[earfonia]

  Hey Head-Fi,
 
I have just got my Silver Geek 1000 and I have a question. I'm getting occasional electrical noise/static from my Geek Out. I'm guessing this is noisy USB causing this. I would like to know how best to solve this. Using basic mobo USB port at back of comp.

 
From the same USB port, my GO 450 has higher noise floor than DACport and Dragonfly.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/711267/light-harmonic-geek-out-em-1000-impressions-thread/840#post_10724329
 
It seems that their power supply noise filtering is not very good.

 

[MikeyFresh]

   
From the same USB port, my GO 450 has higher noise floor than DACport and Dragonfly.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/711267/light-harmonic-geek-out-em-1000-impressions-thread/840#post_10724329
 
It seems that their power supply noise filtering is not very good.

Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't LH Labs indicate your measured noise was atypical and they asked you to send it back for replacement as likely it was defective?
 
If so you should reserve comment on their power supply noise filtering being no good, or qualify it by telling the OP your unit was sent back at the request of the manufacturer as defective.
 
LH Labs has posted noise measurements on this unit during the design stage on their forum, the numbers were quite impressive. In the U.S. there are laws governing false claims and misleading advertising or product specs. No company the likes of LH Labs would bother with making false claims, the risk to their reputation and or the liability involved is far greater than the potential reward, and they are just too darned smart/established and ethical in the first place. I'm sure their published specs are accurate.
 
The above would suggest you got a defective unit, I wish both you and any other member who are having noise troubles a swift and speedy resolution of that problem.

 

[earfonia]

 
Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't LH Labs indicate your measured noise was atypical and they asked you to send it back for replacement as likely it was defective?
 
If so you should reserve comment on their power supply noise filtering being no good, or qualify it by telling the OP your unit was sent back at the request of the manufacturer as defective.
 
LH Labs has posted noise measurements on this unit during the design stage on their forum, the numbers were quite impressive. In the U.S. there are laws governing false claims and misleading advertising or product specs. No company the likes of LH Labs would bother with making false claims, the risk to their reputation and or the liability involved is far greater than the potential reward, and they are just too darned smart/established and ethical in the first place. I'm sure their published specs are accurate.
 
The above would suggest you got a defective unit, I wish both you and any other member who are having noise troubles a swift and speedy resolution of that problem.

 
Right, but frankly, I don't hear anything wrong with my GO 450 instead of the slightly high noise floor.  Could it be considered defective?
I'm waiting for second unit from my used referral link, they agree to send me another one for me to compare with my current one.
But until know there is no message from them as when they are going to send the second unit... 

 
Anyway, you're right, I will wait for my second unit to be compared, and should reserve my comment about my unit.
I was just triggered by seeing the post that there is other GO that also has audible noise. And wondering if that is common or considered defective.
Anyone here has digital scope and can help to measure their GO noise floor?

 

[jcwc]

 
Correct me if I'm wrong, didn't LH Labs indicate your measured noise was atypical and they asked you to send it back for replacement as likely it was defective?
 
If so you should reserve comment on their power supply noise filtering being no good, or qualify it by telling the OP your unit was sent back at the request of the manufacturer as defective.
 
LH Labs has posted noise measurements on this unit during the design stage on their forum, the numbers were quite impressive. In the U.S. there are laws governing false claims and misleading advertising or product specs. No company the likes of LH Labs would bother with making false claims, the risk to their reputation and or the liability involved is far greater than the potential reward, and they are just too darned smart/established and ethical in the first place. I'm sure their published specs are accurate.
 
The above would suggest you got a defective unit, I wish both you and any other member who are having noise troubles a swift and speedy resolution of that problem.

 
I guess we need to identify the different types of noise that might infect a DAC.
 
In earfonia's case I think it is internal self-noise, i.e. you can hear a hiss or background noise with your earphones on (when no music is playing). It might very well be that his unit is defective. On my GO 450 I get a perfectly black background with my earbuds.
 
The second noise is clicks/pops/etc caused by a noisy USB bus or computer. This I do face - when my HDDs have more intensive operations there is some low-level high pitched noises that comes through my external active speakers. In this regard my speakers are more sensitive perhaps (they are on the line output of the GO) because I don't hear it on my earbuds. I'd like to know how other USB DACs fare in this regard, like the Dragonfly, Microstreamer, etc.

 

[earfonia]

   
I guess we need to identify the different types of noise that might infect a DAC.
 
In earfonia's case I think it is internal self-noise, i.e. you can hear a hiss or background noise with your earphones on (when no music is playing). It might very well be that his unit is defective. On my GO 450 I get a perfectly black background with my earbuds.
 
The second noise is clicks/pops/etc caused by a noisy USB bus or computer. This I do face - when my HDDs have more intensive operations there is some low-level high pitched noises that comes through my external active speakers. In this regard my speakers are more sensitive perhaps (they are on the line output of the GO) because I don't hear it on my earbuds. I'd like to know how other USB DACs fare in this regard, like the Dragonfly, Microstreamer, etc.

 
I had that issue before. Even when I scroll my mouse, I can hear the scrolling noise from my DAC output.
It happened with my Yulong DA8, and I was pretty annoyed with the noise.
Finally I found the problem.  I connected both my Dr. DAC2 DX and Yulong DA8 at the same time. And when I disconnect the Dr. DAC2 DX, the USB noise on Yulong headphone output gone.  When I connect the DAC2 DX back, the noise back as well.
To solve it, I use this USB isolator from Hifimediy for my Dr. DAC2 DX:
http://hifimediy.com/index.php?route=product/product&product_id=122
 
It works with Dr. DAC2 DX, but not with Yulong DA8.  Now I connect all the DACs without any USB noise problem.

