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LH Labs makes a lot of amazing claims

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about the geek out but I have to take what they say with a grain of salt

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because they are a division of light harmonic the same company that brought

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us the 10 GB Lightspeed USB cable a

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$1,000 USB 2 cable for Chumps so welcome

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to my review of The Geek out 450

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with the purchase of a qualifying Intel processor SSD or knck you could

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instantly win an Intel gaming Jersey and be entered in the draw for the ultimate

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system click now to learn more all right so some of the stuff that they claim is

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outlandish but that doesn't mean everything that light harmonic says is

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going to be pure rubbish so first up and this is legitimately pretty cool the

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geek out natively decodes and amplifies

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pretty much any kind of audio signal that you can throw at it all the way

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from your Cheapo MP3s to high sample

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rate 384 khz 32bit PCM and even DSD 128

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I mean we're talking individual songs that are 500 Megs at the high end there

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and it does all that stuff in a very appealing form factor it's actually

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smaller than my previous carry around

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USB amp and Dack the file E10 to which I

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will be comparing it and it's more featur Laden to boot inside the Fairly

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robust chipping box you get a handy little carrying bag a usb2 cable in case

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your ports are a bit cramped and the unit itself which has a pleasing subtle

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brushed finish on the aluminum housing on the front are LED indicators to let

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you know what the DAC is doing and on the back is a key to help you interpret

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the aforementioned LED indicators on the top we've got the USB interface on the

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right are the volume buttons that offer surprisingly granular sound level

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adjustments although be sure to turn your system volume down when first

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firing this baby up since otherwise it'll be really really loud and they

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have an extra feature called the 3D aier

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that is supposed to make your music sound uh more like it's surrounding you

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and less in your head which can be activated by holding both buttons at the

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same time for about a second I would have preferred a dial here because it

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would make adjusting volume by feel easier and additionally I didn't find

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the 3D feature made much of a difference with headphones and with some IMs I

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actually found that it added a significant background his that was extremely distracting

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finally on the bottom is where the headphones go up to two pairs of them

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which is actually a super cool feature if you sometimes listen with a friend if

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you're listening alone bear in mind the impedance rating next to the Jacks

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that's the output impedance of that output so the 471 will likely be best

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for your headphones unless you're driving larger cans with higher

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impedance LH Labs recommends this model

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for up to 100 ohm rated headphones with a higher-end geek out 1000 model

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available for big guns like the odsy LCD

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2s either output will work but pairing

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your gear correctly will deliver the best results all right so what's the

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process of actually using this thing like on Mac and Linux no drivers are

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needed but since apparently Windows isn't 100% compliant with devices that

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support asynchronous USB audio Class 2 you need a driver on Windows it's

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unfortunate but not a complete deal breaker in my mind once you download and

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install the necessary file all you need to do is for standard listening change

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your default audio device as usual with that finished we can do listening tests

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now right not yet I actually added an extra step and I can't find the bloody

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thing right now but we'll overlay it I added an extra step that was missing in

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my last amp to amp comparison a sound

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level meter to help me ensure that the volume was the same between each amp I

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used a 1 khz Test tone and dialed each

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amp in at 85 DB with each head phone

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before doing any side-by-side listening this is really important because pretty

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much across the board people will report

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that louder music sounds better if all

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other things are equal so I started with my usual listening methodology top 40

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music from the Google Play Music Store on my favorite headphones my hd8 DJs and

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then I threw in a pair of dt770 pro adoms for variety and side by side at a

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reasonable listening volume there's no difference with either of these

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headphones that I can detect at higher volumes like if we get irresponsible and

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just crank it till it sounds fun the geek out scales noticeably better than

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the E10 without sound getting unbalanced or distorted though so that's a definite

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point in its favor if you're into that of course this product wasn't designed

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for your typical streaming quality music files though it was designed for high

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definition audio files so after the usual I decided to mix things up a

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little bit and order this ALB in four flavors from the 2L music store I went

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with high quality 320 kobit pers second MP3 44 khz 16bit CD quality flak 192 khz

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24-bit highres flak and finally the 6

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gig mother of all albums DSD 128 quality

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the highest quality one they provided I Then followed this Yamaha guide combined

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with this imer post to correctly configure Fubar to even and play the

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super high resolution files found myself a quiet room to sit in and tried

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desperately to tell the difference between any of them now to be clear

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crummy MP3s are rubbish and easy to pick out of a lineup but these high bit rate

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ones I don't know man sometimes I was sure the flax had a little bit more

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detail and dynamic range but other times I was equally sure that there was no

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difference at all and for myself if the difference between high-end

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highdefinition audio files and high quality MP threes is that difficult to

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hear then I'll save my hard drive space and money so back to the product itself

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for the conclusion subjectively must be

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my tin ear but when it comes to amp and da upgrades I'm usually pretty hard

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pressed to tell the difference compared to changing out headphones so I'll Focus

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here on what you get objectively you get format compatibility that really is

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exceptional if you feel like that sort of thing is important you get a compact

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USB amp that is legitimately better than what your PC or as this amusing image

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from a headfi user demonstrates other device probably has on board and third

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you get to feel like one of the cool kids for having a Neo device that enables you to get the most out of your

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highdefinition music collection and that you can also put in your pocket just

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don't do both of those things at the same time because this puppy gets mucho

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hot when it's running speaking of mucho hot Mast drop has a seriously Hot Drop

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right now and I don't know where that mod mic ended up

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ah there it is there a speaking of mucho hot Mass drop has a seriously Hot Drop

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available now the mod mic 4.0 which you

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can check out my review of here it's a mic that you can attach to any pair of

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headphones to provide clear voice Communications while still enjoying the

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sound quality of a proper pair of high-end headphones as opposed to a

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gaming headset it's pretty affordable as it is but for the next week Mass drop is

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offering you the insane price of we don't know yet so there will be a

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graphic I'm sure most of you have heard of mass drop by now but if you haven't

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you should definitely check them out they're a site that facilitates group

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buys for a wide variety of products from clothing to multi-tools like the

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Leatherman Wave to computer hardware like the mod mic they work directly with

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manufacturers and Distributors to guarantee you the best price available

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and they ship to as many countries as the manufacturer will allow they have

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two options to buy you can buy in at any price or you can commit to buy and only

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confirm your order if the drop reaches lowest price I've used them before my

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team uses them and I know that many of you probably use them already anyway so

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I have no issues fully recommending Mass drop and to top it off they're actually

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giving away a few units of the mod mic to some of our lucky viewers just sign

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up using the link in the video description and you will be entered to

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win but lonus you might say I've already got a mass drop account because they're

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awesome uh how do I enter they've got you covered just leave a comment below

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this video mentioning either a product you'd like to see me review next or a

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product you'd like to see on mass drop and you will be entered to win winners

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will be contacted by mass drop September 6 6

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6th anyway guys like this video if you liked it dislike it if you disliked it

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leave a comment letting me know if you thought it like sucked so much that a

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dislike isn't quite enough or whatever else it is you want to leave in the comments check out the video description

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for the support us link you can give us a monthly contribution by a sweet t-shirt like this one or you can just

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change your Amazon bookmark to one with our affiliate code so we get a small

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Kickback whenever you buy stuff everything helps us us out a lot thanks

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again for watching and as always don't forget to subscribe