Cavalli Liquid Fire

[dBel84]

I knew Alex was getting ready to roll out his new amp and I saw a reference to the new site earlier this evening on HF. I am not going to wax lyrical about the amp as I am not trying to schill the gear for him. To say I like the amp would be an understatement but I do and have been and have been using the initial prototype for several months. Thought some of you who still listen to dynamic headphones would want to know Liquid Fire is finally getting ready to become a reality.

..dB

[atothex]

So what's a Liquid Gold?

[emelius]

i'm familiar with what they are...just growing old waiting for prices...

[dBel84]

Liquid Gold is solid state and a different topology. As far as I know, Alex is only working on releasing LF initially. I did ask him about price point and it is mostly set. AC was not happy with the finish from one of the fab houses and is expecting things to be finalized this week. I am sure this is why he has held off making an official announcement..dB

[jp11801]

Don , nice the amp sounded good in Chicago I'm eager to hear the final version of this amp.

[n_maher]

I'm curious to see what the actual piece looks like and wishing the venture well.

[The Monkey]

One of these days, I'll get a tube amp.

[dBel84]

I have high expectations for the aesthetics of this amp, it has to look as good as it sounds (both factors extremely subjective, so, to me of course )

It astounds me how many manufacturing obstacles AC has met. I know producing something commercially is no small feat but I would never had anticipated just how involved it all is. I have a new level of respect for what Justin does.

..dB

[Beefy]

Looks great. But if I have one criticism, and this is true of almost all of Alex's dynamic amps, it is that the gain is WAY too high.

[n_maher]

Looks great. But if I have one criticism, and this is true of almost all of Alex's dynamic amps, it is that the gain is WAY too high.

I thought that as well and decided as the resident church mouse to STFU. Thanks for picking up the torch.

[dBel84]

resident church mouse indeed

The gain of most of Alex's hybrid designs are set by the tube used in the gain stage. This is something that has been the subject of discussion on more than one occasion but unless you want moocho feedback it becomes a matter of dealing with a gain of about 12. I found a solution that fitted my preferences superbly but then I am the antithesis of a grado fanboy. Vintage orthos need plenty of gain and current, my needs are met. The original embedded hybrid is probably the only cavalli hybrid amp that can be tweaked to suite most needs. It has both closed and open loop feedback and the gain is set primarily by the bjt mirror, iirc it was stable down to near unity.

I need to find a triode with a very low mu and play around with it, any recommendations welcomed..dB

[PFKMan23]

Given that the Liquid Gold is a SS amp, do you think he'd still stick with a default gain of something that most would consider very high or something more moderate?

[dBel84]

why not ask him - I am sure that he would be interested to hear what people want. His e-mail address is linked to his user ID on HF..dB

[dBel84]

I couldn't recall exact gain of the LF so I asked AC to confirm. The gain of this amp is set at 8.5 ..dB

[faust3d]

A bit off topic, but this Liquid Fire 6moons review links Wikiphonia. Hilarious, I never thought that such "review" aka "advisement for money" site would use my free info site to push stuff, kinda sad. On the other hand maybe this will further push orthodynamic technology into popular market.

Edited February 15, 2011 by faust3d

[dBel84]

Your site and Walt's thread have done more to push orthos into the public eye than any other resource. I had never seen that 6 moons write up before ..dB

[HeadphoneAddict]

Hmmm, I'd not ever heard of JamCan before either.