[Chibs]

Iam really confused and have been sitting on the dac fence for a few years now. The others that appealed to me, only by reviews alone are the T+A Dac200 and the Wave dream. The chord line seems to be due for a replacement, so not considering them at the moment. If money wasnt an issue I would get an Esoteric N-05XD, but sadly it is. So Considering the Laiv, as Iam looking for a neutral and resolving, but natural sounding dac. Rest of my chain is all tubes, so a warm dac will make it all too sleepy I guess.

I’m assuming you’re unable to demo or buy with a good return policy?
It’s tough going off of reviews alone so I understand your hesitation. Especially since the rest of your chain is tube based (so many variables!) I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss Chord because they’re due for an upgrade. Good sound won’t go out of style. There’s always going to be something new around the corner and you’ve already waited a few years. Everything you’ve listed including the Harmony DAC is a decent choice though. Look at the features they offer you and how they fit into your use case. Just my 2 cents. Good luck deciding!

 

[Chibs]

Is there a Laiv harmony review in the works from you Mr. Chibs? -fan of your channel

Thanks man! Yes, definitely in the works

 

[wrxsti09]

I’m assuming you’re unable to demo or buy with a good return policy?
It’s tough going off of reviews alone so I understand your hesitation. Especially since the rest of your chain is tube based (so many variables!) I wouldn’t necessarily dismiss Chord because they’re due for an upgrade. Good sound won’t go out of style. There’s always going to be something new around the corner and you’ve already waited a few years. Everything you’ve listed including the Harmony DAC is a decent choice though. Look at the features they offer you and how they fit into your use case. Just my 2 cents. Good luck deciding!

Thanks sir..I agree good sound never goes out of style

Iam not averse to considering a Chord dac if its sounds natural. My only requirements are a massive sound stage and real sounding voices and instruments. The level of detail or precision of imaging dont really matter much. From my reading alone, I get the impression that R2R dacs do this better than chip based dacs. And I have no idea how Chord's FPGA based dacs measure in this parameter. Hence my curiosity.

I think most modern dacs will out resolve what I already have. I did try a gustard X26 pro at home to see how far dacs have come. And it probably had a smidge more detail compared to my aging Esoteric K-01 CD player used as a dac, when both were fed from my Lumin U1X streamer. But it was not an apples to apples comparison, as I was testing DSD into the X26 pro via a Tellurium black 2 usb cable. And normal 44 khz via a hifidelity coaxial cable into the esoteric. So both formats and cables were different. But the esoteric still had a very noticeably wider sound stage and more dynamic impact.

Considering my above tests at home, felt that I cannot sacrifice sound stage size for that smidge more detail. Hence, my search for a dac that has a massive sound stage size, and sounds more natural like live music if possible. Though Iam aware that a dac singularly cannot make my system sound live. But no harm trying