Cavalli Audio Liquid Crimson Headamp Review Succinct Stream of Consciousness

Discussion in 'Headphone Amplifiers and Combo (DAC/Amp) Units' started by purr1n, Mar 31, 2016.

  1. aamefford

    aamefford Nothing like chamberpot coffee

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    I was shocked when you let it go. That’s what your custom title refers to as I recall, lol. My headphone time is much reduced, I almost sold out for funds for a camera. Decided I’d just quit shuffling gear for a while, and keep what most would consider a damned fine rig, and just enjoy it when I can.
     
  2. Walderstorn

    Walderstorn Friend

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    Yeah but then again he was changing gear as much as underwear for a long time, if i am not mistaken, weren't you @Luckbad?

    He actually tried to help me get mine, at some point, although i already had found one (also tried to help me with the Super 7, that i will never forget).

    The original owner of mine, also did the same, ended up spending a bunch of money on more expensive gear and regretting the sell. He would get all excited at first because of the "new sound" but after a few days that would dissipate and ...regret. That happened with 5 or 6 TOTL amps after the Crimson. He's one of the most generous people that i actually never met in real life.

    Anyway back on topic, @Gaspasser how is your background noise in high gain with the HD800? That's the only caveat with mine. By the way do you use in high or low gain?
     
  3. gaspasser

    gaspasser Flatulence Maestro

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    I prefer high gain and don’t perceive background noise with any headphones I’ve used in LC. Maybe your tube is noisy?
     
  4. Luckbad

    Luckbad Traded in a unicorn for a Corolla

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    Yeah I wish I'd found a way to keep the Liquid Crimson. I was gear rolling a lot back then, but selling the LC had nothing to do with upgrading.

    I had some unexpected expenses and my hobby money was still in the tank after getting scammed trying to get a Liquid Crimson the first time.

    I purged basically everything and jumped down a number of rungs to the Corolla.

    Maybe I'll get lucky and see one at a good price when I have hobby cash to spare again.

    The Crimson is clean and super involving.
     
  5. Walderstorn

    Walderstorn Friend

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    Yes, only with the Telef and with the hd800, which is odd but...

    Yes i remember that unfortunate episode. Well eventually you'll find a new one, i am sure.
     
  6. Huhnkopf

    Huhnkopf Friend

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    I get noise as well with two Telefunken E88CC I tested. With the HD 800, the HEK SE and probably all other sensitve headphones as well. Kind of a slight bummer.

    It's a non-issue (to me) with the Verité and the OG Hifiman headphones don't let me hear noise at all anyway. Speaking of headphones that are great with the Crimson: Lynx AES -> BF2-> Crimson

    ZMF Verité. Both are really made for each other. Crimson never lets the Verité down under any circumstance and neither does the Verité let down the Crimson. It's one of those amps that let the Verité show off all it's strength, especially speed and microdynamics. It's just sublime how nothing gets out of focus or blurred and it just pulls you, draws you towards the music and you can't help it.

    HEK SE: despite the noise which I am not very fond of since no other amp here provokes it, the pairing is as good as any other Hifiman. Takes slightly off the less delicate or refined treble and pardons the SE's shortcomings (higher treble elevation, lack of cohorent fr there). Recommend ALL other Hifiman headphones with it too. HE-6, HE-500, HE-5LE, HE-4, you name it.

    Despite the slightly flawed treble character the HE-1000SE is a superb headphone. Headstaging and imaging is a departure from the very wide and big diffused character of the previous HEK's. You still get wide (slightly) less and tall but far superior sharpness. Also lacks the kind of sleepy character that I know from the Arya but could never put a finger on how I came to that impression. Bass slam still less supreme on the HE-6 4 screw but detail far better.

    Audeze LCD-2.1, HD 650 all great pairings too.

    Maybe I should mention which headphone I don't like on this amp. So far there's nothing to be honest.
     
  7. gaspasser

    gaspasser Flatulence Maestro

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    I would try some other tubes. I have a Telefunken and a couple of other tubes and get no noise with HD800SDR.
     
