Monoprice Liquid Spark DAC by Alex Cavalli Review

[NoClipping1337]

Ordered one of these a little bit ago by sorting the review listing by SINAD, filtering price, and picking the topmost option that I liked the look of the best. It will be for my office system consisting of KLH Model 17's, so no need for some super-high-end piece but I wanted something that wouldn't look out of place with my NAD 116/218THX combo that I'll be using. In the meantime, before I move, it'll be driving my Bose Companion II's, which seems like much overkill

 

[magicscreen]

Ordered one of these a little bit ago by sorting the review listing by SINAD,

I hope you have read the full review. It would be silly to decide upon the SINAD parameter only.

 

[NoClipping1337]

I hope you have read the full review. It would be silly to decide upon the SINAD parameter only.

oh definitely, and I didn’t see anything in there that was worrying. There are a couple things that are done slightly better in similarly-priced DACs but they didn’t seem to be consequential, at least for my use case. If I get around to it, I may see if I can hear any subjective differences with the D90 when hooked to my Quads.

 

[cid3]

I recently ordered this with the liquid spark amp and was wondering if it was normal to only be able to select 32 bit in windows 10 via USB? I need 24 bit 48hz to enable atmos but I just have 32 bit selections. There's no xmos or driver listed on the site and in other devices it lists "Monoprice dfu." Talked to support and they had no clue.

Do I need to install xmos from somewhere? My win10 is fully updated and all that. I don't know how xmos works but the more expensive thx dac/amp combo lists xmos download but I read it's linked to vid/pid or something but I'm not sure what that means.

 

[Veri]

Do I need to install xmos from somewhere? My win10 is fully updated and all that. I don't know how xmos works but the more expensive thx dac/amp combo lists xmos download but I read it's linked to vid/pid or something but I'm not sure what that means.

Definitely try installing the other dac/amp driver. It's pretty likely they use a compatible vendor id. But yeah you need a driver for other stuff than what comes default.

 

[jsrtheta]

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

Heck, "Nobsound" at least makes a certain amount of sense. I'm still puzzling out "Divilpoetry".

To say nothing of "bile".

 

[DarrylG]

This dac has been discontinued, at least for now.

 

[raindance]

Heck, "Nobsound" at least makes a certain amount of sense. I'm still puzzling out "Divilpoetry".

To say nothing of "bile".

They are direct translations from Chinese and as such don't make sense. I also highly doubt a lot of these small businesses have international marketing departments.

 

[Tortie]

I wonder if they are in the process of redesigning the Liquid Spark around a different D/A chip. Due to the AKM shortage Schiit switched to C-Media and JDS Labs moved to an ESS chip to update their budget line DAC devices. Monoprice has not been as quick to adapt to the supply chain problems.

 

[Lupin]

Due to the AKM shortage Schiit switched to C-Media

Schiit switched to ESS DAC chips and C-Media chip for USB input on multibit DACs.

 

[Lupin]

Monoprice has not been as quick to adapt to the supply chain problems.

Or perhaps they looked at the numbers sold of the AKM version and decided it's not worth the time and money to redesign it to an DAC chip.
Maybe they're working on a completely new product.

 

[Tortie]

Schiit switched to ESS DAC chips and C-Media chip for USB input on multibit DACs.

You're correct. I misread the product page

 

[sofakng]

Does anybody have an XMOS driver for this DAC?

The USB audio interface descriptor only supports S32_LE, SPECIAL, and DSD_U32_BE. However, I need 16-bit or 24-bit support for Dolby Atmos/Windows Sonic on Windows 10/11.

I've contacted Monoprice and Cavalli but haven't received a response yet.

This seems like a bug in their firmware (?) or that I just need to install their special drivers?

 

[gvl]

AFAIK there’s no harm sending less bits per sample, they are just padded with 0s in the lower bits.

 

[sofakng]

That might be true, but unfortunately Windows requires 16-bit (or 24-bit) explicitly for Dolby Atmos and Windows Sonic. Because those sample rates aren't available it doesn't even show those HRTF modes.

 

[DarrylG]

Does anybody have an XMOS driver for this DAC?

The USB audio interface descriptor only supports S32_LE, SPECIAL, and DSD_U32_BE. However, I need 16-bit or 24-bit support for Dolby Atmos/Windows Sonic on Windows 10/11.

I've contacted Monoprice and Cavalli but haven't received a response yet.

This seems like a bug in their firmware (?) or that I just need to install their special drivers?

I don't think there is one.

 

[Steven Holt]

AFAIK, this is no longer available. It's been reincarnated as as headphone amplifier sans DAC. Amir, any chance you can get your hands on this thing for an honest review?