[beyermann]

Hi, im considering to buy a Lake People to plug into my NI AK1 outputs, so I can have my monitors driven by the AK1, and the Lake People drives my 600 ohm monitors which I use to produce music so I need nice clarity, clear sound, good soundstage. I am deciding between g103-P, 105 and g109-P, must be XLR and not RCA so I don't need to buy new cables.

Anyway, while doing research I saw this video:



Go to 1 minute 52 seconds.

He mentions that, if you plug an high impedance headphone on one jack, and then you plug another headphone of low impedance in the other jack, one of the two will explode in flames literally.

Well I was looking forward to plug my big DT 770 600 ohm in one jack and my cheap earbuds in the other jack which I use for youtube videos and non important stuff to get a rest in my head from the weight of headphones, but now im of course worried. Imagine it explodes while u are wearing them... yeah not fun. If this is true then I think this is insane. How is this even legal to sell?

 

[jherbert]

Don't think this would ever happen. These are built to very tough german regulatory standards and used in studios all over the world. But why not ask lake people directly an share your findings?

 

[jherbert]

And as to reviewers qualification, a quote from the comments section:

Bruno Rodriguesvor 2 Jahren
Hi. Lake people does have Low Gain, Medium Gain and High Gain. The thing is you have to open the box and change the jumper position.

Z Reviewsvor 2 Jahren
+Tony Roscas Yeah I mention that in the description and in an annotation. I knew that 30 days before I started and totally forgot by the time I recorded.

Any questions?

 

[beyermann]

And as to reviewers qualification, a quote from the comments section:

Bruno Rodriguesvor 2 Jahren
Hi. Lake people does have Low Gain, Medium Gain and High Gain. The thing is you have to open the box and change the jumper position.

Z Reviewsvor 2 Jahren
+Tony Roscas Yeah I mention that in the description and in an annotation. I knew that 30 days before I started and totally forgot by the time I recorded.

Any questions?

I don't understand. So you have to open the box, unscrew it, and change some jumper everytime you want to use earbuds? I dont get it.

 

[jherbert]

Yes, you need to open it when you want to switch gain. Not designed for your use case. It pro equipment. Get something else.

 

[beyermann]

Yes, you need to open it when you want to switch gain. Not designed for your use case. It pro equipment. Get something else.

What do you mean "pro use"? I actually make money making music, does that make me a pro? And what would you recommend? One wouldn't need a sound engineering degree to achieve clear sound on 600 ohm headphones.

 

[jherbert]

Pro use means deigned and built to pro requirements as they see the pro market, in contrast to hifi and or highend users. Lake people has product lines dedicated to the consumer market, and it seems they are better suited to meet your requirements, imho. The most flexible one of these when it comes to gain settings ist discussed here https://www.head-fi.org/threads/nii...us4-us4-headphone-amps-by-lake-people.876018/.

This does not mean you're not a pro. Your requirements (600 Ohm + <30 Ohms or so, easily switchable gain) just differ from their feature set.

I use an rme adi-2 dac that comes with two outputs. One of these is optimized for inears, the other general purpose with automatic gain setting (in default mode). rme is a pro company, too. The adi-2 dac is the consumer sibling variant of the adi-2 pro, which offers ad/da plus balanced headphone output, while the dac is just a dac, plus unbalanced headphone amp. The pro lets you set the volume of its two outputs independently in unbalanced mode. Now, the adi-2 is what I use. Your milage may vary.

 

[moriez]

Go to 1 minute 52 seconds.

He mentions that, if you plug an high impedance headphone on one jack, and then you plug another headphone of low impedance in the other jack, one of the two will explode in flames literally.

I too doubt anything like that will happen, especially the flames part. Unless it's stated in the manual you really shouldn't try.

What's better than the designer's opinion, Freid Reim @fdg
If you'd ask him to respond in your thread than it will be clear as it can be.

 

[Fegefeuer]

Z is very often a complete moron. I wonder how and why people follow him at all.

These amps are designed to have a headphones in every jack and play from both outputs. Hell, I can use 3 headphones simultaneously on my LP amp. I am still alive and so are any other fairs, shows, canjams Lake People attends over the world where multiple headphones are plugged in
their amps as they are designed to.

BRB rushing home to check if the building I live in hasn't burned down or exploded.

 

[fdg]

Funny review that.

I would recommend reading the manual first and than compare.
So Z would have known that on G109 there are 3 different gain settings,
that the figures for the output power are per channel,
that provisions are made so amp will not explode.

But, if you connect a very sensitive headphone to one socket and a very hard to drive headphone to the other ...
than listen to the hard to drive headphone with high levels ... it may be that you will cook the high sensitive headphone meanwhile ...

Sorry, our gear is not dummy-proof under any circumstances.
Remembers me of the cat in the microwave, the Starbucks labeling on the coffee mug: hot beverage,
and, best of all: Objects in the rear view mirror may be closer than they appear.
There is always a gaggle of attorneys hunting you when you are a manufacturer.

Well, to come back to the point again:
We´ve employed high efficient current limiters and other measures to avoid "explosions" or "flames".
Everything on the "life" side of our gear, power socket, cables, fuse, transformer, power switch, PCB, is made to UL specifications.
Like every responsible manufacturer will do. https://www.ul.com/

With heavy improper use it may be that something will break inside - but for those cases we have a fuse to cut mains.

