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Copyright © 2013-2015 Cavalli Audio, LLC
Important points to remember about the Cavalli Audio Liquid
Gold
®
Solid State headphone amplifier
The Liquid Gold® is a fully differential, balanced solid state Solid State headphone amplifier. It is
especially designed with very high power levels for today’s hard-to-drive planar magnetic
headphones, but it does well with almost any dynamic headphone. Its fully differential topology
takes advantage of all the benefits of differential operation, including high common mode noise
rejection. The differential circuit design of the Liquid Gold distinguishes it from some other
balanced amplifiers which operate two separate channels connected together (bridged) at their
outputs.
The amp has both single ended (RCA) and two fully balanced (XLR) stereo inputs. The input type
is selectable with a 3-position front panel toggle switch. The single ended input has an internal
solid state buffered phase splitter to create a balanced signal to drive the amp fully balanced.
The amp has two gain settings to help with the wide range of dynamic headphone impedances
and sensitivities. The high gain is 8X and the low gain is 4X. The Liquid Gold® circuit allows you
to hot switch the gain using the front panel toggle switch.
Liquid Gold® has 4 outputs: 4 Pin XLR, Pair (L/R) of 3 Pin XLR, and two TRS (standard ¼” phone
plug). One of the TRS jacks (Low) has gain reduction resistors for situations where the
headphone sensitivity is very high. These resistors should help in many instances of low
impedance, high sensitivity headphones, but may not satisfy all conditions.
Power is controlled by a standby power circuit activated by a custom made Piezo power switch.
Operation during power up is indicated by two LEDs below the power switch button. The power
supply has a controlled startup sequence to protect the output devices and their drivers from
high startup transient currents.