  8. Luckbad

    Luckbad Traded in a unicorn for a Corolla

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    One of the best parts of the Liquid Crimson is that it's incredibly quiet. Either the tubes are noisy or something else is up with the amp (could be internal, could be power, Wi-Fi, who knows).
     
  9. Huhnkopf

    Huhnkopf Friend

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    Will try going for a 6DJ8 since now i got 3 TF E88C's (2 matched, 1 that came by default).
    Since I'm not familiar at tube rolling or buying I need to do some homework again before taking a plunge as 6DJ8 Amperex Holland gives me quite a few results.

    want to mention @sacredgates for being an awesome guy helping me out sourcing tubes for this magnificient amp.
     
  10. Walderstorn

    Walderstorn Friend

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    It's only that tube that gets noisy so that's it. I was almost sure but then I got confirmation yesterday.

    Every other EC88CC/CCA works flawlessly.
     
  11. Hammy

    Hammy Friend

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    Awesome! My one audiophile regret is not buying a Liquid Crimson when I had the opportunity. Cavalli had a sale on the Crimson during one of the audio shows. I had that amp in my cart and didn't hit the buy button. I let that opportunity get away from me. The good news is that @atomicbob bought his Crimson during that sale and I've been able to hear it. Maybe one day I'll buy a used Crimson, but there are also other amps I'm interested in (Decware Taboo). And how many different Cavalli amps do I need? I don't want to be accused of hoarding.

    I'm a big fan of the Audeze planar sound with the Cavalli amps. And I'm a big fan of the Cavalli sound because of the Audeze planars. To me that combination is wonderful synergy where the whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts.

    I do want to hear a LCD-4 with the Crimson. I've heard the LCD-4 with the Glass and Fire. I really liked the LCD-4 with the Glass. The Fire has a sonic trait where it makes higher impedance headphones sound softened compared to lower impedance headphones. The LCD-4 is 200 ohms and that made the LCD-4 sound too softened with the Fire. But the Crimson has more balls at higher impedance and I think it would work. But I'd have to listen to an LCD-4 with the Crimson to find out. If the LCD-4 does better with the Crimson than it does with the Fire, and I had a Crimson, I'd probably already have an LCD-4 (used, new price for the LCD-4 is too much for me for a headphone).

    Other headphones I'm interested in to pair with my Fire and Glass are the Rosson RAD-0 and the HEDD. But I haven't been able to hear either of those yet. I'm pretty sure the RAD-0 would be good for me. I'm less sure about the HEDD until I get to hear one with my amps.

    One of the things I'm weird about with headphone sound is I need to be able to hear when absolute polarity (aka absolute phase) is flipped. I find that being able to hear with absolute polarity is flipped means that the headphones and system are going to better let me hear imaging and layering and that elusive 3D imaging. The Fire, Crimson, Glass combined with a Schiit multibit DAC and the right headphone are able to let me hear the effects of flipping absolute polarity and how that affects imaging and layering. I mention this because I'm one of the few who finds this to be an important sonic trait of a headphone and headphone listening system. I like to have layering and imaging with headphone listening. If I can't hear when absolute polarity is flipped then the style of layering and imaging I'm after will be very compromised or can't happen at all.

    Audeze planars make that easy for me to hear. Stax with a good amp and DAC make it easy to hear. The HD800 does well and makes it easy enough to hear. The HD600/HD650 does OK and makes it easy enough to hear that I can hear the change. Meze Empyrean don't do well. Some of the HiFiMan planar headphones let me hear that, and some do not. The Focal headphones sound very nice but they don't allow me to hear when absolute polarity is flipped. Even the Utopia. The Utopia sound very good but the imaging and layering I'm after just isn't there. So the Utopia and other Focal headphones just aren't for me. One of the things I do when I try new headphones is flip the absolute polarity and check if I can hear the changes. If I don't hear the changes with a headphone I quickly lose interest in it.

