Geek Out

Say you don't have a super set of Cans?

When we saw this little beauty, we though we had to get it. Besides it wasn't the printed edition, but the original.

Light Harmonic GeekOut 1000 USB Dongle on MacBook Pro Laptop. Headphone connector shown.

1000 milliwatts (1 watt) is just enough to be consider headphone amplification. Yes, there are 4 watters and 8 watters, but one (1) is in the game.

Now in a sense, this brings to mind the Wavac SH-833 Monoblock Power Amplifier ($350,000.00 USD). Why?

There's the ratio. Single-ended designs are known for power as low as one watt. The Wavac has 150W for $2,333.33 per W. The Geekout, 1/3rd of $1,000.00 or $299.00 USD.

Could you get world-leaking sound for so little money?

You can get excited by numbers like 750, but they're really under-powered.

Not only that but we were excited by the price. 180. Like 180 degrees. Pretty damn close to the iFi Nano iDSD DAC ($180.00 USD), and to review that we would need another Stax cable.

Now to review the Waveac would spectacular. We'd have identical twins to pose for the photo.

While many manufactures would use women to pose with Hi Fi products, we'd have symmetry.

Can you compare DAC's, swapping them out, or using different (doesn't they affect the sound) cables?

The Geekout has really interesting specifications.

Now the connection of this device (unlike the Audioquest Dragonfly DAC) is really ugly. It's something that you could plug into a keyboard.

It's a beautiful beautiful DAC (aesthetically) but the connection is so ugly that you wouldn't consider attaching it to a device as high as a lap-top.

No, the side of a monitor (though rationally the side of a keyboard) at best.

Macbook Pro with Optional Geekout 1000 Adjacent.

Let's look at the spec.

SNR: 101 dB

101 dB / 6 = 16.83 so this is a 16-bit device. This is an interesting and exciting spec.

It's 1 dB higher than the SH-833.



Let's look at 1983. The Waveac came out 2004. The Geekout, a little later.

This was the dawn of the Compact Disc.

The Sony CDP-101 Compact Disc was out then.

In terms of signal and noise, the Geek Out 1000 ($180.00 CDN) by Light Harmonic is roughly equivalent.

Later, post CDP-101, came Super Bit Mapping (SBM) and 20-bit audio.

Later, came DSD and DSD 128.

24-bit.

Like many DAC today, the Geek Out 1000 can play at 32-bit 384 kHz, but at 16-bit resolution.

Let's compare it with another interesting, but excessive device of today: The T+A MP 2000R Multi-Source Digital Player ($ USD).

It also does everything, every format, excessively. (by 1984 standard)

PCM-Mode: 44,1 kSps; 48 kSps; 88,2 kSps; 96 kSps; 176,4 kSps; 192 kSps; 352,8 kSps; 384 kSps;

16/24/32 Bit
DSD-Mode: DSD64; DSD128; DSD256; DSD 512

And yet:

Frequency Response: 2 Hz - 20 kHz
Dynamic Range: 100 dB

Frequency Response: 20 Hz - 55 kHz (-0.1 dB)

Maximum Output Voltage: 4.0 Vrms

This is a sexy specification. 4 vaginas. Is noise (101 dB = 16-bit performance) really an issue?

So what's the Geekout 1000 good enough for?

A pair of Adeles? That's a poor-performing headphone. A good match.

But what about the Bryston BHA-1 Headphone Amplifier? That's another poor-performing amplifier. It's a good match.

While not for a pair of Ferrari Calvinos, which we have in Black and Grey, we'd say that the Geekout 1000 by Light Harmonic is ideal for headphones like the AKG Q701 by Quincy Jones and Fostex TH-600, which we have in stable.

JP 2016/08/28
www.hifiart.ca