[Ostrichcized]

Also kind of makes me wonder if Larry or Gavin tried out the versions that backers are receiving...pulled directly from stock rather than as prototypes or a small first run batch.  With the reviews coming out as they are, I really can't believe that's the type of quality of product that they would want their name on. Maybe it's a possibility that they got swindled all around. It's not so much that they're inexpensive headphones as it is the trust that everyone put in to LH comments that they live up to the MSRP, which doesn't seem to be the case by a long shot. That opens the door to question potentially inflated MSRPs on all LH products, which seems like a terrible situation for a company that is building its reputation on "trust us, it will be better than anything at x times the price." Let's face it, LH could have put up IEMs worth 10x the price and some people still would have purchased them on blind faith, being a fraction of what they've spent on other yet to be delivered LH gear. Just doesn't seem to add up.

 

[doublea71]

  Also a chance that both firms were given "exclusive rights" to the same thing, without knowing about each other. Kind of like when people used to sell 200% of a company by just printing more stock certificates. Stockholders were happy until they found out about the other "owners". 
 
Given the apparent MO of Xuma/Gradus in making their own "versions" of things I'd give the benefit of the doubt to LHL. 
 
Just for fun I went ahead and ordered a pair of the $25 Xuma's from B&H. Will take a listen and bring them with me to CanJam in a few weeks in case anyone else wants to take a look. 
 
Cheers

That's definitely possible, too, and Casey stated : 
 
  "....First off, thanks so much for bringing this to our attention. Obviously the form factor design aspect of Verb has been adopted by this company as well.  This is something that we are addressing with our manufacturing facility and are looking to have them provide us with answers immediately.  Under our original agreement with the factory, we were lead to believe that we would be the only ones in possessions of the design molds for Verb."
 
It sounds as though the OEM they are using sold it to Xuma in spite of their agreement with LH, but I don't know if LH has any recourse since they're dealing with Chinese law. Am I right to assume that they are made in China?

 

[jexby]

Earbud-Gate?

Wow. Not sure it's worthy of a Congressional inquiry but guess conspiracy theories can be entertaining to some.

 

[miceblue]

I received my replacement Geek Pulse today.


To be safe I wouldn’t plug any IEMs into the Pulse, but just for brief experiment I plugged in my ATH-IM02’s. Interestingly, the very sensitive IM02 picks up a fair amount of hiss on the Pulse, whereas it’s more or less dead quiet on my Objective 2 + ODAC. This seems to suggest that the Geek Pulse has a higher noise floor than the Objective 2/ODAC, though it’s seemingly not high enough to show up on the DT770 or the Z7. The IM02 picks up hiss on all kinds of things. The Pulse doesn't hiss quite as much as say, the Sony NWZ-A15 Walkman I have.
 
As far as how the unit sounds, I’m going to refrain from saying too much until I can do some volume matched listening against my Objective 2. I can’t really hear any difference between the various digital filter modes, so I’m sticking with the fancy FTM mode. What I can say is that from immediate first impression the unit doesn’t sound significantly worse or better or even different from my O2, which is fine given the cost. It sounds clean and neutral and the DT770 sounds characteristically brash and thumpy. I’m quite happy with the sound. 

Glad to hear that you've received a working unit! Looking forward to your impressions.

Ah.....hiss with IEMs doesn't sound very good though, similar to my Geek Out 450. The ODAC/O2 is still the blackest of black DAC/amps I've owned in terms of noise. I don't really understand why designers choose to make them noisy like that. The Chord Hugo was especially disappointing in that regard and even more so that it was part of a tour unit with all super sensitive IEMs/CIEMS....

I'm curious about your O2 comparisons though. How do you plan to do your tests? Geek Pulse versus Geek Pulse -> O2?
I found the Geek Out to sound different than the ODAC/O2 in some aspects; most notably the lack of the "Sabre glare"/"bright" sound that people often associate with the ODAC/O2.

 

[jbr1971]

 
As far as how the unit sounds, I’m going to refrain from saying too much until I can do some volume matched listening against my Objective 2. I can’t really hear any difference between the various digital filter modes, so I’m sticking with the fancy FTM mode. What I can say is that from immediate first impression the unit doesn’t sound significantly worse or better or even different from my O2, which is fine given the cost. It sounds clean and neutral and the DT770 sounds characteristically brash and thumpy. I’m quite happy with the sound. 
 
