Picture Sunday – Niimbus Audio US4+

Niimbus US4+

Today we’re looking at the Niimbus US4+, the brand new reference headphone amplifier from Germany.

 

Disclaimer: This post is part of our Picture Sunday series, you can find all of the previous ones here.

Niimbus Audio

Niimbus Audio, you might never have heard of it before. But you probably have heard of Violectric, or Lake People. And that is the company behind Niimbus Audio, I bet I have your attention now.

Since its founding in 1986, Lake People has been developing solutions for recording studios that demand the highest levels of sound and reliability. Over the years, the circuits and designs have been further refined – today’s Lake People offer is the result of 30 years of development. From the F355 microphone preamplifier to the Ana-Series series balancers and summing amplifiers, to converters such as the F446 or the signal splitters and sample-rate converters in the Digi-Tool range, professional users will find a solution from Lake for virtually every imaginable application people. The culmination of this long development is the brand new Reference Series, which, true to its name, establishes a new reference class.

TOOLS, not Toys!

This is the motto of  Lake  People a Constance-based company. This reflects the approach of developing serious technology at reference level. In the professional field, the company realizes this claim under the name Lake People, in the hi-fi sector with the brand Violectric. The local connection with the Lake Constance region, which is already expressed in the choice of the company name “Lake People”, can also be found in the operative business: The entire development and production takes place in the factory in Constance, even suppliers come largely from Germany. The result is  an A / D and D / A converter, microphone, headphone and phono amplifiers as well as various signal converters with the earned “Made in Germany” quality seal.

Niimbus US4+

Since the Violectric V281 was released back in 2015 it has been pretty quiet around the Violectric brand, even though their were a couple of new releases from the Lake People brand. The Niimbus US4+ kind of can be seen as the new reference amplifier of the brand, but this time Fried Reim decided to release it under the Niimbus Audio name. That means the award winning V281 amplifier still is Violectric’s reference amplifier.

If you can read between the lines however, you just know that the Niimbus is the real new TOTL amp of the German brand, and supposedly it’s even better than the V281… The price, a hefty €4998 Euro / $5700USD

I have known about the Niimbus US4+ for a year of two already and Mr. Reim has told me since the beginning that he was sure, I again would want to keep this one. If you remember well, I started with the V100, sold it. Got the V200, sold it. Got the V281 and….well we’ll see.

The Niimbus US4+ has only arrived yesterday so I haven’t had too much time to play with it yet, but so far it’s been impressing me.

These are the features:

  • Two unsym. Stereo inputs (RCA)
  • Sym. stereo input (3-pin XLR)
  • Unsym. Stereo output (RCA)
  • Sym. stereo output (3-pin XLR)
  • Two unsym. headphone outputs (6.3 mm jack)
  • Sym. headphone output (4-pin XLR)
  • Balance regulator
  • Volume control via relay (256 levels)
  • Remote Control
  • Digitally controlled analogue signal path
  • Input selection at the front
  • Output selection at the front
  • Delayed activation with power-on
  • Immediate separation during power-off
  • DC protection
  • Overload protection
  • Over temperature protection
  • Ultimate circuit design
  • Channel-separated construction

And the Technical Specs:

In-/Output 2 / 2 channel (sym. XLR)
Headphoneoutputs: 1 (sym., XLR 4-Pol), 2
Amplifierchannels: 2
Frequence response: 0 – 200 kHz
Output impedance: < 15 Ohm
max. Outputlevel: 32,4 (600 Ohm) _ 30,4 dBu (100 Ohm) _ 27,7 dBu (50 Ohm) _ 24,8 dBu (32 Ohm) _ 19,4 dBu (16 Ohm) _ 13,3 dBu (32 Ohm) _ 7,3 dBu (16 Ohm)
Noise ratio (SNR): > 129 dB (A-gew.)
Distortions (THD): 0,00063 % (@ 10V/100 Ohm, 1W) _ 0,00071 % (@ 4V/32 Ohm, 0,5W)
Crosstalk: -106 dB (1 kHz) _ -105 dB (15 kHz)
Extras: various protection systems
Casing: desktop
Color: black

Full review soon on Headfonia!

4.6/5 - (116 votes)
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Lieven is living in Europe and he's the leader of the gang. He's running Headfonia as a side project next to his full time day job in Digital Marketing & Consultancy. He's a big fan of tube amps and custom inear monitors and has published hundreds of product reviews over the years.

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