[greenkiwi]

I have had this problem too.

And never had it with other dacs.

 

[wingsounds13]

Not to brag, but to say that something is not right. I have had my infinity running continuously since I received it mid November, 2015. It has only ever had connection problems a few times, and every time it was because I was playing with settings in foobar2000 or the LH Labs driver control panel.

Two possibilities are computer issues, or power glitches. What power supply are you using? Is your mains power rock solid?

If you can truly eliminate those issues the next step would be to check your cables. Are both ends of the USB cable secure? Are your power cables secure? Can the cables be bumped or otherwise disturbed by you (or someone else) moving around the computer setup?

Lots of questions and places to look. Of course, there could be issues with your DAC that would require a trip to California for warranty service.

J.P.

 

[greenkiwi]

My Infinity is sitting on a reasonably AC line, and is the only device connected to my LPS4.
 
It connects to my 2015 15" MBP, directly via Lightspeed 1G cable.
 
About once a month, it fails to come up as an audio device. This certainly isn't reproducible enough to figure out if it a warranty issue.
 
Note, if I connect it to my Thunderbolt display, it fails to connect weekly.  Which clearly isn't ideal.
 
Now before I got the infinity, I had an Emotiva DC-1 connected.  It NEVER failed to show up as a device.  I have another DC-1 that is connected to a MacMini at home.  This machine follows a different usage pattern, it is just always on.  Similarly, it NEVER failed to connect or dropped the connection in 3 years of use.

 

[Maelob]

 I have the same issue where once in a while it disconnects from my IMAC - I am using the 2g with LPS, however to be honest it does not really bothers me.  I thought it was a  normal thing.  I call it digital hiccups lol

 

[oneguy]

As stated above, once every few weeks i may have to cycle power pr restart the computer but I don't view it as a big deal.

 

[mandrake50]

  As stated above, once every few weeks i may have to cycle power pr restart the computer but I don't view it as a big deal.

Mine loses it's connection to my Win 7 laptop fairly regularly. I have to power cycle the Infinity, and/or disconnect the USB connection or sometimes reboot the PC AND do those other things to get it to reconnect.  It may not be a deal killer, but it is a PIA and I consider it a defect. Especially considering, as others have noted, that it is the only device out of 6 other DACs that does this. How hard can it be to get a simple handshake right and to keep a USB connection stable?
 
BTW, this problem occurs with the Infinity constantly powered on.

 

[greenkiwi]

I think I'll be moving on to a yggy sooner rather than later

 

[Madeupword]

I think I'll be moving on to a yggy sooner rather than later

Looking forward to your review against the Infinity!
 
Are you still using it with the LCD-XC and 2?

 

[greenkiwi]

Yeah. And I have some ether Cs that are shipping now.

That will mean I have to save up again.

 

[Benny-x]

Yeah. And I have some ether Cs that are shipping now.

That will mean I have to save up again.

So, are you telling us that you'll have an Infinity, Yggdrasil, Ether C, LCD-XC, and LCD-2 all in house at the same time??
 
Can you do a mini-shootout with them all and post up some feedback? I don't have a lot of time for a lot of gear now and just passed on my LCD-2.2s, but having just one good set would be alright. Since I'd have both had the same headphones (2.2s) and same DAC (Infinity), your feedback on them all could really go a long way for me. 
 
And congrats on the new gear, always a fun time :-D

 

[adrian0115]

As promised, I just want to update you guys since I've been using the Infinity since Nov.2015.  I have USB connectivity issues since the very first time I plugged this into my laptop.  In the beginning, I installed the LH 2.29 driver and then plugged the Infinity into my laptop (X220/win7/foobar+wasapi) and foobar would give me unexpected error problems.  Luckily the 3.26 driver came out so I installed that instead and power cycled the Pulse.  I got things to work eventually and just kept the Pulse playing 24/7.
 