 
Edit: Also I wanted to check, is the '3D Awesomefier' a thing that was implemented in the Pulse as described in the first post of this thread, and if so, can it be turned on or off? 

 
What version of the Pulse are you using? If it is the basic version, the FTM filter mode is just a placeholder and will not do anything to the output. If you have a Pulse with femto clocks, then the FTM filter will be of benefit after the Pulse has been powered on for a few hours to properly warm up the femto clocks.
 
The Pulse does not have a 3D Awesomifier mode. That was only in the Geek Out, firmware 1.0.
 
Jody

 

[a_recording]

Glad to hear that you've received a working unit! Looking forward to your impressions.

Ah.....hiss with IEMs doesn't sound very good though, similar to my Geek Out 450. The ODAC/O2 is still the blackest of black DAC/amps I've owned in terms of noise. I don't really understand why designers choose to make them noisy like that. The Chord Hugo was especially disappointing in that regard and even more so that it was part of a tour unit with all super sensitive IEMs/CIEMS....

I'm curious about your O2 comparisons though. How do you plan to do your tests? Geek Pulse versus Geek Pulse -> O2?
I found the Geek Out to sound different than the ODAC/O2 in some aspects; most notably the lack of the "Sabre glare"/"bright" sound that people often associate with the ODAC/O2.

 
Multi-BA units like the IM02 tend to pick up all kinds of hiss on various things, but again I wouldn't use any IEM on the Pulse at all considering that an accidental power on / off pop could blow the IEM and this would be considered user error.
 
I would be comparing Geek Pulse to the O2/ODAC combination. I'm still working out the format of the tests because arranging a strict double blind test may be very difficult and time consuming.
 
Just for first impressions tests at home though I am just going to play a 1khz sine wave into the line input of my audio recorder, and volume match by visually matching the output level readout. This method is roughly accurate to about 2dB. Thankfully the Geek Pulse has such tiny volume increments a match should be easy to achieve. Then I'm just going to use a SESCOM A/B switch to compare the two setups.
 
This arrangement is obviously not going to convince anyone who doubts the quality of the A/B switch equipment or the various cables I'm using to arrange the setup, but I've been pretty happy with this method in the past. Otherwise I could perform the volume match and then remove the A/B switch and just swap between the two units manually, though I find it a lot easier to make comparisons when the switchover is instantaneous. 
 

   
What version of the Pulse are you using? If it is the basic version, the FTM filter mode is just a placeholder and will not do anything to the output. If you have a Pulse with femto clocks, then the FTM filter will be of benefit after the Pulse has been powered on for a few hours to properly warm up the femto clocks.
 
The Pulse does not have a 3D Awesomifier mode. That was only in the Geek Out, firmware 1.0.
 
Jody

 
Thanks Jody. I have a vanilla Pulse here. What filter mode does the Pulse default to when you select FTM with no femto clock perk (ie: what have I been listening to all this time?)

 

[mscott58]

Hey everyone. Just posted something on LHLabs.com that I think might clear things up on some people's impression of the Verb. Don't want to re-post the entire thing here so I don't get in trouble with Jude and Joe. Here's the link
 
http://lhlabs.com/force/impression/3790-a-tale-of-two-verbs#59978
 
Cheers 
 
PS - Going to put this in the Wave thread as well since the Verb comments seem to be scattered across both of these Geek/LHL threads.

 

[doublea71]

  Hey everyone. Just posted something on LHLabs.com that I think might clear things up on some people's impression of the Verb. Don't want to re-post the entire thing here so I don't get in trouble with Jude and Joe. Here's the link
 
http://lhlabs.com/force/impression/3790-a-tale-of-two-verbs#59978
 
Cheers 
 
PS - Going to put this in the Wave thread as well since the Verb comments seem to be scattered across both of these Geek/LHL threads.

Interesting post - glad you like them after all.

 

[jbr1971]

  Thanks Jody. I have a vanilla Pulse here. What filter mode does the Pulse default to when you select FTM with no femto clock perk (ie: what have I been listening to all this time?)

 
To my knowledge it defaults to the previous filter mode used. If you went straight to FTM after the first bootup, then it would be the default of TCM.
 
