Does anyone have or has anyone tried the Monoprice Liquid Platinum Tube Headphone amp?
Wondering how it compares to xduoo ta20 as there is currently a problem shipping the xduoos to canada it seems
The liquid platinum is pretty awesome, lots of power and a warmer sound. I have not heard the ta-20 though
Awesome. The liquid is more expensive than the ta20 but shipping costs from Hong Kong puts them at around the same price for me. Plus on Amazon the platinum has free same day shipping with prime lol.
Is it possible to roll the tubes with the platinum? That sounds like a interesting thing to experiment with.
Of course! The tubes won’t effect the sound a ton like an otl tube amp but it will change the sound character
I picked up one of these on sale from Amazon at $615+tax.
I REALLY like this amp.
Gungnir A2 Mutibit -> Liquid Platinum -> Elex
When it arrived, I thought, I’ll plug it in and listen to a couple of tracks, but I couldn’t stop listening to different tracks on it, 3 hours later I had to make dinner.
The overall sound is pretty neutral, I wouldn’t have guessed hybrid from the sound on initial listening, the valve sound is there, but it’s pretty subtle, I’m using the stock tubes with are Electro Harmonix 6922’s, I haven’t tried rolling (don’t have any 6922’s lying around), but I suspect the overall effect will be subtle.
The initial wow factor was as is often with higher end gear was in it’s spatial presentation, it just sounds really open and yet still full. There is great separation between the layers of sound.
Bass is full and well controlled
Midrange sounds particularly good, vocals and string instruments sound fantastic.
Trebble has good extension, but it’s not harsh except when it supposed to be (edgyness in guitar distortion and feedback).
I’ve only tried driving it through the balanced input with the Gungnir, and I need to test it with the unbalanced input. And I have to wonder how much of the quality I’m hearing is the amps ability to expose the Gungnir’s great spatial representation, when I get a chance I’ll try it from a more reasonably priced DAC.
One thing to note is that the unbalanced output sounds noticeably worse that the balanced output, it’s not just volume, it loses a lot of it’s soundstage magic, to the point I wouldn’t bother with this amp for unbalanced headphones. It’s still a good amp at that point, but your losing a lot of what makes it special.
I also own a Massdrop CTH, which I like, but it’s not on the same level.
I tried it on my Ether CX’s with much the same overall impression, I don’t have a balanced cable for the HD6XX so it was underwhelming as noted.
Interesing seeing how it sounds on the ZMF’s I have on order and how it compares to the Liquid Gold X which is released next month.
Nice write up 
I also enjoyed the amp a fair bit too, it is pretty solid. Also the gungnir + lp sounds like a pretty sweet setup
I was surprised how good it was.
My original intention was to use it to replace the CTH in my living room setup, probably paired with the D10 or the SU8, but It’s my favorite pairing with the Elex at this point, so it’ll stay connected to the Gungnir in my office.
The relatively poor quality of the SE implementation surprised me almost as much. The manual actually states that you should find a way to listen balanced before judging the amplifier…
It’s not an issue for me, the Jot has a noticeable difference, but it’s nothing compared to the LP.
Yeah, just like the CTH the single ended didn’t have as much care put into it, it’s really made to be balanced
I though Cavalli’s discussion on how it’s changed from the Liquid Crimson was interesting.
The original Liquid Crimson is SE by design, and the platinum uses the same basic topology, but when he changed the design to be balanced he changed to Current rather than Voltage feedback.
My guess given that the SE output is 1/4 of the output of the Balanced, it was pretty much an after thought.
Got around to trying the Liquid Platinum with my D10.
The amp still sounds really good, bettor than anything else I have on hand for headphones from the D10.
It still does it’s improved spatial representation thing.
But listening to the D10 really just reinforced what I love about the Gungnir, the D10 sounds good, but in comparison to the Gungnir it just sounds dull.
As far as the balanced being so much better than the SE, it is the same with the LCX.
Dr. Cavalli addressed it on Head-Fi in regards to the LCX. He stated that the whole focus was on balanced and that SE was a retail “must have” that was tacked on. Maybe he kept that same focus with Monoprice?
It’s interesting mostly because the original Liquid Crimson which the Platinum was based in was single ended.
It’s clearly designed to run balanced, and I have other amps where the difference is more than just volume, but on the platinum it’s really a significant difference.
Just to follow up on this, did you ever run SMSL SU-8 to LP to Elex? If so, was it the best thing you ever heard? 
The LP sounds good with the SU-8, but not as good as with the Gungnir Multibit, but for the price difference you’d expect that. I just ordered a BiFrost 2 for my living room system, I’m interested if that retains much of what I love about the Gungnir with it.
It’s easily my most used Amp, and an easy first choice with the Elex.
Been listening to my Eikons since I got them and I like it with those as well, though I just got a Tuba and I’m still trying to make my mind up between amps with that Headphone, it doesn’t react perhaps the way you would expect with Tubes vs SS.
what does this mean exactly? you can use both connectors as either?
Sorry, I mean single ended and balanced by se and bal. The single ended passthrough allows you to chain in another component as it just passes through the amp without being affected by the volume control
gotcha. I wonder what the matching DAC will be like.
also, I’m guessing you’ve listened to this amp? how was it’s SE and B output? can it do low impedance headphones?
Low impedence phones are fine.
SE is significantly inferior to Balanced.
I believe the DAC when it finally ships is a AK4499 base DAC.
hmmm…M0N said the CTH also has terrible single ended performance but really good balanced. I wonder why they didn’t make sure the single ended was good as well. a real shame to have that big a knock against something that could have been wunderbar.
Hifiguides Amazon Link