The Cavalli Liquid Carbon

Yes, daily. Paired with (in my order of preference) DT1990PRO, HE400i Amiron Home and HD6xx.

 

Yes. I pair it up with my HE560 for gaming. Synergizes well since the strengths of the Carbon offset the weaknesses of the HE560.

 

I use and enjoy it. It camled down my Beyer T5p.2`s nicely. Recently I have used it with my new Focal Elex`s and it worked very well. It is far from neutral which is A-OK for me.

 

I want to thank @yotacowboy for offering this at a staggeringly generous price even accounting for the cost of having this (professionally) yeeted across the Pacific. I am grateful to have a great SS amp in the stable considering how much nervosa there is messing with tubes and the costs associated with replacing the same, not to mention it's an amp that gives me an excuse to look into XLR cables (sigh).

EDIT: Uhh I just noticed that my whinging about channel balance issues right after thanking Yoda McRibface for a grand deal may come across as a bit disingenuous without mentioning that he offered to comp any expenses incurred in addressing said issue. I only haven't gotten around to sorting it out because of the pandemic. I give him a 5/7, absolutely stand-up dude to deal with

ASSOCIATED GEAR: Schiit Fulla 2 (3.5mm>RCA), Sennheiser HD600 (SE only), Klipsch HP-3 (SE & Bal).

There've been a fair few changes to my headphone rig and the only things I've kept from before are the Sennheiser HD600 and Klipsch HP-3, which I've been running out of my phone (and occasionally out of my busted laptop 3.5mm jack). I've fallen a bit out of the habit of listening critically and given the DAC I'm using is new to me as well there's always the possibility that some observations may just be due to the new upstream stuff. Not having the Schiit Bifrost Multibit at hand is eh, whatever, but I'm kicking myself a bit for not holding on to the Garage1217 Sunrise III for direct comparison.

The Sunrise's new owner seems properly smitten with the amp though so that's nice.

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SUMMARY:
Maybe it's just that things have gotten a lot better in the last few years or I've been spoiled rotten by pre-owned market pricing (yay) but I don't quite hear this as being quite a steal for the MSRP $600 or $700 it went for just a little while back. Presuming the (Mass)Drop Liquid Carbon X is anywhere close to this in performance though, or better even, then the USD200 they're asking is a no-brainer, even if you theoretically might spend up to twice that amount for shipping and import fees.

The amp has more enough juice for the Senn HD600, which is the most difficult pair of cans I have to drive, and that's just out of the SE out; I plan to get an XLR cable for it... eventually. It's a synergistic pairing even though some recordings still come off as harsh and overly bright with them. Headstage is odd in that it's got a great sense of space and exceptional clarity between individual sonic elements, but the edges of those sonic elements are somehow ill-defined. Contrary to expectations (or hell, maybe I'm just used to properly warm stuff) the amp has a leaner character that I imagine would be remarkably painful with more shrill headphones and upstream components, and less treble refinement than I'd like as well. Engaging high gain helps warm up the overall sonic profile and gives sonic images an improved sense of body besides, but the edges are still kinda flappy.

Bass extension is fine— from memory it's got better pitch differentiation than the ZDT Jr and more satisfying bottom-end rumble besides, and memory says better than the Sunrise as well for the improved cleanliness of presentation. The LC resolves a surprising amount of low-level information and expresses microdynamic nuance on a level that seems comparable to the ZDTJ, which is damned impressive, on top of having a pristine background on which individual sonic elements stand out starkly. Running the Klipsches out of the amp's XLR out yields better clarity and cohesion v. single-ended output, ameliorating the effects of a mild haze that masks low-level information and muddles complex passages on the latter out. Treble is also more polite than out of the 6.35mm jack but the difference in tonality isn't that pronounced— switching to high gain does more to alter the amp's sonic profile. There's a lack of refinement to the upper registers and an occasional haze to the lower midrange out of both SE and XLR, but other than that it's a properly classy performer for the most part that stands up to nitpicking (not to mention this could always be the fault of the new DAC ).

Spoiler: Full, self-indulgent review with photos— you have been warned :p

PRELIMINARY RAMBLING:

Yes the volume knob is actually gold, and no I didn't spray paint it to try and emulate @spwath's aesthetic. I'm presuming the black finish has worn off with use, but I'm not complaining— I LOVE how this looks! It's somewhere between Sheaffer King's Gold and Rohrer und Klingner Alt Goldgrün (these are fountain pen inks) in person.

