LAIV Harmony

@sim_audio_nerd https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BF9DF_TbcXs and/or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6yjn3uV6sc&t=37s

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

I found the Iris made a significant improvement as well. The problem was I changed DACs and the Iris cannot adjust its I2S settings. The Hermes can and has a better clock. If you go Denafrips and you are looking to use the I2S input to your DAC, I would suggest going to the Hermes at least. I'm not sure but I believe that the current and previous generation of Hermes can adjust the I2S setting.

@soix @dz13 thank you!

Anyone pre order the Laiv DDC?

@sim_audio_nerd I did, last week after my willpower to resist the temptation weakened after a few festive beverages. As I posted upthread there’s DDCs and there’s DDCs, they vary a lot in performance. I seem to be collecting DDCs having a U18 and SU6 in storage (need to sell some!) as to my ear my LHY UIP USB regen comfortably bests both, the UIP bettered only by the AudioGd DI-20HE I was loaned for a month, in turn bested by the much pricier Innuos Phoenix USB regen, also on loan.

With the LAiV uDDC, the appeal is a number of things… LAiV’s form to date with the DAC and HP2A both individually and their synergy, its matching aesthetics (a factor if I’m honest if lower weighted), and it’s external power and external clock upgradeability. Noting the latter hasn’t been a silver bullet for the U18 in my system. How well LAiV implemented their clock synthesiser and internal DC regulation circuits in the uDDC, not to mention USB isolation and the circuitry that converts asynchronous USB to synchronous I2S will be key to how it measures up to the competition. Audio-Gd and Denafrips (especially the Gaia and Hermes) are established high performers here, so one is taking a bit of a punt pre-ordering the uDDC.