LAIV Harmony

@audiostick 

I agree. I've been bugging Weng Fai at LAiV for some details, and shared my opinion on must-have features. I'm pretty sure I2S will be one of the outputs.

@sns Gee that was a superb review/article over at AS on that Taiko, thanks for sharing. I was already a convert to much of his three principles, but boy it was filled with interesting observations on an array of factors relevant to good sound in a highly sorted system. I should visit AS more, I mean when you have folk like John Swenson contributing in the comments.

A few points that particularly resonated with me, areas to potentially explore on a more modest budget:

- DAC (Direct attached cables) network cables are lower power draw than either Ethernet or optical SFPs, and he seemed to note a correlation between low power draw and sound quality

- the level of processing required to playback more demanding high bit rate music was inversely proportional to the sound quality (at least over that new XDMI interface)

- high capacity, high current delivery Lithium iron phosphate batteries can sound good but are sensitive to any electronics /cabling in the chain (I’ve observed this first hand in my system with one I use to power a router and modem)

- even with super pure battery power, the system was still sensitive to AC quality, power conditioning and potentially grounding helps (again first hand: ground quality is so important, I can highly recommend a low impedance path to ground, or better yet, paths plural)

 Sorry all, getting a little OT once more - but hey, all just areas of interest in endeavoring to optimize my Harmony-based system 

Just as an aside, at one point was running  Auralic Vega dac and some other streaming devices off battery PS, lower noise floor, lost dynamics.

I have custom build streamer assembled by some of the leading members of that forum, I added JCAT Optimo ATX LPS. This was their top end diy design prior to the Taiko Extreme clones. Unfortunately, I2S output at the level of Gaia not possible, real estate issue. The XDMI interface in new Taiko looks to be a game changer.

With all the accolades I’m reading about the Harmony with i2s, I am trying to understand why companies like Aurender and Innuos do not offer i2s output.  Are they assuming that if you are spending $6-12k on a Streamer that you will also purchase a DDC?

@audiostick I thought the Innuos Next Gen would have i2s, but the Zen Next-Gen only has USB.

I’m using a DDC with my Zen Mk3.