I wonder at the potential utility of more impressions on this amp considering the last run was years back and they don't seem to pop up on the used market too often. I imagine it might serve as a useful datapoint for anyone considering the (Mass)Drop Liquid Carbon X since they're ostensibly the same under the hood apart from improvements to board layout, power supply, and potentiometer.

... Okay those aren't exactly negligible changes. Either way, that last improvement to the potentiometer upgrade would be nice to have with this specific unit, I have to admit

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SOUND:

The first thing that becomes apparent is how spacious and cohesive the headstage is. It's not the last word in layering as the ZDT Jr. and even the Sunrise III handily beat it in that respect, but in terms of headstage size it's much improved upon the other two and manages to avoid the "flat wall of sound" issue that seems typical to solid stage amps such as the Lake People G109A. For its sounding grand and expansive, though, it's not the best at imaging. Directionality is... fine, but individual sonic images come off as frayed around the edges. It's almost nebulous, only there's a great clarity between images— listening to Radiohead's Weird Fishes/Arpeggi, there's a strong distinction between individual sonic points, making it easy to focus on specific instruments as they progress through a piece.

Front-to-back layering is pretty decent, but this only makes the lack of image definition seem all the stranger. Vocals that I often hear front-and-center are pushed deeper into the stage; this can be hit or miss, particularly with stuff like Heilung's Krigsgaldr off their LIFA album where the vocalist is absolutely smothered in low end bloom and rumble throughout the track. There's excellent background cleanliness with the LC, and though it's not quite as pristine a void as on the G109A, the improved resolution and lack of "pants are too tight"-edness to the presentation is well worth the tradeoff.

I've heard talk about this amp having less power than most might want, but personally I've found myself wanting even less considering how far up the pot I need to turn before I get past channel imbalance. It's pretty bad up to about 9 on the dial but it's not until 11 o'clock that things sound reasonably centered on the HD600, and not until 1 o'clock with the HP-3, both out of SE out. I've found the Klipsch to be rather good with directionality so that could explain the issue being more pronounced with them, but given how efficient and sensitive they are the amp is overkill unless I engage the variable out on the Fulla 2, or just use digital attenuation to keep my ears from getting blasted to Gehenna Hereafter. This is generally fine for pieces that aren't compressed to pancakes but given how often I find myself listening to such things and my irrational aversion to digital volume control I find myself listening to the HD600 a lot more than the HP-3 nowadays. I think it's also a matter of the amp leaning into the Sennheiser's strengths more successfully than it ameliorates the Klipsch's weaknesses, though it's still highly enjoyable on the latter depending on the recording.

Out of the XLR jack, the HP-3 sounds fine at about 11 o'clock. This is still pretty damned loud with them even on 1x gain but a -20dB cut in f2k works to keep volume at non-eardeath levels.

Based on reputation I expected this to be a lush-sounding, unapologetically warmpoo amplifier, but experience dictates otherwise. I actually found it lean-sounding and maybe even a bit bright with the Klipsch HP-3 out of both SE and balanced outputs (and the HD600 out of single-ended), though switching to high (3x) gain helps remedy that; the higher gain setting fills in the lower end and also adds more of a sense of body to individual sonic images. Of course this just means that my taking issue with the amp having too much gain for my liking past the channel imbalance is worsened. Florence + the Machine's Remain Nameless, a track I really like that also happens to be my go-to test for boom & tizz nowadays, opens with a ludicrous volume of 50Hz head-thuds, vocal sibilance, and high-frequency shimmer; much as I love how the low end is presented on the Klipsches the upper registers are absolutely painful to listen to when I raise the volume up past background music levels. Tracks like the Goo Goo Dolls's Iris or Young Folks by Peter Bjorn and John are very much non-starters still— they're just painful, even on the HD600.

Eh, can't win em all.

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The Liquid Carbon exercises a great deal of control over either headphone and expresses this in its ability to resolve a lot of subtle nuances in recordings. The strings in the introduction to Kate Bush's Pull Out the Pin were gritty and textured in the best possible way and there are odd random squeaking sounds halfway through Regina Spektor's Aching to Pupate that I've not noticed before, cliché as that sounds. What's odd though is how much less there's a sense of room to things on the Spektor cut and more truncated decays besides, but the sense of massive drum hits breathing, reverberating around a room at the start of Rage Against the Machine's Take the Power Back are more obvious than on any amp I've had before.