    What has kept me from taking a gamble on the HEDD is that I have no idea how well it would let me hear absolute polarity. Reviews won't tell me. The only way to find out is to try for myself. The HEDD is an expensive headphone to gamble on without hearing first. If we didn't have this virus thing going on I'd have already been able to hear a HEDD at a meet and been able to make a decision on whether to buy it.

    Hopefully this long explanation will help explain what I find important and focus on first when listening to a new headphone. And why I will prefer some headphones over others even though those others can be very good headphones. The Utopia and Empyrean and some of the HiFiMan headphones are very good headphones, just not very good for me.

    I think you've got a Schiit multibit? Try the HD800 and Audeze headphones with the Crimson and Schiit multibit. Flip absolute polarity and see if you find it to affect layering and imaging. If you hear the change and find it to be important for what you like to hear with headphones then concentrate on headphones that let you hear that.

    TLDR; the headphones I have an interest in pairing with my Fire and Glass are the RAD-0, LCD-4, and HEDD. The RAD-0 would very likely work for me even though I haven't heard it. The LCD-4 (used) I'd have to accept that I'd be using it more with the Glass than the Fire, the HEDD is an unknown for me but I'm very curious about it.
     
  12. sacredgates

    sacredgates Audio-Technica's high priest

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    Sorry to hear that. Is there noise with the original tubes which were in the amp?

    Few obvious or not so obvious things to check, before calling the tubes the culprit:
    - keep phones and tablets away from your amp
    - make sure noise is not ground hum
    - clean power is always a good thing. You can check the amp on another socket, with as little other devices on that circuit.
    - NOS tubes might suffer from pin oxidation. I´ve had some good results cleaning + treating pins with DeoxIT contact cleaner and DeoxIT Gold (if the tube has gold pins). This solved a few times problems with crackling noises.

    I´ve had noise problems with genuine Telefunkens CCa´s (and also other tubes) in my Trafomatic, even though the same CCa´s both work perfectly well in my Octave V40, where it does a fantastic job.

    Finally got a black background with the Trafomatic with 2 Siemens E188CC´s + DeoxIT.
     
  13. Huhnkopf

    Huhnkopf Friend

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    I will try the Amperex @aamefford mentioned in his tube roundup and see if that makes a change. Also play around with zhe Strom. Then I will try Deoxit if nothing helps. Got 0 problems elsewhere with any kind of noise. Also using huge balanced PSUs from Airlink.
     
  14. penguins

    penguins Friend, formerly known as fp627

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    Out of all Cavalli amps to date, LC is my favorite and one of my favorite amps period. My 3rd and probably last tube amp I'd want (in current setup) along EC Af and Stellaris... too bad I was in and out of audio as a hobby for most of 2009-2018 and it got discontinued while I was out... this same thing is why I bought the Af sooner than I wanted.

    My only hope is that Cavalli releases the design or schematic one day given that his original background was DIY... Would probably be a big project for me, but I'd be on it really fast. I even kept my Telefunkens and Bugle Boys for a while after I sold all other 6922 equipment on the off chance this happens.

    @Hammy LCD3 + LC was also on of my favorite combos of all time. LCD3 normally sounds good when I listen to any one thing individually, but the sound was a bit uncohesive as a whole to me. LC was not only one of the few amps that fixed this, it actually made it the Audeze vision/dream come together. Only other amp I've heard that does this is the Audeze King amp (also a hybrid amp) but it's too $$ for me given that I wouldn't use it for anything else.
     
    Last edited: Jul 2, 2020
  15. aamefford

    aamefford Nothing like chamberpot coffee

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    @dBel84 Gave me the best advice when I was fishing around for tubes. Get a decent 6922 / 6dj8 and then don’t worry about tubes. Really, the stock genelex gold lion is good tube. I eventually tried a few different tubes. I honestly doubt that there’s much difference in sound. Differences are subtle even from the gold lion to the Siemens CCA that I have in there now. The Amperex is a great tube also. I got a good deal on two of the Siemens CCAs and got 2 of the Amperex tubes, and a bugle boy and the gold lion. I figure those should outlast my hearing.

