Geek Pulse: Geek desktop DAC/AMP by Light Harmonics

[FlySweep]

Er, I don't think SSM is released yet. Larry is still working on that one and he last posted about a few days ago saying it works well for Tidal and YouTube.

Lol.. Well, there's placebo for you (er, me).. It sure sounded slightly brighter to my ears than FTM.. But clearly, that was in my head.

 

[mscott58]

Lol.. Well, there's placebo for you (er, me).. It sure sounded slightly brighter to my ears than FTM.. But clearly, that was in my head.

Ah, that's the "IYH" filter... 

 

[Ham Sandwich]

  While I'm waiting for this to arrive, let's talk filters.
 
I hear a lot of appreciation for the FTM filter. Did people prefer FTM even before the ~50-hour break-in/warm-up period is complete? Obviously assuming you have the femto clocks.

 
Mine took a couple days before the FTM filter didn't sound broken. After a couple days of the Xfi being left on 24/7 the FTM filter finally kicked in and did magic instead of making things sound worse.
 
When listening with the Liquid Fire amp I was getting really weird wonky soundstage when engaging the FTM filter.  Weird things with some songs.  With some songs the soundstage would lose all depth and go completely flat, and would get unnaturally wide and separated.  That is the complete opposite of what the Liquid Fire normally sounds like.  I've never ever heard the Liquid Fire sound like that with any DAC before.  Really weird.  I'd plug the headphones (LCD-2 balanced) in the Xfi and it wouldn't sound right, but also wasn't sounding that wrong.  Then switch over to the Liquid Fire and the sound would be so completely wrong.  It was like that for the first day and part of the second day.  Then I stopped trying the FTM filter for the third day.  Tried it again on the 4th day and finally experienced magic.  Throughout this time the TCM and FRM were working.  Only the FTM filter was wonky.
 
I don't know how much of that was due to an initial burning-in of the DAC, and how much was due to the femto clocks needing to stabilize.  After I get some more burn-in time on the DAC I'll turn it off overnight, then turn it on and try the FTM filter to see how it behaves and how long it takes to settle and do magic again.  Hopefully it takes a few hours rather than 50+ hours to get that magic back.

 

[leomitch]

Don't worry! The 50 hours was the initial burnin. It only takes an hour or so to warm u the old femto clocks after the Infinity has been off for awhile.
 
Leo

 

[mscott58]

Darn USPS! Expected delivery date of today for my Infinity has come and gone. Now I have to wait another day. 
 
Well, given how long this trip has been, I guess I can't really complain about one more day, but it's a bit of torture to give an estimate and build up hope only to then push it back. 
 
Cheers 

 

[kenman345]

Had a pair of Koss headphones modded and reterminated. These babies are now rocking a 3.5mm TRRS in prep for a Geek Out V2, and I made an extension adapter cable to get it to 4-pin XLR. 
 
These headphones are for a friend as a present actually, but I am gonna enjoy them for a few days before I send them to him. Really enjoying them.
 
Got my LPS supposedly arriving tomorrow, which means that we have potential for things to get way better since my unit isnt even fully burnt in yet. 

 

[coletrain104]

I don't get why streaming music should sound different/need a special digital filter. Does this mean SSM will sound superior with streamed music, but not regular files? what makes that difference? seems strange to me

 

[miceblue]

Stable Streaming Mode attempts to predict incoming signals with an altered USB buffer. Streaming music has no protocols to reduce any jitter, so SSM will attempt to help reduce that.

It's pretty interesting if you ask me. I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing before.

Once again, the idea was brought to Larry's attention from the Geek Force upon the release of Tidal.

 

[SilverTrumpet999]

My suspicion is that it's not truly predictive, rather, it's... a buffer. The latency between the audio on the comp and the audio from the device has to be increased.
 
This is how devices like the Apple Airport Extreme are able to output a digital stream from AirPlay, even over less-than-ideal Wi-Fi. It's buffered. This is a separate problem from the usual USB2 stream, with its own challenges (how big should the buffer be, how do you gracefully handle dropouts, etc.). The devil is of course in the details and these are non-trivial, but I can't imagine the secret sauce boiling down to more than a clever buffer.

