You might want to give the Volumio Rivo+ with a linear power supply a shot. Extremely musical and large sound stage. Coming from an IPAD streaming to the same DAC, the Rivo+ streaming & files playing sound quality absolutely shocked me ! I use Qobuz and also .wav and .dsf files with it. No display, but, that is good because you can add a really nice big one. I added a 13.5" OLED monitor on a stand, just infront of the Rivo+. Volumio shows the album covers and streams band and song information to the monitor and remote ipads. The screen looks fantastic and I control it with my iphone or ipad which shows the same images as the monitor. Note: you can also control it with the monitor. The Rivo+ requires a 4k monitor. The best part is really the sound quality & big sound stage plus good deep bass, smooth highs, great vocals.
Eversolo T8 vs Lumin U2 and Laiv Harmony DAC
Tested the Eversolo T8 for a couple days now.
Some quick points:
In a stereo setup with USB to Fezz Audio Equinox tube DAC with Fezz Lybra 300B amp and Harbeth HL5+ XD speakers against the Lumin U2. The Eversolo is compressed between the speakers. Sound stage is just within each speaker and vocals very centered. The Lumin U2 extends the sound stage about 10 feet outside the speakers either side and much more 3D depth. Instruments and vocals much more in real positions rather than compressed to center.
In headphone setup with LAIV Harmony DAC to Woo Audio WA22 balanced tube amp and Focal Utopia. USB sounds more organic but a little less clear. I2S sounds more detailed but has a slight harshness. Almost like the I2S connection is not perfectly matching to the LAIV I2S input. Compared to Denafrips ARCE into Ares 15th with I2S I would say the Denafrips is a little warmer and more musical with good sync between streamer and DAC.
Just some initial thoughts. Overall for the price it is a good streamer. Lumin U2 is much much better.
I'll wait for the LAIV streamer and return the Eversolo.
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@katzenjammer27 - I recently got an LTA microZOTL preamp, with 12SN7's. From my experience, I think when your tubes are burned in for 100 hours or more, you are going to hear a not-insignificant difference. |
@larsman - probably, they burned the unit in for a week before they shipped it to me, but might have been the standard GE tubes, we made the decision to get the Tung-sol tubes a day before it shipped. if it can sound better...that would be amazing. |
@katzenjammer27 - there were two types of tubes that came stock with the microZOTL, the 12/6 SN7 and a smaller kind I forget what type. I'd also gotten a pair of Ray Reserve 6SN7's to upgrade with. Put it into my system and the sound was very flat and one-dimensional. I put the 12SN7 stock tubes back in, and replaced the smaller ones with some that LTA asked me to try out. Now I had 4 pairs of those smaller ones; after testing, two of them, including the stock ones, had very flat sound I was not happy with. The other two made all the difference; now I was getting the 3D, holographic soundstage with clearly defined performers, like I was expecting. The Ray Reserves were just too 'smooth' sounding for my musical preferences. |
You might want to write to Laiv to discuss the possibility that the input to the DAC is set up incorrectly. On FB a fellow just wrote about this: "Just moved house. I noticed that there was an issue with the channels using my Eversolo [note - model not specified]. Fantastic after sales service from Weng Fai explaining (using a video) how to change the mode on my uddc [note - uDDC may be required] to mode 5." I wonder if the uDDC would help (mine seemed to help the signal from the Node I used for a while to the Laiv DAC, and made no discernible difference with the signal from a better Innuos streamer). YMMV. |
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