    For interest sake:
    Hifiberry digiplus pro to OG Gungnir Multibit via coax to an OG Freya for attenuation and balanced to SE conversion to the crimson(no tubes, Gungnir Multibit on top of the Freya) I have the Gungnir Multibit SE outs into the second crimson inputs. My ears don’t seem to hear much difference with the Freya in or out (except LOUDER with the Freya out of the loop) so bonus for me - I don’t have to get anything in place Of the Freya.
     
  16. gaspasser

    gaspasser Flatulence Maestro

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    Trying it out with LCD2.2 and yeah I hear what your saying with the layering getting borked with the split of the stereo image out of phase. Very interesting and thanks for mentioning that.
     
  17. Hammy

    Hammy Friend

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    Make sure you're flipping the polarity of both the left and right channels the same way at the same time.
    It's described here: https://www.stereophile.com/content/absolute-phase-fact-or-fallacy

    If you only flip one channel that is like wiring one speaker in reverse. And that does make for a very obviously wrong stereo image.

    Flipping the polarity of both the left and right at the same time is a much more subtle effect.

    Yggdrasil and Bifrost 2 have a button to flip absolute polarity (absolute phase) on the DAC.
    With the Gungnir I use the "Reverse polarity (Left, Right)" effect in the parametric EQ in JRiver Media Center to do it in software.
     
  18. dBel84

    dBel84 Friend

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    [​IMG]

    one day o_O
     
  19. aamefford

    aamefford Nothing like chamberpot coffee

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    Since this thread is morphing into a bit of an owner's comments, tips and love fest thread (as good a place as any I think), here's some info / comments, a tip, and maybe some random love:

    The volume pot on my Liquid Crimson was kind of scratchy. I bought mine used, and it was always a little bit scratchy. It got a bit worse, and then stabilized. It never seemed to affect the sound, just scratchy when the pot was turned. I usually set the pot at somewhere between 75% and 100% "open", and adjust volume with the Freya (except at night time - my wife hates the relay clicks from the Freya). Anyway, I reached out to one of our resident Cavalli gurus, just to find out what the pot was, and if he had any ideas on getting it swapped out. Comments back were that the pot looked great on paper, but might be a weak point, and try deoxit. A year or so later, and I finally did try deoxit. The pot is perfectly silent now!

    Some further notes:
    I tried to take the top cover off. Turns out you need to take the back pate off, as the cover plate is nested in the back plate. It also turns out that this much disassembly is pretty much fruitless. The pot is small, essentially sealed, and snug against the front plate. I ended up just pulling the knob, and wrapping a wash cloth around to catch dribbles, and squirting deoxit D5(?) cleaner (lots of cleaner, little lube) in the small space between the shaft and the outer threaded portion of the pot. I did that, and rotated the pot back and forth a bunch, and repeat 4 or 5 times. I had also purchased the Deoxit F5(?) lube (lots of lube, little cleaner), so I finished off with a couple shots of that stuff, and wiped down the front plate. Then I put it back together (remember - I didn't really need to take it apart in the first place....)

    All scratchiness is gone, and it sounds great. I do love this amp (the love part now). I've finally stopped viewing it as a potential source of hobby cash, and come to terms with the fact that it is the last headphone amp I'll really need or want (unless I build a second, lower cost set-up, which is a strong maybe, but the crimson stays for the main rig). I know there are other great headphone amps put there. - the EC stuff gets a lot of love here for instance. For me, the Crimson captures a sound I like, a look I really like, and a reasonable size and outstanding build quality. Oh, and some of the joys of tubes, but you only need one. You get some tube goodness, but you don't have to obsess over unobtainuim tubes.
     
  20. Walderstorn

    Walderstorn Friend

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    I share that love and it's so "weird" to explain to others how i don't need another amp, or rather, i have 3 other amps, had more than a dozen at this point (in all fairness this was the most expensive one), but this is the only "untouchable" and my daily.

    I don't have the scratchy pot so maybe the previous owner cleaned it or, at the very least, took really good care of it.

    @dBel84 do you have any idea how many 230V units were sold?
     

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