LAiV Harmony Review: Luxurious Experience and Soundstage

How does this compare to the TEAC UD 701-N?

Best review of this product! Wish you reviewed it with speakers, but that’s not your format. Great job!

Great review 🎼

Slow down - you talk to fast

Thanks for your very honest review. Liked it a lot. And I will agree that the differences between dacs are being exaggerated, but it is really in the nit picking territory as per my recent Dac tests. The things that are fairly obvious are sound stage size, image focus and rythm / timing. but otherwise I felt it was really close, even on an revealing system. The above said, I tried purchasing the Laiv, but missed the first lot by a whisker, So Iam waiting for the second production batch to become available. The things that appealed to me are the sound stage size , and the I2S input with external clock sync option, which is the main factor for me. I have a top of the line Esoteric CD / SACD player and wanted to add an external dac for that R2R presentation at times. My plan is to add an Esoteric G-05 clock to sync the transport to a DDC like the AudioGD DI20HE, and then feed the digital signal to the Laiv via I2S with external clock sync. I believe clock sync is very important for CD playback, when using an external DAC. And the design, size and build of the Laiv are just the icing on the cake. I would'nt mind having the Laiv in silver next to my Esoteric. Cant say that about a lot of the other competition :)

Great Review!

Great, thorough review. Really appreciate your style. Keep it up!