LAIV Harmony


New company with a new product.  There are several "professional" reviews out there, but not much consumer input here or elsewhere.  Those that have been using now for over a month, what are your thoughts?  What were you using previously and how does it compare?

audiostick

@kereru Your welcome. I changed my order at last minute from the Concentus to Ximius, Ximius is their new reference I2S cable.

 

I expect you'll find optical conversion to be worthwhile, I started with the generic converters with the wall warts, over time went with Sonore, upraded the Sonore with quality LPS, DC cables, optical cables and Finisar 1475 transceivers. Even the generic devices with wall warts provided an upgrade at the time, knew potential for better existed.

@sns interesting re the new Ximius, first I’d heard of this.

Re optical fibre I should clarify these are a matched pair of optically isolated USB converters: USB in > SFP socket > SFPs or AOC or DAC cables > SFP socket > USB out. Will use to feed my LHY UIP. Agree re improvements of optical in the normal Ethernet use case, I have an Afterdark pair with Finisar and Cisco AOCs etc.

@kereru Not sure what you mean by optical usb isolators. Optical is an ethernet/network conversion. No provision or need to have usb isolator on first optical converter in line, the receiving optical converter has the usb isolation and output. 

EX: ethernet cable> Sonore OpticaModule>Sonore OpticalRendu via AfterDark optical cable>dac or ddc. Both Sonore powered via LPS and use Finisar 1475 transceivers in SFP sockets/modules.

I agree with @sns.

I actually have a network switch with SFP, so I run:

Network Switch/SFP/Finisar Transceiver > Optical Fiber > Sonore Optical Module Deluxe > Ethernet > Sonore Micro Rendu > USB > LAiV Harmony DAC

Optical isolation is definitely the way to go for network noise elimination.

@catastrofe You have one excess conversion. Why are you doing OpticalModule to MicroRendu, you should be using OpticalRendu, keep it all optical post switch.  then OpticalRendu via usb to ddc. I'll reiterate the vast superiority of I2S vs usb with Harmony, this not incremental change assuming one's system highly resolving/transparent. I don't believe it a necessity to have Gaia ddc in order to obtain superior performance with I2Sz, I'd bet on Denafrips Hermes, Singxer SU6 or something similar to be nice upgrade. Don't need high end I2S cable either, $70 cable I'm presently using is fine in most cases, can always upgrade this at later date.