[jamezdk]

So in essence they are a freight forwarder, an EU webshop shouldn't have to do this, I have bought numerous items from all over Europe and paid the price shown in EUR on the product page only.

 

[s37en gr]

So in essence they are a freight forwarder, an EU webshop shouldn't have to do this, I have bought numerous items from all over Europe and paid the price shown in EUR on the product page only.

Exactly, that is my experience also having bought from Germany/France/Netherlands/Spain/Italy.
I was never charged excess VAT before.
Maybe it is in "small letters" in the EU legislation that almost nobody complies with.
Audiophonics sure enough does unfortunately for me

 

[Jake2]

A question for the people that already made an order from Audiophonics..

The DAC is listed for 2.999 euros incl. VAT (20% for France)
However, when I select TVA for Greece (24% vs 20% in France) , the price changes accordingly.
So, help me understand, since i am buying from one EU country to another EU country, why would i have to choose TVA for Greece and pay more?

I was under the impression that this price goes for every country in the EU, since the product has already been imported in France, and transaction within EU (France to Greece in my case) has no excess tax.

I asked Audiophonics support the same question and the answer was not clear to me..
"...Once you have selected the correct country, all prices displayed will have the proper VAT rate, according to the selected country.
The law compels us to match the VAT-rate to that of the delivery country, not the country of purchase...."

I really cannot understand how that can be the case buying within EU.

I posted about this upthread. Under EU VAT rules if the annual distance sales from a company located in one EU country to customers in another country exceed the EU threshold of €10k the VAT rate of the destination county must be applied. Audiophonics would be well over 10k for most if not all countries I expect, and even if they weren’t they can elect to apply this approach for all EU countries they deal with to keep their systems simpler.

https://taxation-customs.ec.europa.eu/where-tax_en

Makes sense, even if it’s not the result you’d prefer, as otherwise there’d be VAT avoidance/distortions by companies all basing their distribution or sales centres etc in low VAT jurisdictions.

 

[dakchi]

Guys,
it is normal that when you order something from EU you pay the VAT of your country. If you paid the same price as shown in the website, it either means that this price is updated with the VAT of your country or the VAT rate of the country where you order is the same as your country

 

[jamezdk]

Ok thanks for clearing this up.
Our confusion must come from the fact that some webshops register the country of the visitor in the browser instead of waiting for the checkout, makes sense.

 

[George Hincapie]

A question for the people that already made an order from Audiophonics..

The DAC is listed for 2.999 euros incl. VAT (20% for France)
However, when I select TVA for Greece (24% vs 20% in France) , the price changes accordingly.
So, help me understand, since i am buying from one EU country to another EU country, why would i have to choose TVA for Greece and pay more?

I was under the impression that this price goes for every country in the EU, since the product has already been imported in France, and transaction within EU (France to Greece in my case) has no excess tax.

I asked Audiophonics support the same question and the answer was not clear to me..
"...Once you have selected the correct country, all prices displayed will have the proper VAT rate, according to the selected country.
The law compels us to match the VAT-rate to that of the delivery country, not the country of purchase...."

I really cannot understand how that can be the case buying within EU.

It never used to be that way. I imported loads into the UK that way. Over £20K worth for my own use.

 

[Jake2]

It never used to be that way. I imported loads into the UK that way. Over £20K worth for my own use.

I’ve ordered a few things from em and being outside the EU they supply it exclusive of VAT, our local NZ GST of 15% is collected at our border by customs and/or the shipping agent on their behalf.

 

[Kutusov]

A question for the people that already made an order from Audiophonics..

The DAC is listed for 2.999 euros incl. VAT (20% for France)
However, when I select TVA for Greece (24% vs 20% in France) , the price changes accordingly.
So, help me understand, since i am buying from one EU country to another EU country, why would i have to choose TVA for Greece and pay more?

