Geek Pulse: Geek desktop DAC/AMP by Light Harmonics
May 7, 2016 at 1:25 AM Post #11,251 of 13,800
  Apparently my Pulse X Infinity is shipping in June. 
 
Has anyone had any luck in requesting a refund? I really don't need the thing at this point.

Mine should be shipping this month... I doubt the pulse would have the same success if the campaign was done in 2016.
 
May 7, 2016 at 11:36 AM Post #11,252 of 13,800
Think everyone would have stayed way. The LONG wait, upgrade path, and motherboard issues are known now.
The board problems are the most concern. A Dac/preamp/headphone amp should be stone reliable. No moving parts. Same with the power supplies. These should be 20 year life expectancy.
I never expected that company viability was an issue because dacs never fail. With a Mac there are no driver issues to obsolete connectivity.
My current Dac was designed in 2009. Works fine with all releases of OS. 64 bit was a new driver many years ago.
It may be that with 384k and DSD 512 functionality there will be more issues. 20.00 dacs can run 96/24.
 
May 9, 2016 at 3:39 AM Post #11,254 of 13,800
See review below:-
 
http://lhlabs.com/forum/topic/so-did-anyone-get-a-pulse-s-infinity/
 
BUNN077 wrote:-
I bought one secondhand with LPS1 from another guy here in Australia. He only had it for 2 weeks.
The SQ and soundstage is brilliant. I work in a HIFI store and have compared it to Primare, Cambridge Audio, Audio Research, Plinius, Rega etc and the only one that was a decent jump ahead was the AR CD9 USB input which is $21K here.
 
May 9, 2016 at 4:36 AM Post #11,255 of 13,800
   
 
I had the Pulse Infinity and LPS and gave it good amount of break in. Same experience here. I found the sound was clean, low noise, black background, good bass, good soundstage e.t.c but it was lifeless and lacked realism. It sounded like hi-fi, not a high end sound.

There are plenty of people who have the opposite experience. I put it down to these possible reasons...
 
1. Equipment matching / compatibility - This is always a factor, perhaps only certain equipment really gels with the Pulse
 
2. Product variants - There are so many design variants of the Pulse, perhaps certain input and outputs combinations used work better than others with certain downstream equipment
 
3. Bad manufacturing batch - This is certainly a possibility considering what has happened with LHLABS suppliers.
 
4. Experience - How to put this delicately... perhaps some people have not experienced real high end audiophile sound. Many people here on Head-Fi deal in the low price bracket. This is not to say expensive is always better, i have heard plenty of 20k systems that sound garbage, but once you hear true realism in audio its hard to go back to a hifi type of sound.

 

 
Hi agisthos,
 
Thanks for sharing your input.
 
If you read Michael Lavorgna review below (Jul 23, 2015), i'm sure he has ample experience with real high end audio.    Not sure if what you are experiencing is due to the other factors.
 
http://www.audiostream.com/content/lh-labs-geek-pulse-xfi-linear-power-supply-4-lps4#dg65d4VxSwbUMqW7.97
 
 
I do agree with you that true realism in audio is the holy grail.   Would you mind sharing with us the DACs and other components , especially speakers and headphones that you think is really up there in terms of true realism?     Really interested to know.
 
 
 
 
 

 
May 9, 2016 at 5:06 AM Post #11,256 of 13,800
 
I do agree with you that true realism in audio is the holy grail.   Would you mind sharing with us the DACs and other components , especially speakers and headphones that you think is really up there in terms of true realism?     Really interested to know.
 

 
As stated previously, I am not a headphones guy so that makes me an outlier here. I auditioned the Pulse in my stereo setup.
 
Speakers are Reference 3A MM DeCapo Monitors (latest version), power amplifier is Luminance Audio KST 150.

Both these components are high bandwidth, tending towards ultra neutrality in sound, which allow you to hear everything upstream, easily hear cable differences, amp differences e.t.c
 
Recent DAC's tried are Calyx DAC with battery supply, about 3 different Audio-GD DAC's, Cyenne 3100, and the TeddyDAC-VC. The single box Teddy blew the Pulse away direct connected to my amp. But this could very well be an equipment mismatch.
 
