Sabre. Asahi Kasei. TI & Bros. What's the going rate on beliefs over their house sounds? Gustard make nearly identical-looking DAC versions running ESS, AKM or discrete R2R engines. It suggests sonic signatures divergent enough to aim at different listeners. Gustard also puff collective chests over proprietary digital filters taking their ESS models to the next level. The new Canor 4-series DAC does, too. Clearly Sabre have a rep to live down. It's immaterial whether that's deserved and invariable; or fluid with implementation. It's enough to know the reputation to use as yardstick against which to describe something else. R2R has its own rep. For all its elevated colour temperatures and relaxed but smart timing, it's often called softer, less separated and somewhat rolled off so of lower res. Working with these generalities, I'll call Verse a classic R2R representative but with ESS' shinier treble and transient incision just not their dryness. Also, it's clearly not warm and thick like early Denafrips was. Verse combines fruity dense tone with extra articulation and edge definition as though borrowed from Sabre; and the kind drive we expect of costlier kit with butch power supplies.
As a mid-level DAC with China's value-added origins, there isn't a world of difference with others from its 'hood. But flavour trends remain. Laiv enjoy very comprehensive review coverage so their house sound should be well established with onlookers merely reading about it all. They could be surprised to learn that the brand's cost-cutting adventures to land a DAC well below the €1K threshold didn't sacrifice sound or build quality. What's more, Verse now speaks native DSD. That will delight those with SACD folders who aren't keen on having a DAC treat them as PCM. Then Verse goes the full 3-in-1 distance to bag preamplitude and headfi under the same machined not sheet-metal 3mm hood. Back to the Crescendo prefix and what it means: this little converter really does go louder on value and desirability than anything else Laiv have done yet.
