[runeight]

Just received mine today.
Weirdly the left tube won’t go in as far as the right one. It works fine either way.
Compared to the CTH, much better low end extension and crisper sounds.
Thanks Alex, loving it so far!

If the tubes are the same height and you really can't seat it MHO is that you might want to contac

@runeight I have a question about the Liquid Carbon V1. Are the RCA inputs DC or AC/capacitor coupled inputs? I need to know because of a tube amp I'd like to use as a pre-amp for the LC. TIA

DC

 

[Benny-x]

well, measurements have proven the stock power supply is very quiet. i didn't hear anything different, tho it's day 1 and the LPS is a 5KG beast of its own that probably needs to burn in too.

i don't expect any benefit save for being able to plug it in directly to my AVR / surge protection hahaha

I'll try some serious A/B in a few days, just to satisfy the curiosity...

I have an Audio-gd Phoenix and I'm wondering about replacing it with a Liquid Platinum and aftermarket LPS. You might not have a Phoenix, but you do have a few pieces of Audio-gd gear, so I am really looking forward to hearing your feedback. Especially in comparison to the Audio-gd amps or amp sections you have there.

 

[llcook51]

Taking a metal journal through the Master quality tracks of TIDAL today: Mastered by Essential: Master Metal.
LP handles Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Megadeath and Slayer with equal grace as it does Bach and Beethoven.

Taboo (Music From The Original TV Series) by Max Richter is a truly immersive album with the LP. Haunting lows and eerie highs.

 

[abvolt]

It sure is a nice looking amp can't wait to get my hands on one, has any one tried socket savers with this amp, if they fit I enjoy rolling my tubes..

 

[DRHamp]

It sure is a nice looking amp can't wait to get my hands on one, has any one tried socket savers with this amp, if they fit I enjoy rolling my tubes..

I'm currently using socket savers with no problems.

 

[llcook51]

Taboo (Music From The Original TV Series) by Max Richter is a truly immersive album with the LP. Haunting lows and eerie highs.

Anne Akiko Meyers' "Mirror In Mirror" is remarkable and brilliant through the LP and the MrSpeakers Ether2. There is an unmatched fullness and richness of the Meyers' violin.

 

[betula]

Has anyone had a chance to compare the LP to any of the Questyle amps? According to what I read they are obviously very different, but I am still interested in the LP for a different taste.
I am familiar with Questyle sound but can only guess on the LP. Here is my guessing, please confirm or disprove it if you had a chance to hear both amps.
Questyle 600i: neutral but smooth, very clean, spacious, detailed, fast. Good extension to both ends. Dynamic, punchy but not sharp or edgy at all. Detailed, layered authoritative sound but pleasant at the same time. Balanced, 'high quality' sound.
LP: Warmer, less detailed. More mid-centric, less punchy, smoother, more 'liquid and sweet' sounding. Intimacy instead of clarity and spaciousness. Not as fast but very pleasant sounding. More life to acoustic instruments and vocals. Perhaps less ideal for electronic music. Less detailed/punchy/fast sound especially in the bass.

While I know the Questyle, I am just guessing on the LP. Am I correct? Or completely wrong? I would be happy to receive some feedback. Thanks!

 

[UsoppNoKami]

I have an Audio-gd Phoenix and I'm wondering about replacing it with a Liquid Platinum and aftermarket LPS. You might not have a Phoenix, but you do have a few pieces of Audio-gd gear, so I am really looking forward to hearing your feedback. Especially in comparison to the Audio-gd amps or amp sections you have there.

Never heard the Phoenix, but I have done an A/B comparison with the NFB1-AMP. My LP has been fitted with NOS Mullard tubes, branded Philips SQ (E188CC) and an LPS I shared in a post a couple of pages back.

Both amps fed by AGD R2R-R1 DAC, NFB1-AMP connected via ACSS cables whilst LP is via XLR. My A/B listening was done on Focal Elex with Norne Audio Silvergarde S3 cable.

One liner: IMHO, the LP has better sound stage and dynamics vs AGD, but the LP can sometimes sound a bit bright on badly mastered tracks.

