Help: Amp with 2 HP outs - burn out I think

I need some help in discerning what happened to my Amp.

I plugged in two headphones in each of the outs and have been listening to both for a few days this way, A/B ing and generally enjoying them.
The amp is LP G109 and puts out 590mW at 600ohms.

The two HP’s are Sundara at 37ohms and DT880 600.
The impedences are different but the same volume is achieved with a difference of 3-5 volume knob clicks depending on the track.

Everything was fine until last night when I started to hear distortion on both. I turned off the amp which had also gotten very hot, although it hadn’t happened before last night.

When I turned it back on again a couple of hours later to see if there was any damage it would only put out noise, no music and hen slowly started to play vey noisy music and only to the left earpiece.

It’s clearly damaged but I don’t know why: it (almost) definitely has to do with Driving two headphones at the same time and I’m inclined to think it’s because they are of different impedences, although I revised the Instruction manual before doing so and there was no warning about this. It also mentions that it can output up to 2000mW at 80ohms. I don’t know if that last bit is relevant.

I opened up the amp and found that the underside is the aluminum cover had light burn marks above the side where the (I think) transistors are, not the big blue thing but the other side that has more space.)

Here:

So can anyone

  1. explain what happened
  2. tell me what I can do to fix it

Appreciate the fact that you’ve gotten this far into this post. So thanks for reading it.

It looks like the transformer is damaged (the big blue thing). The top is bumpy and I think it should be flat.

Other than that there doesn’t seem to be damage in the board, capacitator or other components. At least none that explains the burnt cover

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Thank you. It wouldn’t have occurred to me.
I’ll have to see if I can replace it.

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I might be wrong. Only a technician can say for sure, he must look in the board and chips for shorts.

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ok, thanks again. I wrote to Lake People last night but they haven’t gotten back yet.

Should be fine to use both at the same time? Found this:

"Equipped with two ¼” headphone connections on the front panel, this standalone headphone amplifier makes it easy for you to share your music with a friend or conduct a quick A/B test against your newest headphone purchase "

Did you buy this new? Did you void the warranty by opening it up?

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no no. I got it for less than half the price used. It’s at least a couple years old according to the previous owner.
He bought it in 2017 I think

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Thats good. Hopefully LP can get it fixed for ya! If you go that route.

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Yes thank you. just a curiosity. Have you tried your sundaras with your DarkVoice? do they compare well with your dt880 and DV?

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So planars in general do not work well with a tube amp. But the dt880 sound awesome on the darkvoice. Still brighter than the sundaras on the asgard3, but both sound really good on their respective amps. The dt880 sound pretty good on the asgard3 too. Its close to the darkvoice sound.

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ok great. Thanks a lot for your time

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Maybe the warranty is still valid? I recently bought an 18 month old Violectric and was told the five year warranty is transferable. And that was from Arthur at Power Holdings.

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These lake people amps are supposed to be open without voiding the warranty cause if you wanna give use to the pre gain settings these can only be done from the inside. So just simply taking the “lid” shouldn’t void any warranty.

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thanks for that, I didn’t realise. I couldn’t find anything about the warranty on the website

thanks for the perspicacity, good point.

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I am not sure if they have the 5yr or maybe a lesser warranty. If not, they still might give you a break on the repair cost.

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Agree. Arthur is a nice guy and easy to speak with. I’m sure he’ll make it right for the OP.

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Took some digging but the Lake People warranty is only two years. Good luck and hopefully, they will work with you.

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Cheers for the digging ShaneD and for the Power Holdings contact. I’m in Europe so it makes sense to go directly to Lake People.

@Xavilaw

These lake people amps are supposed to be open without voiding the warranty

That’s awesome, heres hoping @Kierkegaard is able to redeem that warranty

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