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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
Post removed 
wig's avatar
wig
1,274 posts
 

@ jserp

Your Laiv Harmony Dac will sound even better after 250 of burn-in...

Wig

sim_audio_nerd
63 posts
 

Anyone pre order the Laiv DDC? 

I have Harmony DAC fed by Innuos Pulse and I do use a Silent Angel Bonn switch and good quality digital cables.

Question is do I need a DDC? What is a DDC? 

dz13
261 posts
 
@sim_audio_nerd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF9DF_TbcXs and/or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6yjn3uV6sc&t=37s
soix
9,655 posts
 

Question is do I need a DDC? What is a DDC? 

@sim_audio_nerd  I added a Denafrips Iris DDC before my Musician Pegasus R2R DAC and it made very significant improvement.  It provides galvanic isolation to reduce noise from USB, a TXCO Femto clock for reduced jitter, and has an i2S output to take advantage of that superior connection, and I imagine all these important pieces (among other things) contribute to the improvement I hear.  On paper the Iris seems quite similar to the LAiV DDC but only costs $510 (currently on sale) versus $850 for the LAiV.  One difference is the LAiV offers an SPDIF input if you need that, and actually it’s by far the cheapest DDC I’ve seen that offers this.  Bottom line — the performance improvement I got from adding a DDC was more than worth the price and was so significant it was on the order of making a considerable DAC upgrade.  If you decide to try a DDC other than LAiV make sure it’s compatible with your DAC before buying as not all DDCs work with all DACs.  Hope this helps, and best of luck.


https://www.denafrips.com/iris

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