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Cavalli Audio Liquid Fire is finally here
May 5, 2011 at 1:13 PM Post #18 of 349
It was just my personal view and opinion. I can't speak for him...send Alex an email if Balanced amplification is important to you and want the LF in such a form.
 
 
 
 
 
 
May 5, 2011 at 1:14 PM Post #19 of 349


Quote:
Do you happen to know Alex's views on balanced drive, if he doesn't believe balanced drive is worth it, or that we just won't see a balanced version of the LF?
 
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The LF was designed as a SE architecture.  Any benefits from a balanced signal would be more than offset by the issues it would create WRT attenuation, feedback, etc and they could have negative effects on the sound signature.  The LF, even as a SE amp, has more than enough gain and power to drive any commercially available headphone on the market including the HE5/HE5LE/HE6 orthos.  The HE6 is notorious for being extremely power hungry and difficult to drive.  The reports from the Austin meet concurred that the LF was more than capable of driving the HE6s.
 
AC is not opposed to balanced signals or balanced architecture when it's warranted, his eXStatA 'stat amp design is a balanced architecture.  But doubling the component count, complexity, and cost for an application where it isn't needed doesn't make sense and I think that is his thought as well. 
 
I built his Liquid Gold prototype as a balanced amp and I have since split it up into two separate SE amps. Even in SE, it has plenty of speed and power to drive my heavily damped, modded orthos and I'm punishing it as a desktop speaker amp as well, just to further torture test it.
 
 
May 5, 2011 at 1:23 PM Post #20 of 349
laghs at HE-6 being power hungry. Its very efficient compared to the wharfies :p
 
The LF does just fine with the wharfies and having heard the HE-6 with the LF, its an easy load relatively.
 
And I echo what BMF says above, use balanced where it makes sense not just for the sake of saying you got "balanced" components.
A balanced amp for dynamics and orthos makes no sense to me, unless the amp has insufficient power in SE mode or you need tons of voltage swing to drive say electrets or piezo based headphones.
For an electrostat amp, yeah balanced is the way to go, unless you can design a good single ended to differential input stage ( like he one available on LF by the way!!).
 
 
Jun 2, 2011 at 3:32 PM Post #24 of 349
Still waiting for mine too.  The delay is in the enclosure which was changed for better ventilation.  The quality control for it is another step so we are looking at middle end of June.  Also I believe the switches were taking longer too.
 
Jun 2, 2011 at 6:23 PM Post #26 of 349
Heh...and I'm waiting to maybe sell off some of my extra gear after I see if they work well with it or not. 
o2smile.gif

 
Jun 2, 2011 at 6:26 PM Post #27 of 349
Hurry and sell your extra gear so you can get a jump on the best tubes for it.
 
Jun 2, 2011 at 7:03 PM Post #28 of 349
I will post up a review as soon as I get mine.  Of course it will need to break-in.  I'll give my initial impressions the later a review and compare it with my Woo WA22.
 
Jun 2, 2011 at 7:32 PM Post #29 of 349
There is the full review from Tom Martin that's supposed to come out as well going by The Audio Beat's posting. Then again i personally don't need to read the reviews to know what this amp is capable of having heard it on numerous occasions, but i can see how you guys are looking forward to reading proper full fledged reviews as audiophiles like that sorta thing  :)
 
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