I don't know 100% yet if it's the rest of my gear chain or the tubes I have rolled in, but I just avoid queuing the problem albums from my FLAC/DSD library when I'm listening on the LP.

The more mellow sound of the NFB1-AMP is more forgiving/laid back of bad albums, but also less engaging when i really want to just sit down and listen.

Having said that, when listening to stuff like rock with a lot of drums, guitars and everything jamming at the same time, the LP presents the music in a much more enjoyable manner to me.

I've got 2 PC rigs in my man cave, the LP is staying on the main rig for sure

 

[Volken]

Never heard the Phoenix, but I have done an A/B comparison with the NFB1-AMP. My LP has been fitted with NOS Mullard tubes, branded Philips SQ (E188CC) and an LPS I shared in a post a couple of pages back.

Both amps fed by AGD R2R-R1 DAC, NFB1-AMP connected via ACSS cables whilst LP is via XLR. My A/B listening was done on Focal Elex with Norne Audio Silvergarde S3 cable.

One liner: IMHO, the LP has better sound stage and dynamics vs AGD, but the LP can sometimes sound a bit bright on badly mastered tracks.

I don't know 100% yet if it's the rest of my gear chain or the tubes I have rolled in, but I just avoid queuing the problem albums from my FLAC/DSD library when I'm listening on the LP.

The more mellow sound of the NFB1-AMP is more forgiving/laid back of bad albums, but also less engaging when i really want to just sit down and listen.

Having said that, when listening to stuff like rock with a lot of drums, guitars and everything jamming at the same time, the LP presents the music in a much more enjoyable manner to me.

I've got 2 PC rigs in my man cave, the LP is staying on the main rig for sure

Fellow Nakama, how would you compare LP to Cayin since they are both hybrids?

 

[sahmen]

Never heard the Phoenix, but I have done an A/B comparison with the NFB1-AMP. My LP has been fitted with NOS Mullard tubes, branded Philips SQ (E188CC) and an LPS I shared in a post a couple of pages back.

Both amps fed by AGD R2R-R1 DAC, NFB1-AMP connected via ACSS cables whilst LP is via XLR. My A/B listening was done on Focal Elex with Norne Audio Silvergarde S3 cable.

One liner: IMHO, the LP has better sound stage and dynamics vs AGD, but the LP can sometimes sound a bit bright on badly mastered tracks.

I don't know 100% yet if it's the rest of my gear chain or the tubes I have rolled in, but I just avoid queuing the problem albums from my FLAC/DSD library when I'm listening on the LP.

The more mellow sound of the NFB1-AMP is more forgiving/laid back of bad albums, but also less engaging when i really want to just sit down and listen.

Having said that, when listening to stuff like rock with a lot of drums, guitars and everything jamming at the same time, the LP presents the music in a much more enjoyable manner to me.

I've got 2 PC rigs in my man cave, the LP is staying on the main rig for sure

Just an ironic note : Couldn't the slight "brightness" you mentioned be a problem with the Focal Elex, rather than the LP? I ask, because I have a metrum acoustics ambre and the Metrum Acoustic NOS DAC feeding my Liquid Platinum. The Metrum NOS DACs are generally known for being laidback, and they usually act the part with the Hifiman He-1000, or the Audeze LCD-X, or the Audeze LCDi4 playing on the attached LP : Wide, Airy, and deep sound-stage, black background,, great extension at both ends, and great detail retrieval with the treble smooth as a baby's bum...

A couple of weeks ago, however, I tried my newly acquired Focal Elex on the same rig, and it showed all the listed characteristics, with the exception of the "smooth" top end part. Using the stock balanced cable that came with the Elex showed the top-end harshness and aggressiveness at its worst. Replacing the stock cable with a Norne Draug v3 cable tamed things down and smoothen things out somewhat, but it did not eliminate the harshness entirely.. Finally, I replaced the Draug v3 with a Silvergarde S clear cable, and while it did not entirely eliminate all the aggressiveness, it toned it down enough to make the Elex listenable and even enjoyable... The experience was the same for all tracks I listened to, and not just for badly mastered ones... I was actually listening to a lot of ECM label Jazz albums on Roon/Tidal, and those are among some of the best mastered albums I can think of.