The pairing with the HD600 really is damn good. The Liquid Carbon reins in the Senns' tendency towards warmbutted-ness and expands the headstage to the point where it sounds far from claustrophobic, immediately addressing one of the main complaints I have with the Senns out of less-synergistic gear. The lack of image definition is still there, but given that's not a particular strength of the HD600s to begin with I don't find myself as bothered with it as I can be on the Klipsches when I'm actively trying to identify things on the headstage.

The amplifier isn't supremely impressive in terms of speed and impact. With the gear I have on hand I'd say it's a step up from the ZDT Jr. but falls notably behind the Sunrise for slam and oomph. Dynamic range, i.e. the ability to convey dramatic swells as in Rimsky-Korsakov's Dance of the Tumblers or Scheherazade suite, is great but the amp does trip over it self a bit when it comes to busier passages like when Nine Inch Nails's 8 Ghosts I really gets involved or Radiohead's Sit Down. Stand Up goes full bonkers towards the end. Pitch differentiation in the low-and-sub bass region (hello, Daft Punk) seems about on par with the Sunrise III and there's absolutely nothing to complain about as far as extension goes; Gorillaz's Double Bass has pretty good low-end delineation and doesn't come across as a muddled mess, not to mention there's a good amount of grit and rumble when called for. Better depth and more refined texture than on the G109A, certainly, though that's a bit of a low bar.

I've always felt that the ZDT Jr.'s bass was one of its bigger weaknesses, and unless my memory's properly crapped itself I'd say that the LC handles the low end with more finesse than does the Massdrop/Laconic baby, though bottom-octave subs as on Noto & Sakamoto's Noon or The Dark Knight OST's Why So Serious? do come off as sounding as if I'm hearing them through my headphones rather than out of them, though that could just be basic physics refusing to bend to my will (stupid physics). The lack of bloom relative to the ZDT Jr. is more revealing of minutiae and just happens to fare much better with the headphones I have at hand. Conversely, the Liquid Carbon sounds a bit unrefined in the treble.

Quick upper-register transients e.g. again off Noto & Sakamoto's Uoon I, or ridiculously pronounced buzzing as on Duoon are rendered a bit dirtily as are more conventional hi-hat hits as on Elysian Fields's Sugarplum Arches, so while the reduced treble levels do seem as if they'd be a great fit for hashier 'phones such as the HP-3 or maybe even the HE-4XX (which I didn't get to hear with this amp), chances are the coarser quality of the same may offset whatever benefits might otherwise there be reaped. Given how the HP-3 is less-bright out of XLR and how the HD600 is just a teensy bit too much so for my preferences out of SE, I'm rather looking forward to hearing how the Senns fare running balanced (and so I can properly seal off the SE out lest it somehow spell the end of the amp).

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Nice review. Is yours a version 1 or 2? I still have my V2. Its a nice warmish amp that should pair nicely with your HD 600s. Yes you should upgrade your DAC. A used Bitfrost 2 or the Schiit Modius DAC or a used Cord 2Qute would work nicely together. I used the Cord 2Qute with mine. I should sell mine, but I keep it as a spare.

 

Version 1 I believe, serial no 164 so right where there's a fair few complaints about channel balance issues. I've also been warned exhaustively about using more than one headphone output at the same time lest I feel like picking up chunks of blown up amp out of my face (this is a joke, it apparently just fizzles down).

Haha, well I do plan on getting a proper standalone DAC again sometime in the future but it's not quite in the cards yet. Chord stuff is curious, yeah. I had a Mojo on loan for a few weeks years ago and a Hugo v1 for a while after that and while the presentation isn't exactly my cuppa tea I can imagine the gobs of detail they eke out of recordings would be great to hear with this. I've heard great things about the Qutest and while it's priced a bit too richly for my arteries I admit I'm curious to get ears on one eventually.

 

Not just more than one headphone at a time, more like having the volume cranked and plugging in the 1/4" unbalanced output...even with nothing plugged in the balanced out. So always turn down the volume knob to zero when switching and maybe even mute or pause your track just to be safe.

Apparently even the slightest over current in the unbalanced out can fry part of the phase splitter. I am still not sure if this was addressed in the Drop version. Maybe @CEE TEE knows.

