LAIV Harmony

I received my Laiv Harmony!

Very, very initial first impressions out of the box:

• Very rich, full, detailed and natural sound signature.  Compared to ESS DACs I've tried, the Laiv doesn't have any harshness on the high end (without dulling anything).
• USB connection from a PC registers in sound options at 32bit/384kHz on an AMD-based PC.  (Bit depth isn't documented anywhere.)  I believe this is the max possible on AMD's chipset.
• Vocals are more forward than other sources I've used.  My listening position is very close to my speakers and will take a bit of getting used to.
• I noticed a few audio dropouts with OS up to 768kHz after initial hookup.  Will keep an eye on it, but could be I need to clean out my old drivers or something to solve with a future firmware/driver update.  Played with some settings and haven't noticed it during the past few songs I played.

I don't have a ton of DAC experience, so please don't take my words as gospel, but I have nothing bad to say about the Harmony during first impressions.  My unboxing experience was excellent.  Everything was plug and play, but I had to install the drivers before Windows 11 recognized it.

@pynkfloydd Have you considered adding a dedicated streamer?  Running USB direct from a PC may be significantly limiting your streaming sound quality.  Just a thought FWIW.

@soix - ...definitely not for me and I don’t have any issues with sound quality. For reference, the Laiv is running into my MBL 6010D.

I’m running my system as a high-end desktop workstation and have a beQuiet Dark Power Pro 13 PSU in my system (certified 80 PLUS Titanium efficiency) and would be extremely skeptical of any sound improvement claims a streamer would make. I also prefer running software direct from my PC.

The only thing I’ve considered is HQPlayer for its upsampling ability, but would have went the Holo May route if I had. I also considered the MSB line for their USB converter running into fiber, but also skeptical I’d notice a significant improvement.

Guys, this is an excellent DAC, i have had many before and this dac but this is by far the best balanced for my system.  Great depth and soundstage, very holographic.  Everything is natural, and sounds real….hard to explain other than nothing is exaggerated. Voices have a great clarity and smooth naturalness. For me…. Its my end game dac

@solarjam  @koestner

Thanks.... but ah a $3000 dollar preamp to control the volume of a $2700 DAC seems like a misappropriation of resources to me.  I too am running my PSAudio Directstream directly into m y amp.  I've tried a SS preamp to increase the gain which made it louder but it pushed everything forward. My preamp does have  a passive mode but not a remote which makes it a no go for me.

It looks like quality passive preamps can be had new for as little as $850 to $1200 which means the Harmony is really a $3500 to $3900 DAC.  Still less than the a Sonnet Pasithea (and a whole lot easier to remember the name  Harmony) but now there are more power cords and interconnects to deal with.

I'm sorry I took this post off the track of comparing how it compared with other DACs but while the Harmony looks fantastic and has great reviews for me at least it has drawbacks.