This encounter of the Elex with the LP in the chain I have described, eventually led to my decision to sell off the newly acquired Elex, with a lot of sadness, because I found a lot to like about the it otherwise. The point i am making is that, because all of my other cans have relatively much better synergy with the LP, and behave much better to my ears when playing the same albums on the same rig, I never really saw the the LP as the source of the Elex's harshness and glare. And that is what makes your conclusion interesting to me, as it is making me look at the LP in a different light for the first time.

Of course system synergy and subjective impressions are paramount, so the most reliable conclusion I could draw from my little experiment was that the Elex was either not entirely palatable to my own personal hearing faculties, or it wasn't always playing nice with my rig, and so I do not completely regret deciding to let it go. I thought the story was, however, worth sharing in the light of your own experience.

 

[UsoppNoKami]

Fellow Nakama, how would you compare LP to Cayin since they are both hybrids?

The HA-1A mk2 isn't a hybrid.. but anyway i guess it's fun rolling tubes to change the sound signature in the Cayin. Not sure my wallet agrees, but the amp is pretty good at revealing the sound of the tubes chosen so there isn't a fixed sound to compare against the LP.

I currently have NOS Mullards and Amperex tubes in the Cayin, nice bass, warm sounds and good clarity / up top. LP is on the NOS Mullard-Philips SQ as described in my earlier post.

On other aspects, the Cayin runs pretty hot (5 tubes), is solidly built and heavy, functions as a nice tube pre-amp (LP's RCA output is passthrough only), and is very powerful tho it's single ended. Planning to hook up a Freya to both the LP and Cayin amps so that I dont go from too soft to too loud in 1-2mm on the volume knobs :/

 

[UsoppNoKami]

Just an ironic note : Couldn't the slight "brightness" you mentioned be a problem with the Focal Elex, rather than the LP? I ask, because I have a metrum acoustics ambre and the Metrum Acoustic NOS DAC feeding my Liquid Platinum. The Metrum NOS DACs are generally known for being laidback, and they usually act the part with the Hifiman He-1000, or the Audeze LCD-X, or the Audeze LCDi4 playing on the attached LP : Wide, Airy, and deep sound-stage, black background,, great extension at both ends, and great detail retrieval with the treble smooth as a baby's bum...

A couple of weeks ago, however, I tried my newly acquired Focal Elex on the same rig, and it showed all the listed characteristics, with the exception of the "smooth" top end part. Using the stock balanced cable that came with the Elex showed the top-end harshness and aggressiveness at its worst. Replacing the stock cable with a Norne Draug v3 cable tamed things down and smoothen things out somewhat, but it did not eliminate the harshness entirely.. Finally, I replaced the Draug v3 with a Silvergarde S clear cable, and while it did not entirely eliminate all the aggressiveness, it toned it down enough to make the Elex listenable and even enjoyable... The experience was the same for all tracks I listened to, and not just for badly mastered ones... I was actually listening to a lot of ECM label Jazz albums on Roon/Tidal, and those are among some of the best mastered albums I can think of.

This encounter of the Elex with the LP in the chain I have described, eventually led to my decision to sell off the newly acquired Elex, with a lot of sadness, because I found a lot to like about the it otherwise. The point i am making is that, because all of my other cans have relatively much better synergy with the LP, and behave much better to my ears when playing the same albums on the same rig, I never really saw the the LP as the source of the Elex's harshness and glare. And that is what makes your conclusion interesting to me, as it is making me look at the LP in a different light for the first time.

Of course system synergy and subjective impressions are paramount, so the most reliable conclusion I could draw from my little experiment was that the Elex was either not entirely palatable to my own personal hearing faculties, or it wasn't always playing nice with my rig, and so I do not completely regret deciding to let it go. I thought the story was, however, worth sharing in the light of your own experience.

Hmm.. i generally don't have any problems with the Elex, I've owned them for quite a while and use them almost everyday as they are the most comfortable on my head.

