5
INTRODUCTION
The Monolith
™
Liquid Gold X Balanced Headphone Amplifier
and DAC by Alex Cavalli is a fully differential, balanced, solid
state amplifier. It is a miniaturized version of Cavalli Audio's
high-end Liquid Gold amplifier. The Monolith Liquid Gold X
amplifier circuit topology and component values are identical
to the original Cavalli Liquid Gold. It features a balanced 4-pin
XLR output and an unbalanced 1/4" TRS output. The TRS output
is provided for compatibility with TRS terminated headphones,
but it is recommended to use the amp in fully balanced mode
using balanced headphones.
The amp has both balanced XLR and unbalanced (RCA) inputs.
The unbalanced input has an internal, solid state buffered phase
splitter to create a balanced signal and drive the amp fully
balanced. The Monolith Liquid Gold X amplifier includes its own
built-in, fully balanced DAC with USB, Coaxial, and Optical
inputs. The amplifier has 4x and 6x gain settings and an
approximate full output power of 3.6 watts per channel with a
50-ohm load.
