Geek Out 450 from LH Labs - Pocket-sized USB DAC and Amp
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2015-05-07
·
1,732 words · ~8 min read
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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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awesome uh how do I enter they've got you covered just leave a comment below
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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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