LAIV Harmony

My favorite dac Best Buy under$12k is still the T+A 200 dac,preamp, which I Donot own . I have decades in audio and mod loudspeakers ,and have had many things upgraded,  parts quality I know well, just  look  compare Apples  to Apples in other brands and build quality,many people forget this very important aspect. the harmony dac should have used separate transformers and power supplies,  that is for example for the Digital to Analog conversion ,then to try to squeeze transformer taps all in one like a integrated amp.vs separates ,this is why monoblocks  have  much better isolation and Sonic purity and ,better bass punch for 1 example.

@audioman58 so you have listened to every DAC under 12K to date?

Bet not, sure glad I never sought advice from you ever! 

A Farrari is a great car  but if it has design,reliabity  issues what good is that ? 
remember Microsoft , great new operating system was great but have to work the bugs out ,That is why is why you run proto types ! if they went with a larger 

case and dual transformers power supplies and regulators  better stability 

but at a higher build cost . I owned a Audio store for over  a decade 

and saw everything including digital from the mid 80s to  today it has come a long way , nothing is perfect ,but some issues are preventable.

I have heard the Harmony dac several times with Holo springs 3 and Lampi Amber  4 .I can say without reservation the New Denafrips 15 punched way above its $2100:price point it was not only musical but had great dynamics and bass control 

more so then the dacs heard above for less monies. ,the Lampi Amber4 was the meatiest having tubes  but lacked slam and a bit of inner detail ,  heard with the Iris12 Ddc  using I2S gave it a added bit of image depth and detail , we tried the older Hermes ddc on the harmony , Holo springs and Pontus 15 I felt naturalness was only better as-well as every aspect of the music, the  new Hermes 12 is much better one guy said That has  one but didnot want to take his out of his system which was not cool. I may buy one now, just make sure the pin out on the I2S - hdmi cable matches,  wireworld I2S  cables seem to be popular and match the pS audio protocol.

@audioman58 the Ferrari comparisons are very old. The Lavi is a Vega at best. Not a Cosworth either.