Last month (Jan2016), my friend came over to do a little comparison with his Audiolab M-DAC.  I noticed that when I was switching headphones (DT990/HD650) between the 2 DACs caused the Pulse to buzz/crash/die.  Unplugging headphones from the M-DAC I can hear a click which I assume shuts down the circuit preventing any shorts while plugging headphones into the Pulse causes it to short out.  I was simply unplugging headphones from the M-DAC and plugging it back into the Pulse.  I would need to power cycle the Infinity a few times to get it working again.
 
A few people are staying this week so I shutdown the Infinity to move it to another area.  Once I turned it back on and connect it to my laptop again, Foobar gave me the unexpected error then a timing error message.  This also required multiple power cycles to get it working again with foobar again.  I then proceeded to plugging in my HD650's and realized there was no sound coming out until I adjusted the volume knob.  I also noticed a click so I scrolled through the menu and found that somehow the digital filter went from FTM to FRM.  I've always left it on FTM so somehow this thing resetted itself.  
 
I'm really not sure what kind of testing so called professional reviewers etc are doing but really sitting down and using this thing has revealed that it is very finicky.  People can say what they want about Benchmark/Mytek/Audiolab but I've personally used those feel those are all more reliable than the Pulse.  Simply put, the Benchmark/Mytek/Audiolab all feel like a reliable tool and the Pulse feels faulty/finicky.  I simply need to cross my fingers hoping it works again if I power cycle it.  
 
My use cases aren't very difficult.  The setup is an Infinity+LPS+LS 2G connecting to a Thinkpad X220 (8gb/240gb SSD) running win7 64bit+foobar (wasapi/asio).
 
1.)  I expect the DAC to work when plugging it into my laptop after plugging in and handshaking with my laptop (LH control panel recognizes it) but foobar coughs up unexpected/timing error messages and I need to power cycle it multiple times until foobar works again
 
2.) I expect the DAC to work when plugging in headphones but somehow it randomly causes a buzz and crashes the Pulse necessitating multiple power cycles again.
 
I'm not someone that makes a big fuss out of nothing but my real world usage has shown me that this thing isn't very reliable.  I have friends that would also agree with me and that includes the Vi DAC (IR sensor overheat so remote doesn't work if more than 1m away etc).
 
I'll be opening up a ticket to see what LH says.

 

[jbr1971]

  As promised, I just want to update you guys since I've been using the Infinity since Nov.2015.  I have USB connectivity issues since the very first time I plugged this into my laptop.  In the beginning, I installed the LH 2.29 driver and then plugged the Infinity into my laptop (X220/win7/foobar+wasapi) and foobar would give me unexpected error problems.  Luckily the 3.26 driver came out so I installed that instead and power cycled the Pulse.  I got things to work eventually and just kept the Pulse playing 24/7.
 
Last month (Jan2016), my friend came over to do a little comparison with his Audiolab M-DAC.  I noticed that when I was switching headphones (DT990/HD650) between the 2 DACs caused the Pulse to buzz/crash/die.  Unplugging headphones from the M-DAC I can hear a click which I assume shuts down the circuit preventing any shorts while plugging headphones into the Pulse causes it to short out.  I was simply unplugging headphones from the M-DAC and plugging it back into the Pulse.  I would need to power cycle the Infinity a few times to get it working again.
 
A few people are staying this week so I shutdown the Infinity to move it to another area.  Once I turned it back on and connect it to my laptop again, Foobar gave me the unexpected error then a timing error message.  This also required multiple power cycles to get it working again with foobar again.  I then proceeded to plugging in my HD650's and realized there was no sound coming out until I adjusted the volume knob.  I also noticed a click so I scrolled through the menu and found that somehow the digital filter went from FTM to FRM.  I've always left it on FTM so somehow this thing resetted itself.  
 
I'm really not sure what kind of testing so called professional reviewers etc are doing but really sitting down and using this thing has revealed that it is very finicky.  People can say what they want about Benchmark/Mytek/Audiolab but I've personally used those feel those are all more reliable than the Pulse.  Simply put, the Benchmark/Mytek/Audiolab all feel like a reliable tool and the Pulse feels faulty/finicky.  I simply need to cross my fingers hoping it works again if I power cycle it.  
 
