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Denafrips Ares II thoughts

cporton said:
Linn call it a "discrete conversion stage" and looking at the circuit board here, https://www.linn.co.uk/uk/technology/organik ,it sure looks like a R2R design... so I'm not sure I agree with "there is nothing from Linn to suggest..."
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That was interesting even if a bit hyperbolic. I'm also not sure R-2R aligns well with what is said in the video. More consistently (IMHO), the 32 "flip-flops" could be driving 32 nominally identical resistors that generate 32 voltage levels when current-summed through an I-V converter. A discrete 5-bit D/A converter, in fact.

That converter sits in the middle of a noise shaper to raise fast 5-bit conversion to slower 24 bit conversion. Two-level conversion at this point with higher levels of noise shaping is used but is known to trigger mathematically chaotic behaviour and undesirable low-level "idle tones". Some DAC makers like ESS have secret sauce to eliminate this behaviour but others prefer to use multi-bit converters here to the same end.

And my guess is that they also use dynamic element matching, where the discrete DAC is arranged to work even faster so that each output voltage step derives from the average of all 32 discrete current steps. Thus you reduce the need to match the current source resistors very precisely. That's much nicer than R-2R in production. I think that's how the ring DAC works (and the likes of the Wolfson WM8740 series). A very good DAC architecture IMHO.
 
Musicraft said:
Apparently so. Eager to find out in the coming weeks.
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Quick update. On Friday afternoon 04/06/21 I unboxed and used the GAIA with the Ares II DAC and I kid you not when I say the difference the GAIA made was OMG. WOW. Spoke to a client to whom we sold an Esoteric D-02DX DAC (RRP £17500) about the GAIA DDC on Saturday. Sunday our client popped into the store and bought the our demo/display GAIA. Monday afternoon client rang me to say "the GAIA is simply wonderful"

Based on my brief experience with the GAIA DDC I would say that if you're using a DAC and think the DAC is being fed with a clean signal from their laptops, CDP's, etc. then think again and try a DDC such as the jitter busting GAIA DDC.

Anyway, we've recently received the IRIS DDC and we're due to receive another GAIA DDC next week. Can't wait to pair the IRIS DDC and the GAIA DDC with the Ares II DAC, Pontus II DAC, Terminator II DAC, PrimaLuna Evo 100 DAC, dCS Bartok and EMM Labs/Meitner Audio MA3 :)

https://www.denafrips.com/iris

https://www.denafrips.com/gaia
 
Musicraft said:
Quick update. On Friday afternoon 04/06/21 I unboxed and used the GAIA with the Ares II DAC and I kid you not when I say the difference the GAIA made was OMG. WOW. Spoke to a client to whom we sold an Esoteric D-02DX DAC (RRP £17500) about the GAIA DDC on Saturday. Sunday our client popped into the store and bought the our demo/display GAIA. Monday afternoon client rang me to say "the GAIA is simply wonderful"

Based on my brief experience with the GAIA DDC I would say that if you're using a DAC and think the DAC is being fed with a clean signal from their laptops, CDP's, etc. then think again and try a DDC such as the jitter busting GAIA DDC.

Anyway, we've recently received the IRIS DDC and we're due to receive another GAIA DDC next week. Can't wait to pair the IRIS DDC and the GAIA DDC with the Ares II DAC, Pontus II DAC, Terminator II DAC, PrimaLuna Evo 100 DAC, dCS Bartok and EMM Labs/Meitner Audio MA3 :)

https://www.denafrips.com/iris

https://www.denafrips.com/gaia
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Are you selling these as the same price Denafrips sell directly on their website (inc vat, duty and postage)?
 
flutteringwow said:
Are you selling these as the same price Denafrips sell directly on their website (inc vat, duty and postage)?
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Our prices (postage MIGHT need to be added) for Denafrips products such as the following are -

Ares II DAC £800
Pontus II DAC £1900
Terminator II DAC £4500
GAIA DDC £1900
 
Musicraft said:
Our prices (postage MIGHT need to be added) for Denafrips products such as the following are -

Ares II DAC £800
Pontus II DAC £1900
Terminator II DAC £4500
GAIA DDC £1900
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Bought direct, from Vineshine inc shipping and duties vat, is for example on the Pontus II,

$2648 SGD Dollar

= (at current rate)

£1416 delivered.

https://www.vinshineaudio.com/product-page/denafrips-pontus-r2r-dac

So the benefits of paying £500approx extra is? warranty handling without shipping charges? refund policy if disliked?

