide.

 

As to the rest, I'd never buy anything from anyone who has chosen to associate himself with the person he's chosen to associate himself with, but anyone else is free to do as they'd like.  Since I'm not buying a $5,000 electrostat amp any time soon, it's not really a concern for me.  And if I was, I'd obviously get a blue hawaii.  Anyone else that wants to buy something else is welcome to do so, even if I think they're an idiot.  

 

Finally, that "rebuttal" Mr Cavalli posted is a bunch of obfuscation, misdirection, and piffle.  Fuck all that.

[luvdunhill]

Mr Cavalli posted is a bunch of obfuscation, misdirection, and piffle. Fuck all that.

That's Dr. Cavalli to you.

[grawk]

That's Dr. Cavalli to you.

Not unless I get sick and he's an MD

[kevin gilmore]

 

.  

 

What I would like to see is more technical evaluation and discussion of the one serious (potential) problem in the lack of output resistors. 

 

+2

 

coming soon LLmk3

 

Seriously this is the major safety issue. And its such an easy and cheap fix. Unless you make it external. (male and female plug with resistors inside)

 

But with the mosfets it still sounds like crap. At least it would be a safe piece of poor sounding crap.

 

I would love to see schiit do an electrostatic amp.

Edited October 2, 2013 by kevin gilmore

[johnwmclean]

The amp has passed CE safety standard for export. End of debate in my book as far as the safety issue goes.

[grawk]

I think it's fair to think CE inspectors might not know the risks associated with electrostat headphones

[luvdunhill]

Not unless I get sick and he's an MD

Does administration of last rites count?

http://www.biblicalvoices.com/

[luvdunhill]

I think it's fair to think CE inspectors might not know the risks associated with electrostat headphones

Yeah thats a determination better left to people like Amos and the HF mod team.

[Voltron]

Yeah thats a determination better left to people like Amos and the HF mod team.

 

[shellylh]

I think it's fair to think CE inspectors might not know the risks associated with electrostat headphones

That is what I was thinking.

[johnwmclean]

I’m sure there are many ways to skin a cat with opinions as to safety. The LL may not be up to mine and your ideal of safety, but it has passed a standard deeming it safe for a commercial product. If you want to argue with the compliance standard that’s entirely a different debate.  

Edited October 2, 2013 by johnwmclean