LH Labs GeekOut V2 USB Headphone Amplifier & DAC Black

Initially a great product, but after a few months some channel imbalance began to occur and LH Labs' customer service has been essentially non-existent and unresponsive. As a relative newcomer, you'd hope that customer service would be priority #1, but it is not. Avoid this product and this manufacturer until they can get their act together.Update 2/22/17: Replacement unit was sent back. It has issues with the USB connection and the DAC. Really unreliable product. Shame because it's quite good when it works.

Great product. Replaced a Schiit stack with similar or better sound quality and it's amazingly portable.

Tremendous sound especially through the balanced output. But horrendous build quality for a product of this price.

As an upgrade to the Geek Out 450, the Geek Out V2 is a very mixed bag. Audibly, it's absolutely an improvement in whatever audiophile lingo floats your boat. You get more flexibility in terms of gain and the option of balanced output. However, for that upgrade in sound, the Geek Out V2 trades aesthetics in a major way. Coming from the sturdy aluminum chassis in the Geek Out 450, the 3D-printed chassis looks absolutely horrible. The edges where the two halves mate don't line up well and the whole thing just looks and feels cheap. At first glance, the semi-open chassis is a great idea for heat dissipation, but leaves the entire internals exposed to the elements. I definitely won't just slip this in my pocket like I did with the earlier model.A somewhat odd aside, but I've handled at least two separate units now and the buttons on both only register presses about 4 out of 5 times, requiring the occasional extra button press to change modes/gain. Not a huge deal, but definitely adds to the chintzy feel.On sound alone, this is absolutely worth 5 stars. I highly recommend it to anyone who comes in fully aware of exactly what they are getting. However, the physical package warrants something closer to 1 or 2 stars, so I've split the difference.

I wanted to upgrade my DAC from the Dragonfly and was really looking forward to this! I bought is as a second DAC to use with B&W P7's. These are more expensive and frankly significantly worse than the Dragonfly. Not only is the sound quality average but it's built like a piece of s***. I have to imagine that there are WAY better DAC's than this. This is probably the biggest disappointment of any audio product I've bought in the last several years.

Anyone who gives this product less than 4 stars is not doing the V2 justice. Some reviewers who've had the original Geekout (Version 1) in the aluminum case are balking at the new plastic 3D printed case. Well, people complained about the heat trap that the aluminum casework caused and they didn't like that either. The aluminum case didn't hurt the sound or the electronics as it was designed to take the heat because it's a class A amplifier. The plastic case is functionally just as effective as the old aluminum one was and in some ways better. Aesthetically speaking, (looks and feel) it is not as good as the old case BUT it does not warrant chunking off more than one star, and honestly, the new case is no slouch--it's just different. I give this product a strong 4 stars overall and 5 stars on sound and function alone. There is nothing in it's product class that can even begin to touch it sonically. Buy with confidence people! It's a great product period.........UPDATE 7-15-2016: Product has worked flawlessly. One thing I forgot to mention in my earlier review is that this little DAC/AMP has a balanced TRRS output jack. What does this mean? Well, it means that if your hobby expands into the high-end headphones market, this option will allow nearly DOUBLE the wattage output at even lower distortion! (SEE DIAGRAM OF TRRS JACK) Some say listening to balanced headphones are "flabbergasting". Who makes balanced headphones? Audeze makes them OR most headphones can be modified to run in balanced mode. Moon Audio does balanced headphone mods.UPDATE 8-19-2016: Bought the upgraded INFINITY GOV2. Let me express to EVERYONE THAT THE INFINITY VERSION IS A MASSIVE UPGRADE! Knowing what I know now and doing A/B comparisons, it's absolutely no-contest. In the first 2 minutes of listening to the INFINITY I said to my wife, "This thing has to be at least 25-30% better sound than the basic V2 version." So then my wife listened to the INFINITY with a number of tracks and her jaw dropped open. "Wow, this thing (the Infinity) is twice as good she said." I thought 'twice as good' might be an exaggeration on her part but then I realized that she is absolutely correct. The sound is 25-30% better BUT THE ENJOYMENT FACTOR IS 100% BETTER WITH THE INFINITY VERSION OF THE GEEKOUT V2. I can only give analogies here as to the difference: 1) The difference between a Chevy Sedan and a BMW. 2) The difference between a home theater receiver and high-end McIntosh Amp. 3) The difference in the clarity of water in Florida compared to pristine turquoise water of Bora Bora.The Infinity version make the standard version sound mediocre, uninspiring, confused, un-defined in space, loose and less defined bass, etc. But understand the standard Geekout V2 is very, very, good. The INFINITY, however, sounds pristine--almost bordering on sublime. The INFINITY would be a worthy upgrade for current owners of the standard Geekout V2 version ........AND, a much cheaper upgrade than upgrading your headphones if you're already at that $300 level because the next upgrade in headphones will cost you $1000. The INFINITY version will improve your sound on-the-cheap and make your current headphones sound much better. I'm so certain about what I'm saying, that I could ALMOST be willing to pay for your upgrade if you didn't think it was worth the extra money for the INFINITY version---almost. I've owned both versions of the Geekout and I'm a believer in the INFINITY over the standard. Enjoy.

I found these difficult to set up, but maybe it's my old PC? I plugged them into the USB but nothing happened. I plugged in my headphones...still nothing. I might be technically diminished. Hope they work better for someone else.

For some reason the driver and software for this device would not download correctly on my computer so I am unable to try this. I was really excited about it and couldn't wait to hear how much better my music might sound. Unfortunately, after a few tries it is still not working. I will have to spend some time trying to figure out what the problem is and trying to get this to work.