Monoprice Liquid Spark DAC by Alex Cavalli Review

[PeteL]

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

The bigger players will. The biggest impact will be on small manufacturers, and also, I'd think that most if not all projects that are still in developpment will either be put on the back burner, or redesigned using different ICs. In all case that's AKM that will be impacted the most, manufacturers will adapt but we will see a couple years down the line if AKM can achieve to be up there at the top levels of goto chips for Hifi. Those who chose to migrate will not necessarily come back. Manufacturers like to reuse building blocks across their line.

 

[DanTheMan]

2020 strikes again

 

[Herbert]

What is the reason SPDIF has more jitter?

 

[solderdude]

SPDIF runs through a different receiver circuit. Not all of the receivers have equal bandwidth, voltage sensitivity and de-jitter circuitry.
With SPDIF the clock is embedded in the data and the circuit that has to recover the clock part and extract data.
This process differs a LOT from USB.

 

[Veri]

What is the reason SPDIF has more jitter?

ESS chips have heavy de-jitter and/or ASRC to make external signals cleaner, in some cases this can cause signal drop if the correction loop is set too strict, some ESS DACs leave the DPLL strength (the loop) user configurable. But with AKM DACs, it depends a lot on the receiver and implementation, as solderdude explained. The jitter here is actually quite good, about -130dB. For coax, that's nothing to complain about! Very respectable, even.

 

[Herbert]

Thanks! Didn't ESS even claim they do not use the embedded clock at all, as the clock frequency can be
derived from the channel flags...?

 

[Veri]

Thanks! Didn't ESS even claim they do not use the embedded clock at all, as the clock frequency can be derived from the channel flags...?

Yeah you could be right. I personally prefer a good receiver/good clock approach to heavy manipulation of the signal though. ASRC should be transparent, but only if good algorithms are used, which are probably all minimum latency to have the lowest delay; reclocking with the likes of FPGA can also lose lock just like Sabre's DPLL approach can lose lock. In this liquid spark, all it does is use a receiver with an above average clock and it seems to work absolutely fine with probably the least amount of problems or dejitter techniques... looks great to me considering all this

 

[ElNino]

Thanks! Didn't ESS even claim they do not use the embedded clock at all, as the clock frequency can be
derived from the channel flags...?

This isn't technically possible. Knowing the nominal clock (e.g., 44.1kHz) doesn't tell you the actual clock, which will be the nominal clock +/- a small percentage. S/PDIF is a synchronous interface, so you have to recover the actual clock and then clean it, or asynchronously resample to another clock.

 

[Herbert]

OK. BTW, not a deal here in Europe, 130$ because of the shipment...

 

[Veri]

OK. BTW, not a deal here in Europe, 130$ because of the shipment...

Yeah you'll have to wait for monoprice EU.. the shipping rates from US are insane.

 

[peanuts]

OK. BTW, not a deal here in Europe, 130$ because of the shipment...

30 dollar shipping? thats cheap. so the powersupply is universal? cant tell from the photo

 

[amirm]

30 dollar shipping? thats cheap. so the powersupply is universal? cant tell from the photo

All switching supplies like this are universal.

 

[LEGCRAMP]

$99 with a proprietary cast metal case.

I no longer wish to hear that such a case is justification for much higher prices of similar products.

haha I laughed when I saw this post. I purchased this dac this week and the first thing I noticed is the thickness of the metal has a similar feeling to an empty soda can. Sounds great though.

 

[pozz]

Kevin Gilmore used to give Alex Cavalli a hard time on head-fi. Gave his products a bad rep.
Like the logo as well

Do you have a link?

 

[aerochrome2]

Question:

My setup is as follows:

(1) SMSL M500 DAC --> Liquid Spark --> beyerdynamic Amiron home; and
(2) SMSL M500 DAC --> Liquid Spark --> KEF Eggs

I tend to listen at very low to mid-level volumes (on both headphones and the speakers). I have just started experimenting with the "gain switch" "gain button" on the Liquid Spark. Is this the same thing as a "loudness button"? The manual is a bit unclear on the effect except to say that the gain is either 3x or 6x depending on whether the switch is engaged.

Basically, without wading too far into the loudness button debate, I am wondering if the gain button would have a similar effect in either or both of setups 1 and 2; i.e., boosting the lower and mid frequencies for low volume listening.

 

[Veri]

Gain is just loudness, how quickly volume is amplified.

 

[aerochrome2]

Gain is just loudness, how quickly volume is amplified.

Thanks. I.e., no different than simply turning the volume knob up? And thus different than the old school "loudness buttons"?

 

[JohnYang1997]

Thanks. I.e., no different than simply turning the volume knob up? And thus different than the old school "loudness buttons"?

That's correct.

 

[jawbfl]

All switching supplies like this are universal.

I was wondering if the one from JDS is universal? they specify on the website US 110v not sure if you can just adapt it to EU 220v.

 

[JohnYang1997]

I was wondering if the one from JDS is universal? they specify on the website US 110v not sure if you can just adapt it to EU 220v.

All the ones I know from JDS are transformer based AC output type. Thus not universal.