Cavalli Audio was a big name in high-end tube and solid state amps with many fans of their $6000 Liquid Gold, as well as the Liquid Lightning electrostatic headphone amp which was one of the few available not made by Stax. Alex Cavalli’s beginnings were more humble, designing DIY amps, one of which was the CTH.
However in recent times, Cavalli Audio has been quiet, selling out the remaining batches of all their models to work on a new range. The first of these has just surfaced, a re-designed Cavalli Tube Hybrid Amp, or CTH, which takes a single 6922 tube and is powered from a wall wart. With up to 1W of output at 50 Ohms and an output impedance of < 0.5 ohm at 1 kHz, it should be a good headphone amp for the majority of headphones, and many IEMs, out there. Though it has a 4-pin XLR output, this is merely for convenience since many headphones now come with a 4-pin XLR terminated cable. The amp itself is not a balanced design.
The amp has been made in conjunction with Massdrop and will be available from Monday at 6am at $249. I think I might have to get one.
Click to see the drop here: Massdrop x Alex Cavalli Tube Hybrid Amp (CTH)
Head-Fi also has a series of pre-reviews of the CTH which are worth reading.
