[rpf]

I'm waiting for Dan Wright to weigh in.  We need his 6SN7 output stage on a top notch DAC.

PS Great thread.

Seconded. SS never gets high violins right.

[lightharmonic]

The sensitivity of the word “First” can surely stirs up a debate.

In Light Harmonic, our focus has always been on R&D; working to develop the best quality product(s) and present that to our community. The design and engineering works for our 384K DaVinci DAC was started in early 2009; with continuous testing and development, Da Vinci debuted to several key industrial people in 2010 May. Then leading to the public debut of Da Vinci – 384K USB DAC at Axpona 2011, Atlanta.

Being a start-up company that made up of only engineers, the focus for Light Harmonic Design Team is to bring the best sounding 384K USB DAC to the Audiophile community. With all the anxieties, excitements, anticipations of our “First” product, during the show, we were made aware by some kind folks regarding two other products also claim can do 384K in the market.
We humbly acknowledge that, however after some detail research, we found both of them required installation of customize driver; this mean that these are NOT USB 2.0 audio class standard compatible.  From our research, we also found out that one of the DAC mention, uses only 192K-capable DAC chips which we doubt the bit perfect transferring path from USB to that DAC chip.

Anyways, we sincerely hope that it is the sound quality from DaVinci that one can associate us with; this quality of music that have captured many souls and given many, the best sounding experiences one ever had.

Here is what we saw from our product’s audience writing feedback….

“Offered Up Some Of The Sweetest-Sounding, Natural Violin Sound And The Most
Solid Stereo imaging I Have Experience From A Classical Recording”

“Emotional, Musical, Out of Words….. Phenomenal”

“Extremely Detailed, Open and Smooth”

“Great – Can Hear All The Different Layers. Clarity & Coherence, Great Sound Stage - Sound Like Analog”

“I Was Closing My Eyes, Imagining I Was At A Supper Club With the Orchestra And Musicians Right In Front Of Me. Beautiful”

We are indeed humbled by many more of these great comments/reviews from those that visited us during the show. The response from the show is beyond what a first-time show exhibitor can ever imagine.

Bringing you these experiences are what we at Light Harmonic is focus on and will continue to do so in our current and all future products.

Thank you again for all your support, criticism and we continue to welcome any feedback anyone could offer.

Please visit our website http://www.LightHarmonic.com for more details
Come Register with us in My hifi Space and come join our facebook fan club!

Your comments and feedback is what will make us better.

[Audioclyde]

I was able to hear the Light Harmonic DaVinci at Axpona-- in fact I sat on the floor next to John Atkinson in the listening chair. 

The sound was indeed truly outstanding; especially on the 384k tracks--to me the timber was spot on. Very impressive.  Of course it also comes at a fairly hefty price tag, but again to my humble ears the sound was outstanding. Certainly a worthy contender for those that can afford it!

Randy

[jhm731]

lightharmonic-

Congrats on a sucessful show.

How about some specs on your website and a picture of the remote?

Does it have a volume control for direct connection to amps?

What's the purpose of the internal gears shown in the pictures?

Where does one find 384/32 files?

 

[DSD_Mastering]

Where does one find 384/32 files?

Yeah..... I'd like to know that one as well....

[ted_b]

LightHarmonic, welcome to AC.  I'm glad to see you enter the DAC arena.

However, I need you to move your DAC-specific marketing and education posts to the Industry Circles, as per Audio Circles guidelines.  You can start your own thread about your DAC and its user feedback, etc there.  Also, as a manufacturer, please read and abide by the manufacturer posting guidelines (signature with Company name, etc).
http://www.audiocircle.com/index.php?topic=42858.0

I will not currently move these posts as they will confuse the flow of this thread. 

Just to set the record straight on my "first" comments.  One, the company, in their "worlds first 384K USB DAC' made no mention of driverless or Class 2.0 Audio in that terse marketing byline.  Second, of the multiple 384K DACs I've had in my home, at least one of them was truly Class 2.0 audio compatible (ran Voyage MPD Linux even, as Class 2.0 is a requirement) and was driverless.  FYI, there are at least five products I know that do 384k.  I'm sure LightHarmonic will be a great addition to that group.

[Vinnie R.]

Hopefully not off topic (please feel free to move if it is), but is there a "standard" input
jack and cable for an I2S direct input to an external dac unit?

Cheers!

Vinnie

[ted_b]

Hopefully not off topic (please feel free to move if it is), but is there a "standard" input
jack and cable for an I2S direct input to an external dac unit?

Cheers!

Vinnie

You thinking of doing an I2S DAC?  Vinnie, there are multitudes of ideas there, some use HDMI (not standard HDMI of course, but use the connector, very confusing), some use ethernet RJ-45 (harkens back to the Audio Alchemy days) and some I've seen use a 3 pin XLR style.  And others poo-poo I2S saying it was only intended for internal nanometer-or-millimeter length connections.

[Vinnie R.]

