Liquid Gold X Balanced Headphone Amplifier from Monoprice by Alex Cavalli

Chill mate!

 

There's one listed on SNA, just saying...
I'm in Sydney too, so if you buy it and want a second opinion I'd happily give it a listen

 

Yeah, I saw that but it's a dictum of mine never to have more than three HP Amps at once!

 

Will there be a driver available to those LGX owners who don't run Windows 10?. I requested a Win7 driver from Monoprice/Support, but no reply yet...

I love my LC so much that I had to get this amp, but find myself stumbling over the driver issue...

 

I'm in the "Don't need a DAC" camp. The only all-in-one that matters to me is the other kind, where a headphone amp can also be used as a system preamp. Those I love. But when it comes to DACs, I prefer stand-alones, already have 2 I really like.

So it's ironic that I'm stumbling over driver issues with this DAC, which I can't install on my Windows 7 Professional system. I'd like to at least assure myself that the DAC works before I burn-in the unit, then ultimately decide whether to ignore the DAC or not.

It's the headphone amp I'm most interested in. My hope is that the LGX will take everything I like about my Liquid Carbon v2 & escalate it to a higher sonic plateau.

(I needed an excuse to use "plateau" in an SABF post, and this is it)

 

I'm not going to give you a hard time about the whole windows 7 and 10 thang. However USB audio is way way better on 10. If you had 10 you could just plug the usb cable in and it would JUST WORK, probably sound better also.

I'm not sure if you are using a laptop or have a computer or if you are into hardware computer stuff... I'll tell you what I did. I didn't want w10, I have a computer I have built. I just used a scratch drive installed windows 10 just for audio and guess what ? It just works no matter what dac and no driver needed. Not sure if you will/want/can do this.
It's tough for people that actually use computers for stuff other than entertainment I will agree. I waited until november last year to even bother because MS fixed a bunch of poo in 1909, i'm on 2004 build now from may. No issues. I don't use my PC for much other than music. video and porn though.

 

An option for getting it to work with Windows 7 would be to connect a Raspberry Pi to the amp/dac and do UPnP/DLNA or Roon to send audiophile audio to the DAC.

 

Another way of testing the DAC would be to use an Android phone or tablet. Install USB Audio Player PRO on the phone to get USB Audio Class 2 support. Plug in the DAC and play some tunes. Can also configure USB Audio Player PRO to be a UPnP renderer and stream audio from your Windows computer to your phone.

 

True...I have 3 computers in this home office & their primary use is business (freelance writing). Each is set up exactly as I like it. I don't often change software or O.S. Despite the important of audio & music to me, audio is actually secondary in this office system.

Having said that, it helps that I do nothing fancy here where Win10 would be a big help, apart from this LGX thing: no streaming, no NAS, any of it. My cellphone is ancient and can't be used for audio purposes.

Also, I wouldn't know a rasberry Pi if I tripped over it. Just don't know a thing about any of that stuff.

I just got set up for Zoom the other day. I'm still exhausted by that paradigm shift!

 

If you just want to test the dac why don't you just use the optical or coax input? That wouldnt require any drivers. It wouldnt test the usb port but it would test everything else.

 

Excellent suggestion. That hadn't occurred to me.

I have 2 audio systems in this office. The main system has a S/PDIF converter-to-coax feeding an MHDT Labs Orchid NOS DAC. I could wire in the LGX in place of the MHDT Labs DAC. If I get sound at its headphone jack, I'd know the DAC & HP amp work.

I would then burn-in the LGX on the side system--w/that system's DAC, an Audio GD DAC-19, feeding signal to the LGX via RCA interconnect cable.

Thanks!

PS: I'd still like to see what, if anything, Monoprice has to say about all this. I'd like to think they would actually respond to my email, and ideally would be able to sent me a driver for this unit.

 

I'm pretty sure monoprice customer support has zero true technical support or repair capabilities. They are likely banking on win10 drivers to power this product since uac2 is now built-in/standardized in win10; it saves money rather than having to develop, test, and maintain their own drivers. When other Cavalli stuff breaks I heard they just replace it with a new one instead of repairing for customer, and I would assume they outsource the repairs to some other firm when they get the unit back.

