🔷 Monolith Liquid Platinum

There is a lot of detailed info on the LP thread on Head-Fi.

1 Like

I literally read every single page of that thread lol.

3 Likes

Well. LP arrived today and I just turned it on for the first time. Before 9 o’clock on the volume, the right channel is basically non-existent. With Elegia, 9’ is too loud. M40x is even worse. With HD600 (TRS jack :frowning:) I’m barely out of the imbalance. “Shitty pot” is an understatement.

I had a channel imbalance while the tubes were burning in too. For a brand new unit that is likely also a factor.

2 Likes

Yup I figured that may be a factor. Will give it a 100 hours and see where it’s at. I’ll be swapping the pot regardless but it was kinda like…wow.

What dac are you running? Does it have variable output?

BF MB so negative. But even if it did, I don’t want an amp that can only be used with certain DACs.

If mine were like this I’d return it.
Mine has no noticeable imbalance even at at low level, but this is clearly a common issue.

4 Likes

It certainly has high gain. With my efficient headphones (Grado’s, Meze’s and Fostex TH-610’s), 9:00 is the absolute max for music with these. And for newer/harder stuff, it is much closer to 8:00!

Even with 300 Ohm headphones the absolute max is 11:00 and often 10:00, depending on the music.

Of course I am a quiet listener (I.E. 65 to 75db’s).

But it sounds SO good. :smile:

PS: I have my SMSL SU-8 volume down from a max volume of 37 down to 27 to make the LP usable.

2 Likes

I mean yeah it’s high gain but christ man (Cavlli + Monoprice), throw a quality pot in the thing. An Alps is exactly $10 more than what they used. Not exactly breaking the bank.

I’m a relatively quiet listener as well and living in the basement of the volume range on this thing is not cool lol. It does sound really fucking good though. I’m def keeping it.

2 Likes

Very different from your tube passion isn’t it?

Heh, even a $199 Asgard 3 has an Alps RK27 pot.

Over at HF, someone swapped out the stock pot with an Alps one: https://www.head-fi.org/threads/monoprice-monolith-liquid-platinum-by-alex-cavalli.876406/post-15840063

Alternatively, you can get a preamp (there are some cheap passive ones out there) or use the one with your DAC if it has one, and set the volume on the LP to 1:30p. Use the pre to control the volume.

But yeah, mine first LP had really noticeable channel imbalance once I moved away from 11 o’clock. I sent mine back explicitly stating that there was channel imbalance at normal listening volumes, which is unacceptable. The replacement unit had no channel imbalance but still has that gain jump.

Unfortunately, yours received a crappy volume pot from their parts bin.

Yeah I’ve seen that. Not really keen on doing all the work required to mod the faceplate. I suppose I may have to eventually but I still have hope of finding a suitable pot.

That’s another way to do it but I don’t want more “stuff” in the signal path.

All the smaller pots have the same issues, even the Alps ones, though the ones I the LP seem to be particularly bad.
It’s an odd choice to use a smaller pot there, there is clearly space in the case for a 25mm pot, but because it’s a 4 gang pot, it probably does save double digit $.

2 Likes

After a day of listening, I love this amp. For those that have heard the original Cavalli amps, would you say the LP has the Cavalli house sound?

3 Likes

Yes it does for sure, although stuff like a liquid crimson or liquid glass are a massive step up (the og liquid gold is pretty excellent with the diana v2 if you can find one lol)

2 Likes

Cool, exactly what I wanted to know :grinning: :+1:

This is still hanging around on sale for $399 on their site; any rumors on if it will drop below $300 for Black Friday like it did a week or 2 ago?

1 Like

Here @alphamarshan, perhaps now it will go on discount for you…
LP

6 Likes

You bought it?!?!

If so, I recommend hitting up Hart Audio Cables to get some balanced interconnects and headphone cables!

2 Likes