Monoprice Liquid Spark DAC by Alex Cavalli Review

[FrankF]

Good showing by the Alex Cavelli and the Liquid Spark. I have never owned his previous products but some people who did described it like this:

 

[bobbooo]

I use my LG V series phone for the vast majority of listening these days.
While I understand that this DAC is generally for laptops, phones without decent DAC's and other such connections, out of curiosity does anyone think that there would be audible differences between an LG phone with the "quad" DAC and this little unit?

No there won't. Not only that, there won't be any audible difference between this DAC and an average smartphone either e.g. the now three and a half year-old Samsung Galaxy S8 with a SINAD of 96dB (the ranking tables incorrectly show it as 89dB for some reason). The same goes for the S9, S10, Note8 and Note9 series which all use the same Qualcomm WCD9341 DAC, as do many other phones, or other similarly well-performing DACs.

This is because this level of distortion in a smartphone is already way below the distortion of a headphone transducer. In fact, even if you had the $60,000 Sennheiser HE1, the lowest distorting headphones in the world at 0.01% THD (which translates to -80dB), the combined distortion with a smartphone having THD at -96dB would be (worst case, in phase) -79.9dB i.e. an inaudible 0.1dB additional distortion. The DAC SINAD required for audible transparency with a typical headphone with (much) higher distortion would obviously be even lower.

 

[mhardy6647]

So -- it's taken me nearly a year to realize that I hate youse guyses.
I've been looking for an affordable DAC that would "do" DSD and not be embarrassing to purchase.
Here, it looks like we have one -- but the DAC chip that is at its heart was instantly rendered a collector's item by the (in all seriousness, terribly unfortunate) immolation of the manufacturer's plant.

Daggummit!

 

[AudioSceptic]

I like the name better than some of the Chi-fi brands. Loxjie sounds a rare disease.

I could never buy something called Nobsound, no matter how good it is.

 

[PeteL]

No there won't. Not only that, there won't be any audible difference between this DAC and an average smartphone either e.g. the now three and a half year-old Samsung Galaxy S8 with a SINAD of 96dB (the ranking tables incorrectly show it as 89dB for some reason). The same goes for the S9, S10, Note8 and Note9 series which all use the same Qualcomm WCD9341 DAC, as do many other phones, or other similarly performing DACs.

This is because this level of distortion in a smartphone is already way below the distortion of a headphone transducer. In fact, even if you had the $60,000 Sennheiser HE1, the lowest distorting headphones in the world at 0.01% THD (which translates to -80dB), the combined distortion with a smartphone having THD at -96dB would be (worst case, in phase) -79.9dB i.e. an inaudible 0.1dB additional distortion. The DAC SINAD required for audible transparency with a typical headphone with (much) higher distortion would obviously be even lower.

The problem with phones is the output power, not the dac, but since as you point you can’t get better than the weekest link, the performance of the dac has not much significance.

 

[raistlin65]

@amirm your review showed up in my Google News feed

Usually all I get are expensive overpriced audiophile mag audio equipment reviews, or very mainstream media source audio stuff.

 

[bobbooo]

The problem with phones is the output power, not the dac, but since as you point you can’t get better than the weekest link, the performance of the dac has not much significance.

Most smartphones will have enough output power to directly drive the vast majority of portable headphones to loud enough levels, and enough power to act as a DAC to feed a desktop amp to drive non-portable headphones to loud levels too.

 

[amirm]

@amirm your review showed up in my Google News feed

Thanks for letting me know. What is amazing is that I read Google News a dozen times a day and not once has it shown me any of my own reviews! It shows me audio reviews from others but not from ASR. Shows how dumb their algorithms are.

 

[amirm]

Most smartphones will have enough output power to directly drive the vast majority of portable headphones to loud enough levels, and enough power to act as a DAC to feed a desktop amp to drive non-portable headphones to loud levels too.

What is a "portable" headphone? And no, they are not good enough for vast majority of headphones. Try to listen to one on an airplane. Even at max volume you will have trouble getting sufficient volume.

 

[PeteL]

Most smartphones will have enough output power to directly drive the vast majority of portable headphones to loud enough levels, and enough power to act as a DAC to feed a desktop amp to drive non-portable headphones to loud levels too.

loud level is not synonim of sufficient power, depending on the impedance curve of the headphone, when you have like 5 or 10 miliWats, You may be have enough volume, but the bass response will suffer and you won’t get proper headroom for loud transient in dynamic recordings. As for using them as a line out, they have an output voltage below 1V, often considerably less, this is far from optimal when used this way.

 

[raistlin65]

Thanks for letting me know. What is amazing is that I read Google News a dozen times a day and not once has it shown me any of my own reviews! It shows me audio reviews from others but not from ASR. Shows how dumb their algorithms are.

It's the Google News feature that shows up in Android Chrome Beta new tabs, which may be more personalized then the Google News app. Or maybe it functions completely differently. But it does recommend all kinds of news, much like the separate app.

 

[gvl]

Thanks for letting me know. What is amazing is that I read Google News a dozen times a day and not once has it shown me any of my own reviews! It shows me audio reviews from others but not from ASR. Shows how dumb their algorithms are.

They know you wrote them and filter them out?

 

[amirm]

They know you wrote them and filter them out?

It would be heck of an algorithm if it knows I wrote them!

 

[AudioSceptic]

What is a "portable" headphone? And no, they are not good enough for vast majority of headphones. Try to listen to one on an airplane. Even at max volume you will have trouble getting sufficient volume.

A "portable" headphone is one specifically designed to be used with a phone or other portable player, so efficiency is a necessary part of the design. You've seen all those people out and about using such, I'm sure. In my case, I use efficient and good sounding IEMs rather than over-ear headphones that to me just look silly outdoors. Headphones designed for use indoors with a proper amp are another matter.

 

[Labjr]

Google sucks. When I do a search for something, it returns more unrelated ads. It's becoming useless.

 

[AudioSceptic]

Google sucks. When I do a search for something, it returns more unrelated ads. It's becoming useless.

Try StartPage and DuckDuckGo and see if either works any better.

 

[PierreV]

It would be heck of an algorithm if it knows I wrote them!

I had plenty of ASR in my feed until I flagged them as "not interested" - the reason is obviously not that I wasn't interested but that I find it annoying when it suggests stuff I have already read. Likewise, I do prevent my usual news sources from showing up since I read them anyway.

It seems they prioritize engagement above anything else, at least for me. For example, I spent some time reading a suggestion yesterday (some stuff about bicycle maintenance) and came back to it a couple of times. This morning I woke up to no less than 12 bike test links.

 

[DanTheMan]

It's lovely that there are so many low cost, high performance pieces of audio gear made today. The only issue now is too many options.

 

[Veri]

The only issue now is too many options.

The other issue is AKM DAC chips will dry up soon due to the recent problems at its factory :/

 

[DanTheMan]

That is lousy. Hopefully there is enough stock in the hands of these manufacturers to keep lines in production until AKM can resume operations.