A Cancelled Flight, a Train Across Germany, and the Night LAiV Won Its First EISA Award
Some journeys test you before they reward you. This one did both, in the space of a single day.
On 4 September, the Harmony µDAC was to be presented with the EISA Best Value DAC 2026-2027 award at the EISA Awards Gala in Berlin, during IFA. I had the invitation, the suit, and a flight plan. What I did not have, as it turned out, was a flight. Cancelled.
I have travelled a lot for LAiV these past three years. Shows, factories, dealers, listening rooms. But I had never set foot in Germany, and my first hours in the country were not the ones I had imagined. Instead of an easy arrival, it was a scramble: rebooking on the move, dragging luggage through unfamiliar stations, reading departure boards in a language I do not speak, asking strangers for directions and being helped, every single time, with patience I will not forget.
In the end, it was a train that saved the night. Watching the German countryside rush past the window, I had a few quiet hours to think about how strange and how fitting it all was. Nothing about building LAiV has gone in a straight line. Why would the road to Berlin?
I made it. With not much time to spare, but I made it.
Standing in that room at the Hotel Palace Berlin, hearing "LAiV Harmony µDAC" read out among brands I grew up admiring, is a feeling I am still trying to put into words. Pride, yes. Relief, certainly, and not only about the train. But mostly gratitude. Somewhere between the cancelled flight and the stage, it sank in: the editors of more than 50 specialist publications across more than 30 countries had judged our smallest DAC, and chosen it.
To my knowledge, no Singapore brand had ever received an EISA Award before this night. We founded LAiV in 2023 to show what Singaporean craftsmanship could do in high-end audio. Singapore is known for many things. Semiconductors. Finance. Order. High-end audio was never on that list. Carrying our little red dot into that ballroom, three years after we started, meant more to me than I can properly say.
Then there is the trophy itself. Two cubes of machined metal, one brushed, one polished to a mirror, with the award engraved into the face: EISA Award, Best Product 2026-2027, Best Value DAC, LAiV Harmony µDAC. I turned it over in my hands and had to smile. It looks like something that could have come off our own CNC machines. A block of metal, shaped with intent, nothing added that does not need to be there. They could not have chosen a more fitting form for what we do.
This award belongs to more people than the founder on a lucky train. To our team, who sweat the details nobody sees. To our dealers and distributors, who put the µDAC in front of ears around the world. To the reviewers who listened honestly. And to every listener who chose us when there were safer names to choose. Thank you. This one is yours too.
I flew home with the award wrapped in a jacket in my carry-on, and with one thought that would not leave me: this is just the beginning. An award is not a finish line. It is a checkpoint, and a promise. We will keep doing what brought us here: building products that bring the aliveness of live, unplugged music into your home, and refusing to cut the corners you cannot see. The next products on our bench are already better because of what we learned making this one.
Thank you, Berlin, for the welcome. Thank you, EISA, for the recognition. And thank you for being part of this journey with us.
Keep listening.
LAiV. Designing dreams, yours specifically. 🎶
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