Abstract We present a robust, three-stage optical parametric amplifier driven by a Ti:Sapphire ultrafast laser system that implements passive carrier-envelope phase stabilization and directly generates five-cycle mid-IR pulses by dispersion compensation. The source is based on potassium titanyl arsenate crystals and exploits intra-pulse difference-frequency seed generation in the mid-IR. This source will be particularly suited for applications in strong-field physics, such as high order harmonic generation and photoelectron spectroscopy.