 

That's a bummer to contemplate, but may well be true. Guess I'll find out this week.

 

Okay, so I did buy it and you are welcome to come and have a listen. (My friend from Sydney - I cannot get the quotes in).

I have been a Professional Stand Up Comic for 43 years, so I have 60 year old ears and no background in sound engineering or anything of the sort at all - so take anything I say with a grain of salt. I shouldn't be so self-deprecating - I'm not worth it. (Sorry, force of habit). I've never written anything about music prior to this so please don't get your hopes up.

I like it as an amp and for less than a grand in US Dollars I thin k it represents value for money. It looks better in person but the build is rather cheap, which you would expect. I am loathe to press the on/off plastic switch too hard in case it pops out. It runs very hot, you won't burn your hand but you could almost fry an egg after an hour or two.I have been listening with Utopias and HD800's. I have read about the Cavalli 'sound' and how people describe it as more 'tubey' than SS and I agree - it is certainly more Rubber Soul than Sergeant Peppers. It has a very laid back presentation while still keeping great detail. I also have a SPL Phonitor XE which is like the HD800 of amps, so I am accustomed to great detail retrieval and while the AUX is not the same, it also doesn't sound two and a half K cheaper either. The bass decay is natural and at no time does it sound bloated at all to me. The mids I would describe as lush and the treble is smooth on everything I have played. I listen to a lot of classical and I also use 'Time' and "Shine on you Crazy Diamond' as 2 litmus paper songs. Gilmour's voice can sound a bit sibilant when he starts in on ordinary gear but there is no hint of that here. The sound stage is fine; I am one of those weirdos that prefer the Utopia soundstage to the 800's, all I ask is for is a distinct placing of instruments and vocals and this does that extremely well. I listened to Berlioz's Requiem and the different choir sections were easily identifiable and the Stones' Get yer Ya Yas out sounded great also. For reference sake I use a Marantz CD6006 as transport and I have bypassed the inbuilt DAC and just used the Yggdrasil - I don't think anyone here would be looking at an all-in-one. I run everything fully balanced.
It is the kind of amp you can listen too for a long time; very musical. If I had to use one word for the tone I would say 'rich'; so much so that I don't use the LCD-3's with it - there is such a thing as too much ice cream.

Rob

 

How is the gain on this amp? Liquid platinum has very high gain and using a preamp is a must with it. Also how is the channel balance?

 

The Gold has 4x and 6x which is more user friendly than the Platinum. I have used them both with the Focals and the Senns and there is plenty of juice left in the tank; far more volume than I would ever think about. I never get past 9.30 - 10.00 o'clock.

The channel balance seems perfect to me. I listened to Walton's Cello Concerto (better than Dvorak IMHO) and there are a number of times when both string sections have to come in simultaneously, this can be problematic for orchestras - and amps, I was looking out for it, but it sounded right on the money to me.

 

I'm really looking forwards to hear someone compare one of these Monolith units to the originals like the Glass. Hearing my HD800 through a Glass and later a Crimson, hearing the control and added body it gave the 800, was what made me want a Cavalli amp, but it was just never realistic.
So I'm incredibly curious how the Monolith versions hold up compared to the Glass - whether I'd finally get what I've been hoping for, or if I'd be better off with the internal amp in my Vega G1 or another dedicated amp.

Hoping you can shed some light on this!

 

If they release an amp only version of this then yes deal.

 

Just ignore the DAC portion and use the amp as if it is a amp only amp. The DAC portion of the amp probably adds $100 or so to the price. At only $100 or so difference, who cares. A price swing of plus or minus $100 for this amp isn't going to make me not want the amp and not see the value in the amp.

I use the amp with a Gungnir MB A1. Soon with a Bifrost 2. I have pretty much ignored the DAC portion. I've listened to the amp with the built-in DAC to explore how the DAC sounds. I'm not going to use the DAC for regular listening. But I also don't mind that it is there.

 

Fair enough, but I'll wait a bit for more reviews. I am still enamored with my LCD-2 + LC 2.0 rig. If the LAuX can power both my LCD-2 and T1.2 beautifully then yes deal.