The balanced output is much hotter and better IMO. Unbalanced or balanced source will be the same output volume.

 

Turn down the volume knob whenever I do anything and make sure I don't have anything playing whenever I mess around with it, gotcha. I already do the latter out of habit which is probably why it's survived so long despite some occasional (worrisome) crackling but yep, I'll make sure to fully turn down the knob too. Thanks!

 

On the Massdrop version- should have protection circuits on the outputs...white LED will go to RED temporarily if you short the output by pulling out TRS plug. Good practice to turn volume down and not stress anything, but the Massdrop version should be okay. I don’t remember if there is an issue driving two pairs of headphones...the single-ended output drives off one channel of balanced out out so there could be more or less interaction depending upon driver type (needs current or voltage?), resistance, level.

Yes, the amp is designed specifically around the balanced circuit. This enabled Alex to select some very low noise, high quality parts for the build. The 1/4 output is for convenience and practicality but the balanced output should be better and preferable by varying degrees...depending on all the other factors (headphone, source, music, level, etc.).

 

I have a Carbon V1. It lives with a piece of tape covering the 1/4" TRS jack. To remind me and others that the SE jack should not be used. It's a balanced circuit designed to sound best balanced. So use it with balanced headphones and forget that the SE jack is even there.

The smaller size is nice compared to the larger Massdrop version. I use the Carbon V1 as a transportable amp. The smaller size can be packed in easily in carry-on luggage. The Carbon and little Modi multibit and balanced HD650 or Oppo PM-2 headphones and my laptop and I had good sound when I got to my destination.

 

I'll chime in to say over the years I owned this, I think I used the SE outs maybe 8 minutes. It's a surprising difference between SE and BAL. BAL has some real balls and grip. I loved it with Fostex biocellulose drivers.

 

I have the Drop X, couldn't resist when they had it at $160. Fun chain when driven by the Modius and driving the 58X via balanced. Really tight if not copious bass,smooth mids with good detail up top. I can live with it for a $500 chain.

 

The issue with driving balanced and SE at the same time is that you drag one of the rails down. The SE is just one leg of the balanced circuit. Depending how hard you load that rail, it can slam to rail voltage and then oscillate. Not to mention the risk of shorting to ground when plugging/ unplugging

 

You will know if yours is broken if there is distortion at higher volume levels. My V1 blew out and did not know it and it rarely showed up on hard to drive 650's, but sound was murky and reduced gain. Lost its oomph. Distortion was way more evident on my LCD-2C's. That blown phase splitter circuit. And that is next to impossible to fix with SMD chips

I'm taking no risks my new Liquid Carbon X. If unbalanced is used, power down and volume down.

 

Thanks all for the tips! I may be running it unbalanced with the Senns but I'm honestly rather smitten by the pairing. This all just makes me look forward to getting a bal cable for the HD600s so I can seal off the 6.35mm (and probably the RSA...) jacks, not to mention I imagine the move to balanced will be perfectly splendid.

... Yes I'm currently watching The Haunting at Bly Manor.

P.S.

Hell yeah the HP-3 is absolutely bonkers fun out of the XLR!

 

Just a quick noob question, should anything be amiss with the phase splitter will there be any telltale visual signs when inspecting the board? Also have a cheapo DMM at hand if need be— SE sounds grand to me so far with both headphones but there is some slight crinkle-like sounds when I power the unit down that worries me, but it could be perfectly typical for all I know (link to video HERE, please ignore the loud clock haha).

 

Will the balanced output still sound better if the LCX is fed an unbalanced source and the balanced output is converted into SE with an adapter? Well two adapters, XLR > 2.5mm > 2.5mm > 3.5mm cable adapter > se iem cable

 

I think that's just a relay switching noise.

 

Do not go balanced out of the amp and convert to unbalanced.

To me, the incoming source never mattered as much. It likely is, and I am sure it is, better fed with a true balanced input, but there is no volume difference.

But tying the two negative terminals to ground in a differential amp is bad...don't cross the streams. Same with most 2 channel amplifiers...don't connect the negative terminals to ground. Most 2 ch. amps cannot handle this.

 

Okay, okay. I'll reterminate my hardwired HD800 to XLR. I was already pretty impressed with how it sounded out of the SE out, and debating whether it was worth the trouble. Will report back with impressions later.