Monoprice Teams Up with Alex Cavalli

Cavalli Audio may not exactly be a household name, but in the audio world (especially Head-Fi), it’s actually a rather well-respected brand. Their popular Liquid line of amplifiers were very well-received and continue to be the darlings of many. However, back in October of 2017, Alex Cavalli announced that Cavalli Audio would be closing down at the end of that very same month. His reasoning included the fact that throughout the life of Cavalli Audio, he was actually semi-retired, and it was time for him to retire properly so he could spend more time with the grandchildren. He was also, unfortunately, unable to find a reliable partner to carry on with (or rather take control of) his vision.
However, it seems now that Alex has finally found that partner – Monoprice.

So it seems that, fittingly so, the upcoming products will be developed under Monoprice’s own Monolith line of high-performance audio product, whilst still retaining the original Cavalli Liquid moniker too.

Monolith Liquid Spark by Alex Cavalli

First up we have the Liquid Spark – a compact solid-state headphone amp which features an electrical layout that is DC-coupled from input to output. It also offers up to 1300mW of power into a 50-ohm load (per channel). However, what’s perhaps most interesting is that Monoprice have listed the Liquid Spark with an MSRP of just $99.99, which makes it seem like it might very-well be squarely aimed at competing directly with the Schiit Magni 3.

Monolith Liquid Platinum by Alex Cavalli

The crème de la crème of this cooperation, however, comes in the form of the Monolith Liquid Platinum. Here we get a tube-hybrid headphone amplifier which also offers both fully balanced, as well as single ended connections. This is basically a balanced version of the highly-regarded Liquid Crimson designed by Cavalli Audio. As Monoprice describes it, “the Platinum gives you the beautiful sound of tubes together with the grunt of solid state to drive the headphones”. There’s also a up to a whopping 3600mW of power available into a 50-ohm load via the balanced connection.

Monoprice has pegged the MSRP of the Monolith Liquid Platinum at $699.99.

 

Availability

According to the product pages for these models on Monoprice’s site, both are expected to be in stock by the 26th of June 2018.