I am using the eversolo DMP A8 with I2S DH labs silver cable in the Laiv dac. It brings me to 5,2k$ for streamer, cable and DAC combo. Futhermore, the streamer has DSP to fine tune the sound as i want. A lot cheaper than than your 6.2k$ and i am really happy with that. I must admit I have a great pre amp c2800 that help a lot...
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@dandion Certainly having a streamer with I2S output negates the need for DDC. I could output I2S from my custom streamer via Pink Faun I2S board, this would be less costly solution but went with Denafrip's superior technology here. No doubt a high quality pre required.
Getting away from financials, the Harmony's capabilities extremely high! |
@sns Belated thanks for taking the time to share your detailed impressions of how the Harmony performs with the Gaia over I2S. Sounds pretty great. Look forward to hearing how you get on with the Tubulus I2S (Concentus I’m guessing?). I also look forward to trying some even higher quality I2S and USB gear in the near future. I have a Ustars C19 (ext 10Mhz version) en route, a different price category to the Gaia that’s for sure but the French hifi forum loves this thing, will be interesting. Plan is to use it as an HQPlayer NAA. And a pair of optical USB isolators with SFP cages. Cheers |
@kereru Your welcome. I changed my order at last minute from the Concentus to Ximius, Ximius is their new reference I2S cable.
I expect you'll find optical conversion to be worthwhile, I started with the generic converters with the wall warts, over time went with Sonore, upraded the Sonore with quality LPS, DC cables, optical cables and Finisar 1475 transceivers. Even the generic devices with wall warts provided an upgrade at the time, knew potential for better existed. |
@sns interesting re the new Ximius, first I’d heard of this. Re optical fibre I should clarify these are a matched pair of optically isolated USB converters: USB in > SFP socket > SFPs or AOC or DAC cables > SFP socket > USB out. Will use to feed my LHY UIP. Agree re improvements of optical in the normal Ethernet use case, I have an Afterdark pair with Finisar and Cisco AOCs etc. |