My use cases aren't very difficult.  The setup is an Infinity+LPS+LS 2G connecting to a Thinkpad X220 (8gb/240gb SSD) running win7 64bit+foobar (wasapi/asio).
 
1.)  I expect the DAC to work when plugging it into my laptop after plugging in and handshaking with my laptop (LH control panel recognizes it) but foobar coughs up unexpected/timing error messages and I need to power cycle it multiple times until foobar works again
 
2.) I expect the DAC to work when plugging in headphones but somehow it randomly causes a buzz and crashes the Pulse necessitating multiple power cycles again.
 
I'm not someone that makes a big fuss out of nothing but my real world usage has shown me that this thing isn't very reliable.  I have friends that would also agree with me and that includes the Vi DAC (IR sensor overheat so remote doesn't work if more than 1m away etc).
 
I'll be opening up a ticket to see what LH says.

 
Have you tried using a different audio player like VLC or JRiver to see if you get the same behaviors? There is a possibility it could be an issue with Windows and/or Foobar.

 

[adrian0115]

   
Have you tried using a different audio player like VLC or JRiver to see if you get the same behaviors? There is a possibility it could be an issue with Windows and/or Foobar.

 
I have VLC but I don't use it for music.  I could try it next time.  When I power down and up, the Pulse handshakes, shows up in the LH control panel but under foobar (DS, wasapi, asio) doesn't work until I power cycle a few times.  Hard to believe it's foobars problem since other DACs work fine and my dragonfly has never skipped a beat (foobar/wasapi) since I got it in 2012.  I'm willing to test this a bit more as I want to figure out what is the problem as well.
 
Now the other thing that surprised me is the apparent 'short circuit' when I plug in SE/unbalanced headphones.  The Pulse was powered on/working and just buzzed/died/crash however you want to put it when I plugged in a set of SE/unbalanced HD650/DT990.  I can only guess that it's a design decision/fault somehow for the argument of sound quality.  But I can tell you that no matter how many times I plugged/unplugged these headphones with the MDAC (music playing/not playing), there was never a problem since I can hear it click when unplugging the headphones to prevent any shorting I assume.  
 
In case anyone is wondering, the headphones (HD650/DT990) themselves are not defective and works with the MDAC/dragonfly no problem.  

 

[jbr1971]

   
I have VLC but I don't use it for music.  I could try it next time.  When I power down and up, the Pulse handshakes, shows up in the LH control panel but under foobar (DS, wasapi, asio) doesn't work until I power cycle a few times.  Hard to believe it's foobars problem since other DACs work fine and my dragonfly has never skipped a beat (foobar/wasapi) since I got it in 2012.  I'm willing to test this a bit more as I want to figure out what is the problem as well.
 
Now the other thing that surprised me is the apparent 'short circuit' when I plug in SE/unbalanced headphones.  The Pulse was powered on/working and just buzzed/died/crash however you want to put it when I plugged in a set of SE/unbalanced HD650/DT990.  I can only guess that it's a design decision/fault somehow for the argument of sound quality.  But I can tell you that no matter how many times I plugged/unplugged these headphones with the MDAC (music playing/not playing), there was never a problem since I can hear it click when unplugging the headphones to prevent any shorting I assume.  
 
In case anyone is wondering, the headphones (HD650/DT990) themselves are not defective and works with the MDAC/dragonfly no problem.  

 
Are you using any adaptors, or aftermarket cables when connecting your headphones?
 
I had a 1/8" to 1/4" adaptor that caused short circuits when connecting my iem's to my Pulse. I tried another of the same type (different brand) of adaptor and it worked fine.

 

[adrian0115]

 
Are you using any adaptors, or aftermarket cables when connecting your headphones?
 
I had a 1/8" to 1/4" adaptor that caused short circuits when connecting my iem's to my Pulse. I tried another of the same type (different brand) of adaptor and it worked fine.

 


You're kidding right? The HD650/DT990's don't need an adapter to plug into the 1/4" SE output on the Pulse.