Reach for acoustic (the LIXENER³⁰) on large-diameter and long city lines, on jobs with plastic liners or vapor barriers that trap tracer gas, and on pressurized air, gas, and vacuum systems. The SNIFFER⁴³⁰ is our tracer-gas option shines on tiny, slow pinhole leaks under slab where there's little sound to hear, or hidden leaks on large properties. They're complementary: many pros own both, but neither requires the other. They both work well for a huge variety of use cases.

Just about all of them. The included accessories cover it: the contact probe for hard surfaces like concrete or soft surfaces like soil or grass; the ground probe rod for getting near buried pipe through soil; the magnetic foot for metal pipe; and the flat base for tile and walls.

Pipe material doesn't decide whether you find the leak — it just changes your approach. Metal pipe carries the leak sound far and at a higher pitch, so it's easy to pick up. Plastic and PVC dampen the sound and drop it to a lower frequency, so you work a little closer and slower. The Lixener30 is built for both: its broadband sensor covers the full range, and you just drop to the low filter band (30–500 Hz) and bump the gain to pull up that fainter, low-frequency sound plastic gives off. Pressurizing a line with air is the standard technique for amplifying a leak's sound.

Make sure to watch our demo videov ON THIS PAGE for the full breakdown!

Start at gain 3 with filters off; that's the best balance of sensitivity and noise control. Raise the gain to pull up faint or deeper leaks, and lower it in loud environments. Add a bandpass filter (30–500, 200–800, or 400–1000 Hz) to keep only the band the leak lives in, and switch on the 50/60 Hz notch filters to remove electrical hum. The rule of thumb: only filter as much as you need to make the leak stand out.

Acoustic depends on the leak making a clear sound, not on a fixed depth limit. A well-pressurized line — with water or compressed air — makes the leak louder and easier to follow, which is why the LIXENER30 does well on deep and large-diameter lines that other methods struggle with. Pressurizing the line is the single biggest thing you can do to improve results.

A set of wired headphones comes with the device. Many customers have personal preference over what kind of headphones they want to use. You can also use any wired headphones or pair any Bluetooth headphones you already own and trust.

The BNC female monitor output connects to an external audio recorder for continuous or long-term monitoring — useful for intermittent leaks and for commercial buildings and municipal lines where you want to capture the signal over time rather than in a single pass.

There are three main leak detection methods: Acoustic, which relies on sensitive hearing of the leak; Thermal, which tracks the temperature difference around the leak; and the Tracer Gas method. Among these, the tracer gas leak detection method is generally most accurate. Acoustic is the most versatile. Thermal is extremely fast but often not practical.

The Acoustic Method is probably the most common "classic" way of finding leaks. Listen for leaks across a wide range of systems, from household plumbing to large-diameter and pressurized air or gas lines.

- Nothing to inject or drain — you just listen (low-pressure systems can be charged with compressed air to boost the sound).

- Self-contained with no consumables to resupply.

- Relies on the leak making a sound, low-pressure leaks can be harder to hear.

- Experience can play a big role in your success rate. (The more leaks you find, the easier you recognise the sounds.)

- Ambient noise can interfere and needs to be filtered out.

- Sound travels differently through soil, concrete, and other materials, which can affect precision.

The Thermal Method uses thermal cameras to find a difference in temperature which can identify a leak's approximate location.

- Fast and non-contact — scan a surface without touching or opening anything.

- Good for visualizing how water is spreading across or beneath a surface like a wall or floor.

- No pressurizing or draining required.

- Only works when the leak creates a noticeable temperature difference.

- Surface temperature can be affected by variables other than the leak.

- Needs a clear line of sight to the surface — it can't see behind objects or deep underground.

- Shows where the water is, which isn't always where the leak is.

- Not suited to underground or pool leaks.

The Tracer Gas Method Injects a non-toxic gas into the line; the gas escapes through the leak and travels up through soil or concrete to your sensor at the surface.

- Pinpoints the exact source of the leak.

- Finds extremely small, pinhole leaks.

- The gas is non-toxic, safe, locally available, and needs no license; lines don't have to be drained, and it works on any pipe material.

- The gas is a consumable you source and refill locally.

- Less practical on very large-diameter or city lines, which need large volumes of gas.

- Tracer gas won't pass through fully sealed materials like plastic liners or vapor barriers without drilling small pilot holes.

- In a large enclosed cavity, like a wall, the gas can fill the whole space and make pinpointing difficult (acoustic and thermal also struggle with cavities).

This is exactly where an acoustic detector earns its keep. A plastic liner or vapor barrier is sealed, so it blocks tracer gas — but it doesn't block sound. The leak still makes noise that travels through the pipe, the water, and the surrounding material, so you can listen right through the barrier and track it down.

Sleeved pipes are tough for any detector — acoustic or tracer gas — because gas (or sound) can travel down the sleeve far from point of the actual leak. Honest answer: this is the trickiest scenario in our industry, there isn't any great options. The Sniffer⁴³⁰ will still help you isolate which run of sleeve is leaking, but expect to do additional confirmation work. Lixener³⁰ can help narrow down the area but it will always depend on the circumstances of the specific leak scenario.

Walls are a good fit for the Lixener30. Press the contact probe or flat base against the wall and move across it, comparing spots as you go — the leak sound is loudest closest to the source. Work the suspected area slowly, and when you've got your spot, drop the pressure to confirm the sound fades before you cut a single access hole instead of opening up the whole wall. One thing to watch: water can run down inside a cavity, so the wettest spot at the bottom isn't always the leak — trust the sound over the stain. Sound can also echo and bounce off objects, so take your time to understand the surrounding and internal structures.

Nope. No calibration, no replacement parts to swap out, no annual service plan. It works the same on day 1,000 as it did on day 1. It’s important to keep the equipment clean and don't dump it in water, as you would with any electronic tool. But other than that, just run it.

Jacob's-MC is based in Lithuania. Our distribution and service center for the western hemisphere is in Florida, USA — staffed by real people who you can call right now and talk to. When you call for support, you're talking to someone who knows the product inside out. Not a script. Not a ticket queue.

We have a 1 year manufacturers warranty against any defects. If the unit does not work exactly like we’re saying it does, just give us a call. Our team is always available. 90% of the time when people call in, it’s just a question about how to use the device properly which we can solve over the phone. But if you ever need to send it in for service, you can ship it into our service center in Florida. The day it arrives here we’ll fix it and it will ship out that same day, to get you back in business right away.  

If you somehow damaged the unit after the warranty period, it’s the exact same process. Just call us, if we can’t solve it over the phone, you can ship it in. It’s like going to the mechanic, we’ll just replace whatever parts need to be fixed and you’ll only be charged for those parts.

Shipping and handling begins as soon as your payment is cleared. Orders will be shipped in within 24 hours on business days. In the rare case that we are out of inventory, you will be notified right away with your soonest possible shipping times and updated accordingly.

Yes. We offer financing through Affirm and Klarna right here on our website. Once you add the product to cart and go to the checkout page, you will see the different payment and financing options. As of now, Affirm includes 0% interest for the first 6 months on qualifying buyers — so you can pay off the device from the new jobs it will get you, without any added cost.