Jody

 

[miceblue]

I would be comparing Geek Pulse to the O2/ODAC combination. I'm still working out the format of the tests because arranging a strict double blind test may be very difficult and time consuming.

Just for first impressions tests at home though I am just going to play a 1khz sine wave into the line input of my audio recorder, and volume match by visually matching the output level readout. This method is roughly accurate to about 2dB. Thankfully the Geek Pulse has such tiny volume increments a match should be easy to achieve. Then I'm just going to use a SESCOM A/B switch to compare the two setups.

This arrangement is obviously not going to convince anyone who doubts the quality of the A/B switch equipment or the various cables I'm using to arrange the setup, but I've been pretty happy with this method in the past. Otherwise I could perform the volume match and then remove the A/B switch and just swap between the two units manually, though I find it a lot easier to make comparisons when the switchover is instantaneous. 

Oh I see. ODAC/O2 combo.
I've been meaning to write an Apple Script to do ABX tests with 2 DACs in the Audirvana Plus music player. I have 2 scripts that can switch to a different DAC in the media player (A and B), but I'm still working on getting a script to tabulate a value and read it for the X of the ABX.

I'll look into that A/B switch too if I can't get my FiiO HS2 to work properly again. With the Geek Out comparisons, I just roughly volume-matched by ear and switched the headphone plug from one DAC/amp to the other as I used the Apple Script to switch DACs on the computer.

 

[eac3]

By the way, my tracking page finally updated to show the infinity, as well as the free 2G cable. 
 
whew....

 

[a_recording]

Oh I see. ODAC/O2 combo.
I've been meaning to write an Apple Script to do ABX tests with 2 DACs in the Audirvana Plus music player. I have 2 scripts that can switch to a different DAC in the media player (A and B), but I'm still working on getting a script to tabulate a value and read it for the X of the ABX.

I'll look into that A/B switch too if I can't get my FiiO HS2 to work properly again. With the Geek Out comparisons, I just roughly volume-matched by ear and switched the headphone plug from one DAC/amp to the other as I used the Apple Script to switch DACs on the computer.

 
Ah, you totally reminded me I can set up a multi-output device on a Mac and output to both DACs at once! That will make life easier.

 

[greenkiwi]

  Also kind of makes me wonder if Larry or Gavin tried out the versions that backers are receiving...pulled directly from stock rather than as prototypes or a small first run batch.  With the reviews coming out as they are, I really can't believe that's the type of quality of product that they would want their name on. Maybe it's a possibility that they got swindled all around. It's not so much that they're inexpensive headphones as it is the trust that everyone put in to LH comments that they live up to the MSRP, which doesn't seem to be the case by a long shot. That opens the door to question potentially inflated MSRPs on all LH products, which seems like a terrible situation for a company that is building its reputation on "trust us, it will be better than anything at x times the price." Let's face it, LH could have put up IEMs worth 10x the price and some people still would have purchased them on blind faith, being a fraction of what they've spent on other yet to be delivered LH gear. Just doesn't seem to add up.

This is currently my question too... I'll let mine burn in... then see.  Maybe they always listened to very burned in headphones.  I can see where a mechanical device can change behavior has it gets used/moved.

 

[greenkiwi]

Oh I see. ODAC/O2 combo.
I've been meaning to write an Apple Script to do ABX tests with 2 DACs in the Audirvana Plus music player. I have 2 scripts that can switch to a different DAC in the media player (A and B), but I'm still working on getting a script to tabulate a value and read it for the X of the ABX.

I'll look into that A/B switch too if I can't get my FiiO HS2 to work properly again. With the Geek Out comparisons, I just roughly volume-matched by ear and switched the headphone plug from one DAC/amp to the other as I used the Apple Script to switch DACs on the computer.

If you are using a Mac, you can go into midi settings and create a compound device that will send the same music to both devices at the same exact time.  This can be quite useful for AB testing.

 

[miceblue]

If you are using a Mac, you can go into midi settings and create a compound device that will send the same music to both devices at the same exact time.  This can be quite useful for AB testing.

True. I was hoping to use it with the Audirvana Plus application though and that doesn't allow a multi-device output like that unfortunately. I guess I can use VOX to play music instead. iTunes cuts off frequencies above 18 kHz I believe, so I have no idea what it does to my music.