 
JTC said:
Anyone compared either the Ares II or Pontus II to Mytek DACs? How’d that go? I’m having a bit of a GAS flare-up ;)
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I used a Mytek Brooklyn with an external LPSU for many years in my main stereo setup. Very good sound quality and a true Swiss army knife in terms of features (It's now the basis of a headphone setup I use at the office).

But in terms of sound quality a Pontus II is significantly better IMO. I'm loving it.
 
Wouldn't it be more efficient, to put the magic of a DDC (wonderful what marketing can come with) right in the DAC rather than needing a separate box etc? Getting very cynical, so someone please send me a DDC so that I can be convinced of the OMGodness over my current laptop into MDAC setup.
 
brab said:
Wouldn't it be more efficient, to put the magic of a DDC (wonderful what marketing can come with) right in the DAC rather than needing a separate box etc? Getting very cynical, so someone please send me a DDC so that I can be convinced of the OMGodness over my current laptop into MDAC setup.
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It's just the latest money grab . . .
 
DimitryZ said:
Oh, thanks.

I didn't think I need one of those...
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Reclocking digital signal works Dimitryz. Whether the Denafrips unit is magical enough to spend that amount on it is open to query.
Have a few dacs that have reclocking built into the dac itself. That implementation is self built. Not by me! but I may have soldered some bits of the construction under careful supervision :D. The homemade version was fairly cheap to install. Not sure exactly what the Gaia is purporting to do.
 
tonerei said:
Reclocking digital signal works Dimitryz. Whether the Denafrips unit is magical enough to spend that amount on it is open to query.
Have a few dacs that have reclocking built into the dac itself. That implementation is self built. Not by me! but I may have soldered some bits of the construction under careful supervision :D. The homemade version was fairly cheap to install. Not sure exactly what the Gaia is purporting to do.
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I have three Shiit reclockers sitting on the shelf. In asynchronous mode there no usage of the source clock by the DAC.

I do use several $50 IFI USB noise reducing dongles and they seem to make a very small difference... though I haven't checked lately.
 
DimitryZ said:
I have three Shiit reclockers sitting on the shelf. In asynchronous mode there no usage of the source clock by the DAC.

I do use several $50 IFI USB noise reducing dongles and they seem to make a very small difference... though I haven't checked lately.
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Ah ok Amir
 
Heckyman said:
I’ve upgraded my DAC and source since writing that. The Hermes DDC makes only a very subtle difference now. But still, there’s an improvement where I expected there not to be.

Of course, it doesn’t make sense to spend more on the DDC than on the DAC…
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Im not against these things, I would have one if I could afford one! I love the tiny improvements one can make with digital , even basic IFI quiet powers are an improvement. I've just put in a EE 8switch and the difference was impressive over my netgear switch.
 
flutteringwow said:
Bought direct, from Vineshine inc shipping and duties vat, is for example on the Pontus II,

$2648 SGD Dollar

= (at current rate)

£1416 delivered.

https://www.vinshineaudio.com/product-page/denafrips-pontus-r2r-dac

So the benefits of paying £500approx extra is? warranty handling without shipping charges? refund policy if disliked?

Click to expand...
Just picking up on this. How do you know that the import duties will be paid? Surely they are raised when the item enters the UK? And is the 'EU Vat Included' actually relevant to a (sadly Brexited) UK import? Not meaning to be contrary, but I'm genuinely interested in buying a Pontus II and if I thought that the overall, all-in cost to me was £1500 I would take a chance on it, but if there's a chance to be hit by further duties etc., or have to then pay UK vat on top of that, then that'd be a different story...

In an ideal world I could demo a unit, sale-or-return, for a known UK price, but having asked around it seems that most Denafrips units are special orders that then may not qualify for returns, so it's a punt in the dark either way....

All this said and done, if it genuinely is £1416 delivered, no further fees to pay, it's a very compelling option to buy direct. But I've always tried to involve UK dealers for new purchases, provided the differential isn't vast. £1900 is not a huge markup if that £1416 then requires an additional 20% UK VAT (taking it to £1700-odds for a direct import), however, but I'm not clear on this (hence my post).
 
This is from Denafrips (via email),

"If you like us to ship with VAT included, the price will be S$2648.
The shipping company we use provides the VAT Included option. The shipping company will prepaid the VAT and customs fee on your behalf.
Once it reaches the UK and the customs is cleared, the package will be delivered to your doorstep. You do not need to pay any extra fee. The delivery man will not ask for any extra money :)

The downside is longer than usual shipping time due to the customs clearance time needed etc. It may take 15-20 days to reach you."
 
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