 

[nudd]

Stable Streaming Mode attempts to predict incoming signals with an altered USB buffer. Streaming music has no protocols to reduce any jitter, so SSM will attempt to help reduce that.

It's pretty interesting if you ask me. I don't think I've ever heard of such a thing before.

Once again, the idea was brought to Larry's attention from the Geek Force upon the release of Tidal.

This is the bit i dont get. There is already a super duper 3L patent pending whatever buffer technology implemented in the Pulse. Why should you need to predict anything.

As far as the femto is concerned I agree. Even if i leave it the whole day, when i get home and play music, for the first hour sounds pretty cold and the soundstage is very flat. As in right inside the head and in between the ears flat.

Then suddenly after about an hour of playing music something magically clicks and the magic happens.

 

[gilfish]

  Hi, Gary and Miceblue
 
Hmm... I discussed with Matt for your issues. I guest you already open a ticket there. Matt will help you solve these problems.
 
Larry

Hi Larry,
 
I submitted a support ticket as you suggested. My support ticket number is #12040. By the way, I tried to figure out how to reproduce the issue, but I can't seem to figure out what triggers it. Unlike Miceblue's issue, mine seems to be very intermittent. There are more details in the support request.
 
Gary

 

[kenman345]

I am afraid to try but is it possible to pair a second/new apple remote with a unit that had a different remote previously? I wanted to figure out if I can use two different remotes around my room and/or what happens when/if mine breaks or is lost in the future, what happens then

 

[mscott58]

This is the bit i dont get. There is already a super duper 3L patent pending whatever buffer technology implemented in the Pulse. Why should you need to predict anything.

As far as the femto is concerned I agree. Even if i leave it the whole day, when i get home and play music, for the first hour sounds pretty cold and the soundstage is very flat. As in right inside the head and in between the ears flat.

Then suddenly after about an hour of playing music something magically clicks and the magic happens.

So it seems like there are two separate, but related, timelines on the Xfi/Sfi/Infinity to be aware of. 
 
First is the "burn-in" time when the unit is new, which from the group seems to be around 50-100 hours. 
 
Second is "warm-up" time, with the Femto's stabilizing, which seems to be around 45-60 minutes. 
 
I'll be leaving my Infinity on full time (hope to get it today!) so after a week I shouldn't have to worry about either of these timelines! 
 
Cheers 

 

[germay0653]

This is the bit i dont get. There is already a super duper 3L patent pending whatever buffer technology implemented in the Pulse. Why should you need to predict anything.

As far as the femto is concerned I agree. Even if i leave it the whole day, when i get home and play music, for the first hour sounds pretty cold and the soundstage is very flat. As in right inside the head and in between the ears flat.

Then suddenly after about an hour of playing music something magically clicks and the magic happens.

I believe it has more to do with improving the sound of the lower sampling rate files used by Pandora (128 Kbps) and Spotify (320 Kkbps).  It somehow manages to improve, maybe predict, what a higher sampled file would sound like plus fixing jitter issues.
 
From Vi DAC Indiegogo page:
SSM (Stable Streaming Mode) is designed to optimize Vi DAC for streaming music. This mode combats two most important issues of streaming your music: time-fluctuated high jitter music content, and compressed roll off of high frequency harmonics. With SSM, Vi DAC will restore your streaming music's timing using our patent-pending three layer buffer. Expect a richer sound in the mid and high band frequency range.

 

[mandrake50]

   
Mine took a couple days before the FTM filter didn't sound broken. After a couple days of the Xfi being left on 24/7 the FTM filter finally kicked in and did magic instead of making things sound worse...
I don't know how much of that was due to an initial burning-in of the DAC, and how much was due to the femto clocks needing to stabilize.  After I get some more burn-in time on the DAC I'll turn it off overnight, then turn it on and try the FTM filter to see how it behaves and how long it takes to settle and do magic again.  Hopefully it takes a few hours rather than 50+ hours to get that magic back.

I am a bit confused about all of this. If it takes 50 hours after a person gets their unit with Femto clocks to work properly with the FTM filter, how can they possibly QC test these things before they go out the door. If they did test it, and it takes 50 hours to stabilize,  then they must have already run the units in for that period.   If we accept that it only takes running the units in once, then an hour to warm up, then the conclusion has to be that LHL did not test the filter before shipment. That would put their entire QC program into doubt for me.