You are charged your country's VAT tax as supposedly that money goes or should go to your country. No idea if this happens or how it happens. But you are taxed Greek taxes because you are in Greece, I'm taxed Portuguese taxes because I'm Portuguese. If I order something from Amazon Spain with Prime, final price will always be higher as they automatically apply 23% instead of Spain 21%. It's a free market inside Europe... except for taxes. I don't know how it works in Greece but if I go to Germany and buy a car, as soon as I get to Portugal I'll have to pay the 327 different taxes of my country. It's often more expensive to get a BMW from the factory than buying one locally.

 

[naynay]

Just doing some early testing up against the Daves Dac only. Using Holo audio red streamer, two coaxial outputs: the one BNC output going into Dave BNC input and the other spdif output going into Laiv spdif input both using the exact same cables. I am then using identical sets of rca cables for both Dave and Laiv going into a two way audio switcher and then a set of rca cables going out into a separate headamp in this case Singxer SA-1 with cap Mod and using Erzetich Charybdis headphones. This way I can instantly switch between Dave and Laiv. Still very early and more listening to do but for the price of the Laiv it's doing a fine job.

 

[Tubewin]

Just doing some early testing up against the Daves Dac only. Using Holo audio red streamer, two coaxial outputs: the one BNC output going into Dave BNC input and the other spdif output going into Laiv spdif input both using the exact same cables. I am then using identical sets of rca cables for both Dave and Laiv going into a two way audio switcher and then a set of rca cables going out into a separate headamp in this case Singxer SA-1 with cap Mod and using Erzetich Charybdis headphones. This way I can instantly switch between Dave and Laiv. Still very early and more listening to do but for the price of the Laiv it's doing a fine job.

Is the Dave better on initial listen or is it too close to tell?

 

[naynay]

Laiv Harmony settings about.
For anyone who was interested to know about the DSD capabilities.

.

 

[Lucus]

3 things actually bothered me and prevent me to take the plunge:
- The high output impedance (1200 Ohms) which may represent a difficult load to drive when connecting directly to a power amp with 10KOhm imput impedance
- No AES EBU digital entry: Why in hell the best digital imput is not implemented in this DAC ?
- No volume control

 

[tassardar]

3 things actually bothered me and prevent me to take the plunge:
- The high output impedance (1200 Ohms) which may represent a difficult load to drive when connecting directly to a power amp with 10KOhm imput impedance
- No AES EBU digital entry: Why in hell the best digital imput is not implemented in this DAC ?
- No volume control

Output Impedence don't quite matter since recommendation hovers from 5:1 to 10:1 normally and expected.
No volume control is something I feedback before, but my understanding is that they will will launching a pre/headphone amp in the future for it and to keep it as pure as possible at the dac stage. To me all form of attenuation has some trade off though I do think many dacs today do provide digital attenuation which is handy when needed


Have to say I compared with many devices now and will be posting a review soon. The LAiV harmony do offer a very compelling soundstage and mids rendering that is unique enough that it is different.

 

[]eep]

3 things actually bothered me and prevent me to take the plunge:
- The high output impedance (1200 Ohms) which may represent a difficult load to drive when connecting directly to a power amp with 10KOhm imput impedance
- No AES EBU digital entry: Why in hell the best digital imput is not implemented in this DAC ?
- No volume control

1 The output impedance is actually 600Ω
If you use the balanced output it doubles, because you have 2 signal wires.
This is a pure dac. Not a preamp. You are not supposed to directly connect it to a poweramp. If that poweramp has a balanced input it seems to me that 10k is rather low.
2 AES EBU is a connection for professional use, and uses the same standard as s/p-dif. It's like a balanced s/p-dif.
As such it cannot transmit native DSD, only DoP. (I know, a moot point since the Harmony can't either)
It is therefore not the best connection. I²s is better and getting more and more commonplace.
But most importantly, it takes up a lot of space on the back panel that is already full. They would have to increase the entire size of the case just for one connection hardly anyone uses.
3 digital volume control is not the best option. Convenient but not great. Again, to fit a proper analog volume control inside would take up too much space to do it in a way that would become this dac (relais ladder).

I really like this dac because it is so small.

 

[christopherivan]

I will have a review up yep. It'll be on patreon first then youtube a few weeks ldefdater

definitely looking forward to this