LAIV Harmony

This certainly sounds like an interesting DAC!

Curious if anyone has compared the sound quality of spinning a cd via coax vs streaming?

I was originally contemplating purchasing a very high-end SACD/CD player but am concerned about the laser cd mechanism dying and not being able to replace it.

So now, I’m giving thought to buying this dac, running it off my trusty but old Rotel 955 AX multi bit cd player via coax output. This transport never skips and I’ve had it for decades. 
 

I have to assume this new dac will run circles around the Rotel, but not sure if the Rotel as a transport will do any justice for the new dac?

My thought was I would run it this way while I save up for a high end streamer.

Any thoughts ????

Best wishes,

Don

Ignoring Hans’ feedback on this DAC would be a mistake. However, given LAiV has a solid return policy, it would be worth to try if this DAC is something that appeals to you. 

@wengfai : What can you tell us or ready to share about the upcoming HP2A? and the accompanying LExt, like what is it? Estimated release date(s)? or ballpark prices for the two? Curious about the trinity (DAC, HP2A, LExt) set for a home office setup.

I am perplexed by the brightness take.  I'm not experiencing that, at all. 

Lak, in the comments Hans said he burned it in for 168 hours before starting the review.  

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.