Reviews

Brandi Carlile ’s "Looking Out" [The Story, Columbia] has an opening acoustic guitar that sounded very well balanced. This track exhibits a tearing sound in the high frequencies that the Cavalli rendered clearly and cleanly, and without becoming upset. Again, instrumental separation was excellent. You will have a hard time finding an amp that offers a more balanced set of sonic characteristics for less, and I would go so far as to say that you will likely have a hard time matching the Liquid Fire, even if you’re willing to spend more. The Cavalli Liquid Fire offers state-of-the-art performance as judged against the key parameters we find most important for headphone amps. It hews toward naturalness rather than offering (or imposing) dramatically shaded colorations." -- Tom Martin, Playback

The Cavalli setup I listened to played "Soneros De Verdad, A Buena Vista: Barrio De La Habana". The thing I noticed most was how open and airy everything sounded with the already amazing qualities of the LCD2. The percussion being so musical, clean and tight on each attack, instruments projected out from my head all around me. It was really quite a treat. I could have listened to this for many hours but had to return to my own table. But I really did not want to leave.” -- Ken Ball, Audio Line Out (ALO)

It's been said (by my friend and colleague Jonathan Valin at The Absolute Sound) that there can be a dichotomy between audio components that emphasize truth vs. those that emphasize beauty. Well, Cavalli's Liquid Fire is plenty truthful, but at heart it's all about beauty - sonic beauty of the kind that makes you want to forget everything but the music and to sit and listen for hours on end with a satisfied grin on your face. Chris Martens, Editor-in-Chief, AVguide/Playback

"Check out this First Listen from AVguide. Chris Martens heard the original Liquid Fire prototype and now has more to say about the pre-production amp that he recently tested." -- Chris Martens, Playback from AVguide.com

Cavalli’s Liquid Fire headphone amplifier was the first, and is thus far the only, headphone-related product to be praised in Playback as a state-of-the-art product, but at Can Jam the firm rolled out a new, dedicated solid-state electrostatic headphone amp called the Liquid Lightning that may also be vying for state-of-the-art recognition. AVGuilde.com