I started the Elex with the AudioGD R2R-11 then the R2R-R1 + NFB1-AMP stack, so perhaps the combination of the Focal's dynamics and AGD's laid back / slightly dampened sound matched in a way that I never noticed any glare. I appreciate the LP's qualities as a sonic upgrade over my old AGD amp, but the problem tracks do get in my face now. Skip and listen another time with another set of cans I guess, doesn't bother me too much

 

[Triodemode]

Never heard the Phoenix, but I have done an A/B comparison with the NFB1-AMP. My LP has been fitted with NOS Mullard tubes, branded Philips SQ (E188CC) and an LPS I shared in a post a couple of pages back.

Both amps fed by AGD R2R-R1 DAC, NFB1-AMP connected via ACSS cables whilst LP is via XLR. My A/B listening was done on Focal Elex with Norne Audio Silvergarde S3 cable.

One liner: IMHO, the LP has better sound stage and dynamics vs AGD, but the LP can sometimes sound a bit bright on badly mastered tracks.

I don't know 100% yet if it's the rest of my gear chain or the tubes I have rolled in, but I just avoid queuing the problem albums from my FLAC/DSD library when I'm listening on the LP.

The more mellow sound of the NFB1-AMP is more forgiving/laid back of bad albums, but also less engaging when i really want to just sit down and listen.

Having said that, when listening to stuff like rock with a lot of drums, guitars and everything jamming at the same time, the LP presents the music in a much more enjoyable manner to me.

I've got 2 PC rigs in my man cave, the LP is staying on the main rig for sure

Great setup UsoppNoKami... From your description, it appears your NFB1-AMP shares a similar sonic signature as my Violectric HPA V200, which pairs wonderfully with the Beyer DT-1990. I'm thinking the LP with proper NOS tubes will fill in a slight U shaped curve that these Beyers have, without any increase in treble hardness or grain. Have you rolled any other tubes in the LP other than those Mullards you mentioned, and maybe comment on how they affect the presentation?

BTW, can you please tell me who makes those beautiful wooden headphone stands?

 

[alphanumerix1]

Hmm.. i generally don't have any problems with the Elex, I've owned them for quite a while and use them almost everyday as they are the most comfortable on my head.

I started the Elex with the AudioGD R2R-11 then the R2R-R1 + NFB1-AMP stack, so perhaps the combination of the Focal's dynamics and AGD's laid back / slightly dampened sound matched in a way that I never noticed any glare. I appreciate the LP's qualities as a sonic upgrade over my old AGD amp, but the problem tracks do get in my face now. Skip and listen another time with another set of cans I guess, doesn't bother me too much

Nice thought on LP vs NFB1 with stock tubes?

 

[UsoppNoKami]

Great setup UsoppNoKami... From your description, it appears your NFB1-AMP shares a similar sonic signature as my Violectric HPA V200, which pairs wonderfully with the Beyer DT-1990. I'm thinking the LP with proper NOS tubes will fill in a slight U shaped curve that these Beyers have, without any increase in treble hardness or grain. Have you rolled any other tubes in the LP other than those Mullards you mentioned, and maybe comment on how they affect the presentation?

BTW, can you please tell me who makes those beautiful wooden headphone stands?

I'm waiting for new production Genelex Gold Lions that @runeight recommended earlier in this thread, don't have other tubes to roll yet as I didn't want to accumulate too many tubes before I knew which direction I need to go before listening to them in the amp. I thought the LP sounded fine with the stock EH, so a bit more extension in bass & treble with the genelex sounds like a good match to me. Who knew I would have to wait longer to get new tubes than vintage ones lol....

As for now, TBH i think the NOS Mullard-Philips SQ gives me a very pure sound, listening to Nozomi Terasawa's Sweet Violin album is heavenly with the R2R-R1 + Elex + Silvergarde S3 cable. The violin never sounds piercing or sharp, so I really think the gear is just so transparent at showing me bad albums, but that's the artist/studio's fault haha

The headphone stands are from Room's Audio Line, got them from here:
https://www.thomannmusic.com/misc_a...l?filter=true&manufacturer[]=ROOMs Audio Line