The TeddyDAC is not a product you will see talked about here, because it has no headphone output. It has a true analog type realism to the sound. This is possibly due to its use of 11 Teddy super regulators to power the various bits on the PCB. In turn, these low noise regulators allow the use of a JFET zero feedback unity gain buffer stage. This discrete output stage has a vacuum tube characteristic and linearity.

I am giving you the sales pitch there, but that's exactly what I hear with the TeddyDAC. 
 
May 9, 2016 at 10:23 PM Post #11,258 of 13,800
See review below:-

http://lhlabs.com/forum/topic/so-did-anyone-get-a-pulse-s-infinity/

BUNN077 wrote:-
I bought one secondhand with LPS1 from another guy here in Australia. He only had it for 2 weeks.
The SQ and soundstage is brilliant. I work in a HIFI store and have compared it to Primare, Cambridge Audio, Audio Research, Plinius, Rega etc and the only one that was a decent jump ahead was the AR CD9 USB input which is $21K here.
WOW!!
 
May 10, 2016 at 2:18 AM Post #11,259 of 13,800
Because most compared it in conjuction by using its internal headphone amp (w/c is a plus/addition, but the weak link). Not that many uses it as intended to be... a dammed excellent DAC.
 
May 10, 2016 at 8:05 PM Post #11,261 of 13,800
I use it 3 ways. I use both the single ended and balanced outs as well as its own headphone amp.


Same here.  The headamp isn't that bad.  Is it top tier? Certainly not but it's not LowFi either.
 
May 10, 2016 at 9:06 PM Post #11,263 of 13,800
How does the balanced output sound and what kind of headphones do you mainly use?

 
It sounds very good.  I run it out into a Liquid Carbon.  The key is getting the output right on the Pulse Infinity.  The output is variable so the volume controls.  For the Liquid Carbon you need to be basically at 0.0 which is the fixed output.  That doesn't work well if you are trying to use a single ended amplifier, like the Lycan with the SSA v5D.  Then it is way too much.
 
I have used a variety of headphones balanced out through the Liquid Carbon such as my HE6, Grado HP2 or HE560. 
 
I will say that on straight CDs,  the Pulse is not on the same level as my Meridian CD player but the Meridian doesn't play anything above redbook.
 
May 10, 2016 at 9:48 PM Post #11,264 of 13,800
 
It sounds very good.  I run it out into a Liquid Carbon.  The key is getting the output right on the Pulse Infinity.  The output is variable so the volume controls.  For the Liquid Carbon you need to be basically at 0.0 which is the fixed output.  That doesn't work well if you are trying to use a single ended amplifier, like the Lycan with the SSA v5D.  Then it is way too much.
 
I have used a variety of headphones balanced out through the Liquid Carbon such as my HE6, Grado HP2 or HE560. 
 
I will say that on straight CDs,  the Pulse is not on the same level as my Meridian CD player but the Meridian doesn't play anything above redbook.

 


That's a bit weird, coz on the LC, the output on at low gain is essentially unity gain with the balanced output. The balanced outputs have actually about double the voltage output than the single ended output.

Unless the SSA has some massive fixed gain.
 
May 10, 2016 at 10:40 PM Post #11,265 of 13,800
   
It sounds very good.  I run it out into a Liquid Carbon.  The key is getting the output right on the Pulse Infinity.  The output is variable so the volume controls.  For the Liquid Carbon you need to be basically at 0.0 which is the fixed output.  That doesn't work well if you are trying to use a single ended amplifier, like the Lycan with the SSA v5D.  Then it is way too much.
 
I have used a variety of headphones balanced out through the Liquid Carbon such as my HE6, Grado HP2 or HE560. 
 
I will say that on straight CDs,  the Pulse is not on the same level as my Meridian CD player but the Meridian doesn't play anything above redbook.


Looking forward to getting my second run LC for use with the Pulse X Infinity and eventual Vi Tube DAC SE.
 

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