Lavry use and experience?

Lavry has a good reputation, but we have no experience personally.

Here is Romy's take:

http://www.goodsoundclub.com/Forums/ShowPost.aspx?postID=1877

Enjoy!
Mike.

I have owned the Lavry Blue and can say it was significantly better than the Benchmark DAC1, in ways that would be important to an audiophile. The Lavry DA10 is reported to sound close to the Lavry Blue, which makes it an amazing bargain. The Blue is much richer and fuller than the Benchmark with better dynamics and better inner detail. I also owned the DAC1 and it is very good value for money, but gives you a lot less of the music than the Blue. But if the Black sounds like a Blue, the DAC1's reign is over. Just to get something as sophistcated as Lavry's Crystalock in a unit of that price is amazing. The DAC1 claims of immunity to jitter are somewhat misleading. The DAC1 (and Bel Canto DAC2) does it cheaply by using an asynchronous sample rate convertor (an AD1896) in the signal path, which does reduce jitter a lot, but actually changes the signal while mapping the jitter in the signal to broadband noise. The Lavry employs a much more sophisticated method - synchronous reclocking with deep buffering. The buffer is written with the clock rate of the incoming SPDIF signal but read with an independent low jitter clock. The Lavry method is used by many of the better names in pro audio like Apogee and Weiss, and unlike the DAC1, does not change the signal and so the signal remains bit-perfect all the way to the convertor chip. This is not to criticise the DAC1, but to explain why I think the Lavry Black appears to be an amazing bargain at the price. Where audiophiles will be disappointed in the DA10 is in the physical appearance and functionality of the DA10. All the money has been spent inside, and the appearance of the unit makes the DAC1 look pretty good.

Just picked up my unit today and I love it. It always takes a bit of time to get used to new equipment but after a few hours you learn to appreciate its qualities. I tested it directly against the Benchmark at a mastering studio where I bought it from and there was no comparison. The Benchmark was too laid back and flat. The Lavry was smoother, more liquid, and had a much bigger soundstage with better highs. I couldn't be any happier with my purchase.