The Echo 555 liquid handler employs Labcyte’s acoustic droplet ejection (ADE) technology for touch-less transfer of liquids, and has the ability to dispense up to 600,000 different compounds in 24 hours. The system performs direct microplate-to-microplate transfers of droplets down to 2.5 nanoliters. Monitoring of acoustic energy reflected from well plate fluids enables the unit to measure the water content in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and measure well fluid volume. System applications include: plate replication and reformatting of compound libraries in DMSO; plate compressions or expansion from 384 or 1536 well source microplates and to 96, 384 or 1536 destination microplates; and user-developed protocols such as the transfer from any source well to any destination well (cherry-picking).