"Monolith Liquid Platinum Headphone Amplifier by Alex Cavalli"

[Kattefjaes]

Get your orders in, folks, don't miss out:

https://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=120&cp_id=12008&cs_id=1200801&p_id=33305&seq=1&format=2

[spritzer]

One has to wonder if he used assets from the now defunct company on this stuff....

I love that the Spark has a 36V/1.5A supply... why??????

[Pars]

I submitted a question regarding this item on Monoprice...

Why? Cavalli doesn't really know what he is doing. I would avoid this amp like the plague.

[skullguise]

And I'm sure Alex gets licensing/royalty revenue, while assuming none of the risk (quality, repairs, etc.) anymore....

[kevin gilmore]

it may have been cute when schiit came out with its original batch of cheap shit. all sorts of compromises necessary to produce something for $149

But now we have schiit competing with massdrop competing with monoprice, producing seriously compromised product for prices approaching $700.

All sorts of issues including virtually no class A output power, split rail power supplies, low component life due to some really high chassis temperatures, noisy external switching power supplies and flyback switchers internally. Throw away product for sure.

When you can buy real products from real companies for $500 or less.

 

[SeaWolf]

The pricing on this is shocking to me. I love monoprice for cheap cables and things. But a 700 dollar amp from them is really confusing. 

Every single $1 cable a have bough from them works perfectly. Who knows maybe they will make something decent. I assume Cavalli is nothing more than a branding exercise, and he is not really involved.  

[kevin gilmore]

I am sure that the design is a version of his current source feeding a buffer output stage. Possibly ac coupled. With a fair bit of feedback.

[Cellist88]

[spritzer]

Ohhh goody... more of the same crap here.  Same awful railsplitter, same shitty volume control and where are the heatsinks?  Pathetic crap as usual...

[kevin gilmore]

+/-15V power rails and mosfet output transistors. Single ended output with very limited voltage swings. Same super simple CFA output section as CTH,Liquid Carbon, Liquid Gold, Liquid crimson etc. Virtually no class A power. And this is $700?

[purk]

So the amp isn't balanced?  

[kevin gilmore]

yes the amp is balanced. whether there is a opamp unbal to bal converter like the liquid carbon or lcx, is unknown. But there is no reason why the front end cannot be a differential amplifier and then its balanced.

of course that depends on your definition of balanced, its not the same kind of balanced as a super symmetry dynalo. its a unbalanced/balanced to balanced converter and then 4 x cfa output amplifiers. Same as liquid gold, liquid carbon, lcx.

I see the confusion from my post, the single ended output is going to be limited to something like 18vpp (30 volts - VGS(x2)-2) whereas the cth would be about 26v

This amp is definitely to compete with the lyr3. whether they knew that the lyr3 was coming or not. Both amps have serious limitations and issues.

also that picture is the cavalli version the monoprice version will probably be different just like the differences in the original cth and the production version

 

Edited April 8, 2018 by kevin gilmore

[SeaWolf]

@kevin gilmore sorry this is a bit off topic here, but you mentioned that the lyr3 has some issues. I looked for a thread on it but haven't found one. Are you willing to share your thoughts on the design of that amp?

[wink]

11 hours ago, purk said:

So the amp isn't balanced?  

This is balanced........

Question.....

How do you make a KG electrostatic amp sound like the like of the rubbish out there?

 

Answer....

Install one of these bad boys into your KG designed elctrostatic amps......

 

[kevin gilmore]

hum and heat are 2 issues the lyr3 seems to be getting a reputation for.

[SeaWolf]

Huh, it's unfortunate that this seems to be a trend continuing with their new amps.

Edited April 9, 2018 by SeaWolf

[sonance]

People seem so excited about this amp on the various forums, it's too bad really.

What reasonably priced tube hybrid would people recommend instead?

[ktm]

If you can find a millett minimax for sale, that would be a good bang for the buck.

Edited November 18, 2018 by ktm

[kevin gilmore]

a number of people are complaining that there is no gain switch and the default gain is too high. kind of what you would expect from a current mirror feeding a tube. evidently its dc coupled but no pictures good enough to reverse engineer. If you go by the price of the cth x 2, this should be about $450 max.

[Thai Tao]

I found these picture of the Liquid Crimson https://www.head-fi.org/threads/new-cavalli-audio-liquid-crimson-amp.737694/page-14#post-14019045

[svperstar]

On 4/6/2018 at 12:26 PM, kevin gilmore said:

it may have been cute when schiit came out with its original batch of cheap shit. all sorts of compromises necessary to produce something for $149

But now we have schiit competing with massdrop competing with monoprice, producing seriously compromised product for prices approaching $700.

All sorts of issues including virtually no class A output power, split rail power supplies, low component life due to some really high chassis temperatures, noisy external switching power supplies and flyback switchers internally. Throw away product for sure.

When you can buy real products from real companies for $500 or less.

 

So the Gilmore Lite was my first "real" amp back in the day, sold it tho. I was thinking of picking the Liquid Platinum up but you seem to hate it. What would you recommend? I am currently using a Schiit Asgard 2.

[Dusty Chalk]

Stick with the Schiit.

[Voltron]

Lite mk2

https://www.headamp.com/order/headamp-gilmore-lite-mk2-class-a-headphone-amplifier/

[kevin gilmore]

so here is a reason not to buy the LP.  if you turn off the switching power supply (or a power hit, or unplugging it) with the amplifier power switch on, a mosfet in the amplifier power supply fries. another of the many reasons why rail splitter power supplies are a bad idea.

[JimL]

Why would that happen - is there a HV transient that blows the MOSFET?