Hi Ted,

I can't spill the beans yet, but I will say that a new version of the the Isabellina dac will not only include the same 16-bit, NOS chip and discrete Class A output stage, but there will also be a high res chip on board as well.  The user can select between the two with the push of a button.  And both will still feed the Class-A, LiFePO4 battery powered tube stage (LFP-V tube stage).  And yes, both dac chips take I2S and there will be provisions on board to feed I2S directly in (actually - it gets galvanically isolated - don't want to dirty the pure battery supply - before it feeds the dac chips). 

Oh wait - this is kind of spilling the beans a little   

More info to follow soon...

Thanks for your response to the I2S topic.  In theory, a really high-end, async USB to I2S board can be installed (I know there are quite a few out there) and the I2S can be hard-wired in with a very short length of wire.   Or if ones has a transport that outputs I2S, I can look into having it feed directly with a mating jack that the transport uses.  But yes, I would be concerned about cable length using I2S.  Proper implementation would make or break it - and 'scoping the I2S lines will determine this... along with using the best test equipment we all have - our EARS!

Vinnie

[Napalm]

I'm looking forward to check this one:

http://www.usbdac.com.au/index.php/dac-news/item/103-onkyo-dac-1000-32bit/192khz-usb-dac

http://www.digitalaudioblog.com/2011/04/onkyo-dac-1000-32192-usb-dac.html

A reasonably priced async DAC that goes 32/192kHz via USB. What's not to like. Will surely raise the bar for all those still trying to sell synchronous USB 16/48kHz DACs @ $2000. 

Nap. 

[highfilter]

For those interested, the Resonessence Invicta DAC is now reviewed by 6moons with conclusions: http://www.6moons.com/audioreviews/resonessence/1.html

[coops]

I am just listening to the new Weiss Medea plus, it is extraordinay.
Better than the 202 which was my reference, the resolution on the Medea is unparalleled .
Keith.

[ted_b]

This should also be posted in CHEAP AND CHEARFUL!!

A $449 24/192 asynch USB DAC from Schitt!  Their inexpensive tubed headphone amp is winning all kinds of praise (I heard it at RMAF and it was very good), so they know good analog stages.  Nice!

http://schiit.com/news/63011-schiit-announces-bifrost-dac/

[roscoeiii]

Yep Ted,

I saw that too. And not to mention the provision for upgrade boards for both the DAC and USB, when advances warrant it. An underappreciated feature of the W4S DACs, and something I have never seen in a DAC of this price.

[eclein]

This is awesome!!!!  I'll post in C & C...Thanks Ted!!!!!
 Ed

[OzarkTom]

This should also be posted in CHEAP AND CHEARFUL!!

A $449 24/192 asynch USB DAC from Schitt!  Their inexpensive tubed headphone amp is winning all kinds of praise (I heard it at RMAF and it was very good), so they know good analog stages.  Nice!

http://schiit.com/news/63011-schiit-announces-bifrost-dac/

From a former Sumo designer and the other was the Theta designer, Mike Moffet. Expect great things from this company. They also have two other Dacs in the works.

Does anyone here know if Apple's Thunderbolt technology will upset the apple cart of all the present Dacs?

[OzarkTom]

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=15819

Apple claims that Thunderbolt is 20 times faster than firewire or USB 2.0.

[srb]

http://www.iclarified.com/entry/index.php?enid=15819

Apple claims that Thunderbolt is 20 times faster than firewire or USB 2.0.

Or twice the speed of USB 3.0.
 
That's great for hard drive data transfer speeds, but I think existing USB 2.0 or FireWire has plenty of bandwith for digital audio transfer.
 
Steve

[skunark]

From a former Sumo designer and the other was the Theta designer, Mike Moffet. Expect great things from this company. They also have two other Dacs in the works.

Does anyone here know if Apple's Thunderbolt technology will upset the apple cart of all the present Dacs?

Sadly, Firewire, USB and Thunderbolt was never designed for Audiophile performance, it's not even an afterthought.  It's amazing to me that folks attempt USB and FW as a streaming source for Audio with the success it's had.  As a EE, it's rather entertaining for me to see folks get very heated about this even after you point out the 20 step process you have to take to configure it. It's almost entirely the Software that is the downfall of a USB DAC.  Even my colleges get heated on this topic.  A Thunderbolt DAC would be interesting, you would essentially transfer the entire song in a fraction of a second making it more like a dedicated player vs a USB DAC.

Napalm, you really need to get off the whole bashing that 2k DAC, they never said the USB port on that DAC was a good one.  There's very few USB DACs that I would call worthy and would rather use a computer with a dedicated sound card with a coax output over USB DAC. 


What's a bit alarming is that i've noticed several companies market "asynchronous" USB DACs when in-fact they are adaptive since they upsample a 44.1k source to 192kHz or 384khz vs oversampling to 176.4, etc.  But perhaps that is what gets them out of the red.

[JohnR]

Sadly, Firewire, USB and Thunderbolt was never designed for Audiophile performance, it's not even an afterthought.

I was under the impression that Firewire had some realtime latency spec in it (perhaps for video). Wrong?