I'm loving this new age of crowd-sourced funding. It seems to be enabling companies like Light Harmonic to determine demand for a product before they build it and get funding for R&D in advance.
Light Harmonic, the creators of the Da Vinci Dual DAC, have recently made a few spinoff projects under the moniker LH Labs that look quite promising for those who want portable DSD on a budget:
1) The Geek Out, a pocket-sized DAC + 1 watt class-A headphone amplifier that is designed to go wherever your laptop goes. This was a Kickstarter project and is nearing completion. It's got some exciting bits under the hood (including an ESS ES9018M chip) and at least on "paper" stacks up quite favorably to its competition (see here and here).
2) The Geek Pulse, a desk-appropriate DAC + 3 watt class-A headphone amplifier that is designed to live in your office, on your bookshelf, or wherever you might need super hi-res decoding. It has more inputs than the Geek Out (usb, toslink, coax) and RCA line-level out in addition to 1/4" headphone out.
I backed both of these projects and I can't wait to get my hands on them. I'm currently using a Meridian Explorer as the DAC in my office (which I'm quite fond of), but it caps at 24/192 and doesn't understand DSD or DXD at all. Both of these LH Labs projects promise to do native DSD/DXD decoding (including DSD64 and DSD128), along with a myriad of other hi-res bitrate and sample rate combo up to 32/384!
Anyone else get in on these projects?
UPDATE:
Gavin Fish has posted an update to the design of the Geek Pulse in response to investor feedback:
Light Harmonic, the creators of the Da Vinci Dual DAC, have recently made a few spinoff projects under the moniker LH Labs that look quite promising for those who want portable DSD on a budget:
1) The Geek Out, a pocket-sized DAC + 1 watt class-A headphone amplifier that is designed to go wherever your laptop goes. This was a Kickstarter project and is nearing completion. It's got some exciting bits under the hood (including an ESS ES9018M chip) and at least on "paper" stacks up quite favorably to its competition (see here and here).
2) The Geek Pulse, a desk-appropriate DAC + 3 watt class-A headphone amplifier that is designed to live in your office, on your bookshelf, or wherever you might need super hi-res decoding. It has more inputs than the Geek Out (usb, toslink, coax) and RCA line-level out in addition to 1/4" headphone out.
I backed both of these projects and I can't wait to get my hands on them. I'm currently using a Meridian Explorer as the DAC in my office (which I'm quite fond of), but it caps at 24/192 and doesn't understand DSD or DXD at all. Both of these LH Labs projects promise to do native DSD/DXD decoding (including DSD64 and DSD128), along with a myriad of other hi-res bitrate and sample rate combo up to 32/384!
Anyone else get in on these projects?
UPDATE:
Gavin Fish has posted an update to the design of the Geek Pulse in response to investor feedback:
Changes & Updates to Geek Pulse Thanks to You!
This is not a final list of changes, this is just what we can commit to right now. We'll continually take your suggestions throughout the campaign.
1. We're removing the decorative "V" on the front panel.
2. We're changing from a glossy acrylic front panel to a metal one.
3. We're changing the volume control buttons to a large control knob.
4. We're adding informative LED's to the front panel to display sample rates, etc.
5. We're adding a gain switch so all ya'll with IEM's won't blow your ear drums out. We're thinking three positions: 3 W, 1 W, and 100 mW.
6. The headphone output and the line output will have discrete analog circuits.
We hear you on the balanced output idea. Stay tuned as we figure that out.
Geek Blue - A Bluetooth Stage that is Rad
This idea came from you! Geek Blue is a Bluetooth 4.0 stage so you can stream your music right into Geek Pulse.
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