LAIV Harmony

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

@sns  Yeah, I think a trial of the LTA DAC would be a great idea in your case and no i2S option to fret over. If I’m you I’d buy a used Denafrips Iris and a cheap HDMI cable (that’s what I did) just to see what happens — I have a feeling it’d take the Harmony to a significantly higher level, and if it doesn’t just sell it but at least you’ll know. BTW, my Iris isn’t going anywhere unless I eventually upgrade to a Hermes. Just my $0.02 FWIW.

with the issues LAiV is having it cannot be a very good DAC.

@tkrtrb125 That’s not a fair conclusion at all. This is a new product, and it’s not at all unheard of that any new product can have an unforeseen issue. The key is how the company handles it, and in this case LAiV seems to be very responsive in fixing the problem quickly if it arises. Almost all owners/reviewers have been very impressed with its performance especially for the price, which strongly indicates it is indeed “a very good DAC.”

I’m not saying the Harmony was bad. I think for the price it’s great. It was much better than my R26. But it falls short compared to what the May offers in my system. 

@campo007  Congrats on finding an even more satisfying DAC.  What aspects of the May’s performance made you choose it over the Harmony?

@campo007 This review has some words comparing the Terminator to the Harmony. Cliff’s Notes version, the Sonnet Pasithea dispatched the Terminator, and the Harmony dispatched the Pasithea, but it’s a matter of taste and you can get a basic idea of the differences here…

https://6moons.com/audioreview_articles/laiv-audio-harmony-dac/

This is a nicely detailed review that does a good job of describing the sonic characteristics of the Harmony, and in the conclusion it has a few words about how it compares to the R26 that I thought you’d find particularly interesting…

https://soundnews.net/reviews/sources/dacs/laiv-harmony-dac-review-could-this-be-the-new-benchmark-under-5k/

Hope this helps.

While I’m sure Hans heard what he heard, I am always a bit skeptical when one reviewer says something that hasn’t been mentioned by other very reputable reviewers and suspect there’s a negative system interaction of some sort at play there.  But, fortunately you can easily do a trial of the Harmony DAC and I certainly wouldn’t let one iffy review deter me from doing that if I was interested. 

@classic8  I believe Srajan used a Terminator 12th? in his 6 Moons review of the Harmony and preferred the latter, so I’d recommend reading that.

@kclone. Great to hear and thanks for the update. 

@pynkfloydd Have you considered adding a dedicated streamer?  Running USB direct from a PC may be significantly limiting your streaming sound quality.  Just a thought FWIW.

My biggest concern is the lack of a volume control.  What is the recommended way to remotely adjust the volume without altering the sound signature of the DAC?

@danager This passive pre was designed with you in mind…

http://www.placetteaudio.com/remote_control.htm

Here’s one used…

https://www.usaudiomart.com/details/650056716-placette-audio-rvc/

@koestner Glad to hear if went smoothly and that Laiv seems to be doing a good job standing by their products.  Love to hear your thoughts once you have some hours on it.