Best regards, Fried Reim

 

[beyermann]

Pro use means deigned and built to pro requirements as they see the pro market, in contrast to hifi and or highend users. Lake people has product lines dedicated to the consumer market, and it seems they are better suited to meet your requirements, imho. The most flexible one of these when it comes to gain settings ist discussed here https://www.head-fi.org/threads/nii...us4-us4-headphone-amps-by-lake-people.876018/.

This does not mean you're not a pro. Your requirements (600 Ohm + <30 Ohms or so, easily switchable gain) just differ from their feature set.

I use an rme adi-2 dac that comes with two outputs. One of these is optimized for inears, the other general purpose with automatic gain setting (in default mode). rme is a pro company, too. The adi-2 dac is the consumer sibling variant of the adi-2 pro, which offers ad/da plus balanced headphone output, while the dac is just a dac, plus unbalanced headphone amp. The pro lets you set the volume of its two outputs independently in unbalanced mode. Now, the adi-2 is what I use. Your milage may vary.

These are too expensive. Anything on the budget of the g103p that will drive a 600 ohm properly?

 

[beyermann]

Funny review that.

I would recommend reading the manual first and than compare.
So Z would have known that on G109 there are 3 different gain settings,
that the figures for the output power are per channel,
that provisions are made so amp will not explode.

But, if you connect a very sensitive headphone to one socket and a very hard to drive headphone to the other ...
than listen to the hard to drive headphone with high levels ... it may be that you will cook the high sensitive headphone meanwhile ...

Sorry, our gear is not dummy-proof under any circumstances.
Remembers me of the cat in the microwave, the Starbucks labeling on the coffee mug: hot beverage,
and, best of all: Objects in the rear view mirror may be closer than they appear.
There is always a gaggle of attorneys hunting you when you are a manufacturer.

Well, to come back to the point again:
We´ve employed high efficient current limiters and other measures to avoid "explosions" or "flames".
Everything on the "life" side of our gear, power socket, cables, fuse, transformer, power switch, PCB, is made to UL specifications.
Like every responsible manufacturer will do. https://www.ul.com/

With heavy improper use it may be that something will break inside - but for those cases we have a fuse to cut mains.

Best regards, Fried Reim

I recommend that you put a big sticker that says "do not plug high impedance headphone in one jack and low impedance headphone in other jack at once", you never know who is buying your gear and you don't want people's cans breaking while wearing them, so you want to cover your ass in case someone does that, there would be no excuse if there is a sign there, even noobs could realize not to do it. Some people just want to enjoy a nice sound, not everyone has to be a sound engineer or do good in physics class for that, just saying.

Z is very often a complete moron. I wonder how and why people follow him at all.

These amps are designed to have a headphones in every jack and play from both outputs. Hell, I can use 3 headphones simultaneously on my LP amp. I am still alive and so are any other fairs, shows, canjams Lake People attends over the world where multiple headphones are plugged in
their amps as they are designed to.

BRB rushing home to check if the building I live in hasn't burned down or exploded.

The problem is not using two headphones at once but two that differ a lot in ohms.

 

[Fegefeuer]

If two headphones differ in sensivity by a good, great or very large margin and they are both driven by the same volume, don't you think the loudness will differ a lot aswell?
That's common sense, man, there's no sound engineering or anything else needed. Not at all.

if people break their cans this way they surely deserve it.

 

[beyermann]

If two headphones differ in sensivity by a good, great or very large margin and they are both driven by the same volume, don't you think the loudness will differ a lot aswell?
That's common sense, man, there's no sound engineering or anything else needed. Not at all.

if people break their cans this way they surely deserve it.

Do you at least have a tutorial with pics in how to open the case and change the jumper so it works better with 600 ohm cans? This guy says the asgard 2 is too warm for studio use

Yes, Schiit is warm sounding, not ideal for studio use, G109 is made for studio use from the start, it's a totally neutral amp, but unlike the O2 for example, doesn't suffer from sounding thin and lifeless. G109 also has quite a bit more power than Asgard 2 as well.

the Lake People really sounds like it could be what im looking for (neutral, no bs amp). Does this neutral sound apply to g103-p too? he is talking about g109.. but g109 too expensive for me.

Also, I ask: is my AK1 too cheap and will create a bottleneck and I will not be able to 100% enjoy it until I buy a RME or something?

About the fire problem... I will just not plug 2 headphones at once ever. I still think anyone deserves top notch sound too without having no idea how the internals work, just put on a warning sign or have fun when eventually someone ****s their headphones up while wearing them, I will not deal with that problem anyway, it's not my business.

 

[Fegefeuer]

How about you listen to the amp first before opening it and setting pre-gain jumpers?

I have a HD800 that can go up to 640Ohm, and I listened to a T1 that can go over 1000 Ohm peak impedance. Yet my pre-gain is -14db. There is no magical "this is for 600 Ohm headphones" button like in gamer soundcards and other bling bling stuff. Those devices need to make it very easy because gamers are mostly less interested in getting to know their sound.

Yet all these gamer soundcards are actually underpowered, limpy.

Anyway: The amp either delivers all power/voltage/swing/whatever for a headphone that requires it (+headroom) or the amp is at its limits, is underpowered.

The G109-P definitely isn't underpowered for a DT770 600 Ohm. By Far.