First impressions of new MH-DA006, Musetec flagship

@sns were you able to set the Laiv to "source" clock with Gaia i2s?  If so, is it the 12th gen Gaia?  I have an early Gaia and no such luck for me.

@dbb before giving up on the P30, there are some upstream tweaks that take you deeper into analog territory.  I thought I was done with USB regeneration until someone brought over an SOtM tX-USBultra regenerator w/ Ferrum Hypsos power supply.  Shocked me and the cost is fair.  Another one is Network Acoustics Muon Pro.  I can't defend their pricing but the results I can.  Using the Muon with NA's Ethernet cable was too heavy handed in my setup.  I preferred NA's Muon w/ JCAT gold, or NA's ethernet cable alone.

@wynnytsky  Thanks for your suggestion. I went through a lot of ups and downs over the first five weeks of break-in. Some were no doubt due to changes in sound. Others due to my own impatience and moods during listening. After about five weeks both my listening brain and the the 006 stabilized. I have been happy with the end result and have taken a vacation from obsessive critical lisitening. I have concluded for now that I am getting the best sound from a DAC that I have experienced and am trying to just enjoy the music. Of course the urge to tweak will return, but I am trying to resist for now. In the future, I may try USB line treatment or experiment with streamer upgrades. This hobby presents opportunities for endless experiment. 

During the break-in I did buy and sell a Coincident Statement Line Stage. It had a beautiful tube presentation but I still preferred the Hegel P30. So, for the record I am more than satisfied with the sound I am getting from the 006.

@wynnytsky I have the latest or 12th series Gaia, can't imagine why you'd not find this possible. 

So, on Harmony screen, I2S clock setting are you getting message, "no compatible I2S clock available?"  When using Gaia clock you should see I2S at top left of display. I can find no evidence earlier Gaia's cannot support choice of using it's internal clock.

I'll reiterate the entire streaming chain needs to be optimized in order to extract full potential of 006. I used to run SOTM usb solution, found the Sonore products superior, specifically the OpticaModule and OpticalRendu, best lps one can afford for these Don't forget the Denafrips DDC also offers further usb opimization via it's STM32F446 Advanced AMR based MCU interface.

@dbb Unfortunate you didn't find the Statement to be your cup of tea.

@dbb if you prioritize max(bandwidth), max(info retrieval), min(noise floor), then I invite you to obsess over an autoformer!  Never heard this one, but I'd love to hear someone's impression

https://rambleaudio.com/en/products/design-by-mr-k-ppa-01-passive-preamplifier

@sns Yes changing LOCAL to I2S says "No compatible i2s clock is available", then reverts to LOCAL, which doesn't sound as going straight USB.  My Rockna can lock on the source clock, so who knows.  If anything the Laiv taught me to love spdif again after many years of i2s.  Doing Gaia AES into Rockna right now.

For those doing i2s it's very easy to flip absolute phase when configuring DDC jumpers for your DAC.  But if you play this track...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yCif9K8EdJY

...while pointing this $13 sound meter at the speaker diaphragm, then the red/green LED should match the polarity from the youtube link...

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09B13ZSDV?ref_=ppx_hzod_title_dt_b_fed_asin_title_1_0

Test all drivers to confirm the xovers are wired correctly.  It can read my compression drivers through a screen, but I need to crank it louder to read the tweeter.

sns, with the 006 are you running pin mode 5 on the Gaia?  And, is the pin mode the same on the 005 if you know?