 

[MikeyFresh]

   
I guess we need to identify the different types of noise that might infect a DAC.
 
In earfonia's case I think it is internal self-noise, i.e. you can hear a hiss or background noise with your earphones on (when no music is playing). It might very well be that his unit is defective. On my GO 450 I get a perfectly black background with my earbuds.
 
The second noise is clicks/pops/etc caused by a noisy USB bus or computer. This I do face - when my HDDs have more intensive operations there is some low-level high pitched noises that comes through my external active speakers. In this regard my speakers are more sensitive perhaps (they are on the line output of the GO) because I don't hear it on my earbuds. I'd like to know how other USB DACs fare in this regard, like the Dragonfly, Microstreamer, etc.

Absolutely, and I mentioned what I termed "event driven noises" in an earlier post, I think the OP that I and a few others were responding to described it as that, an occasional pop/click static type of sound.
 
That to me seems likely to be caused by the spooling up of a HDD or some other system event such as system sounds/notifications, or just a bunch of applications running at the same time putting some amount of stress on the CPU.
 
It can also be caused by an overall power draw (cumulative from all connected devices) reaching the point at which the motherboard can't provide the proper current to everything connected, as DACs do sometimes exhibit a static like noise when underpowered.
 
That can be minimized on the Mac platform by using external HDDs powered by either FireWire or better yet Thunderbolt.

 

[MikeyFresh]

   
Right, but frankly, I don't hear anything wrong with my GO 450 instead of the slightly high noise floor.  Could it be considered defective?
I'm waiting for second unit from my used referral link, they agree to send me another one for me to compare with my current one.
But until know there is no message from them as when they are going to send the second unit... 

 
Anyway, you're right, I will wait for my second unit to be compared, and should reserve my comment about my unit.
I was just triggered by seeing the post that there is other GO that also has audible noise. And wondering if that is common or considered defective.
Anyone here has digital scope and can help to measure their GO noise floor?

Understood, good luck on getting that 2nd unit for comparison.
 
However that post mentioned an occasional pop or static like noise, no? That was why I thought the answers provided him in posts #916 and 917 were good ones, he isn't facing an overall high noise floor.

 

[Suopermanni]

Hey Head-Fi, 
 
I appears that my comment caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Sorry about that. I've swapped ports and the noise seems to have gone though looking back, I don't think it was the Geek Out's Noise Floor or USB noise I was hearing. I think it was digital noise that usually happens when I connect DACs up to my PCs for the first time. Happened to my Meier StageDAC. BOth Geek Out and Stage DAC are fine now.

 

[earfonia]

However that post mentioned an occasional pop or static like noise, no? That was why I thought the answers provided him in posts #916 and 917 were good ones, he isn't facing an overall high noise floor.

No USB peripheral noise on my GO 450, or my other DACs.

It's internal noise floor, not USB peripheral noise.

If after waiting for like 7-8 months, and what I get is a defective unit... oh man... this could be my last business with Light Harmonic.
(after getting my Pulses)

 

[earfonia]

Hey Head-Fi, 

I appears that my comment caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Sorry about that. I've swapped ports and the noise seems to have gone though looking back, I don't think it was the Geek Out's Noise Floor or USB noise I was hearing. I think it was digital noise that usually happens when I connect DACs up to my PCs for the first time. Happened to my Meier StageDAC. BOth Geek Out and Stage DAC are fine now.

Do you have any sensitive IEM?
Could you please try plugging in and out of the headphone jack on your GO? Do you hear any slight noise when the IEM plugging in, and absent of noise when plugging out?

Tx!

 

[Suopermanni]

Sorry earfonia, only got full-size. IEMs don't tend to fit my ear canals.

 

[MikeyFresh]

No USB peripheral noise on my GO 450, or my other DACs.

It's internal noise floor, not USB peripheral noise.

If after waiting for like 7-8 months, and what I get is a defective unit... oh man... this could be my last business with Light Harmonic.
(after getting my Pulses)

Right, I was referring to Suopermanni's post, that description to me sounded like a system or peripheral noise.
 
He's just clarified it, it was the initial charging of the capacitors on first connect he was hearing.

 

[miceblue]

Right, but frankly, I don't hear anything wrong with my GO 450 instead of the slightly high noise floor.  Could it be considered defective?
I'm waiting for second unit from my used referral link, they agree to send me another one for me to compare with my current one.
But until know there is no message from them as when they are going to send the second unit... 

Anyway, you're right, I will wait for my second unit to be compared, and should reserve my comment about my unit.
I was just triggered by seeing the post that there is other GO that also has audible noise. And wondering if that is common or considered defective.
Anyone here has digital scope and can help to measure their GO noise floor?

I had the noise issue with all 3 of my computers (5 USB ports total). LH measured my unit since I sent it back thinking it was defective and it was fine according to their testing standards.






I requested if LH could deliver my unit back to me before July 26, and they said they could. I still have yet to receive any word on it....so much for that. :/

 

[earfonia]

Sorry earfonia, only got full-size. IEMs don't tend to fit my ear canals.

Noted thanks!

I don't hear any noise with headphones either on my GO 450, only when using sensitive IEM like my DUNUs, and other sensitive IEMs.

 

[earfonia]

I had the noise issue with all 3 of my computers (5 USB ports total). LH measured my unit since I sent it back thinking it was defective and it was fine according to their testing standards.

I requested if LH could deliver my unit back to me before July 26, and they said they could. I still have yet to receive any word on it....so much for that. :/

That's what I'm afraid of. I don't want to waste shipping cost to US.
I wish we can compare our units...