Light Harmonic Enters the DAC/Headphone Amp Game at $99!

This looks really cool...

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gavn8r/geek-a-new-usb-awesomifier-for-headphones

 

Interesting.

The room doing the supertweeter demo at the CAS on the weekend had a DaVinci but used a small dCS to play discs on (CD, SACD). I wanted to hear the DaVinci again and I could not understand why he was not using it - but forgot to ask.

(The supertweeter demo was very cool - lots of A-B-A comparisons to hear what the supertweeter was doing.)

 

So LeeS, did you pledge $99? Do you have your Geek coming?

 

The $99 units sold out already.

 

Well schiit.

I wonder what the 3D awesomifier does? Could be a neat thing to help portable friendly headphones sound better. Could. Maybe. Fortunately it can also be turned off.

 

I noticed that.

 

Like what you did there.

 

I've only a modicum of decorum.

The part that has me most interested and curious is the 3D awesomifier. Is it just a cross-feed? Is it doing a more complex HRTF? Is it doing something else? Will it awesomify my LCD-2?

It's neat to see these little USB DACs show up from different designers. They are handy little things. The more the merrier.

 

They hit their goal in less than 11 hours.

 

This is what turns me off. They're trying to pack too many tricks into one package. Headphone amp, dac, crossfeed. A quality DAC alone is always welcome to me.

 

You could get one for $139.

 

I got in at $119. I figure at that price I can always sell it if it's not to my liking.

 

$139 isn't bad. I don't use a laptop (or desktop) in my headphone system, but I might like to compare what I have now compared to GEEK.

Pretty cool that Light Harmonic is involved.

 

It was at $119 when I looked - but it's not a device I need.

 

I don't mind them adding whatever the 3D awesomifier is. As long as the processor inside is already able to handle that task as well as the other tasks it needs to do then it's not taking up any additional space inside. It's just digital signal processing. Computer code. And it can be turned off if you don't want it.

Many of the popular portable friendly headphones can use some 3D awesomifiying. Assuming the 3D awesomifier does some HRTF style processing that expands the soundstage to lessen the blobs of sound on the ears style of sound that many portable friendly headphones have. It could be neat. Then again, it could suck. I hope they understand headphone sound needs.

 

I've been tempted. But it's also not the kind of device I'm looking for right now. I may change my mind today. Hopefully before all of the $139 slots fill up. But I'd be raiding my other audio gear fund to buy it. They did bump up the number of $139 slots from 200 to 500.

 

Interesting.

 

The Kickstarter says it will work with Spotify. I'll be really interested to know how they manage that. Currently for all USB devices using ASIO or WASAPI you need to use a third party client.

 

Yeah, my crossfeed is always on when I'm headphoning.

 

Slept on it and got in at $139.

 

They've already raised more than $160k (with the campaign goal of $28k)! I'm curious if other small/hi-end audio manufacturers will follow suit in starting their own kickstarter projects...

 

Interesting - I'm glad it worked so well for them.

 

My Geek Out 450 arrived today. I've had it plugged into my MacBook Air and headphones on all evening. The sound is impressive so far, but I am still well within the "excited to get a new toy" phase of ownership.

The build quality does seem good, although it runs pretty warm. I like the LEDs on the top and the volume control buttons feel pretty solid. Will be interesting to see how I feel after listening for a full day at work and doing some a/b comparisons to the standard headphone jack.

 

I've read the 1000 runs hotter. Looking forward to your thoughts!

 

Very cool.