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Denafrips DAC owners - how did ownership compare with the hype?

JTC said:
Can’t speak highly enough of the Jay’s though I haven’t heard the PS Audio. FWIW I might be a damned fool but I’ve ordered a fancier HDMI to find out for myself if there the differences in SQ some claim between HDMI cables used for i2s are real or not. No difference, they go back :)
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I tend not to discuss such matters on forums (ditto b**x*t, v*cc***s, c*v*d, D*n*ld T*u*p, N**l Y***g, CL*mate Ch*nge) :D

The PS Audio is not being released until end of this year... I wait with interest!
 
Neil P said:
Just to clarify I meant it would feel wrong to have half the saturn (the dac half!) unused, mainly from a financial point of view.

So were you using the Esoterics as transports into the denafrips? Did the denafrips improve the sound, or just not lower the SQ?
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Fair enough.

Yes, as transports. Not compared Ares II DAC to the the analogue outputs of the Esoteric’s however although sounding somewhat different to the Esoteric I would say the overall quality of the Pontus II DAC was on par with the Esoteric.

Terminator II DAC is a clear step up though. And used with a GAIA DDC the performance of the Terminator II DAC moves up to another level.
 
Musicraft said:
Fair enough.

Yes, as transports. Not compared Ares II DAC to the the analogue outputs of the Esoteric’s however although sounding somewhat different to the Esoteric I would say the overall quality of the Pontus II DAC was on par with the Esoteric.

Terminator II DAC is a clear step up though. And used with a GAIA DDC the performance of the Terminator II DAC moves up to another level.
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Thanks, that's really helpful. Those kind of comparisons are very hard to make at home (without buying and selling lots of gear!)
 
Musicraft said:
Fair enough.

Yes, as transports. Not compared Ares II DAC to the the analogue outputs of the Esoteric’s however although sounding somewhat different to the Esoteric I would say the overall quality of the Pontus II DAC was on par with the Esoteric.

Terminator II DAC is a clear step up though. And used with a GAIA DDC the performance of the Terminator II DAC moves up to another level.
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Its a shame there aren't more cd transports to choose from (I only know of jays and ps audio). As per my comment re the Saturn I'd rather not buy a great CD player then bypass the DAC.
 
Neil I have an audiolab cdm, original, spdif/ aes, all recapped and new belts, pulley and bulbs if you're still looking.
 
DimitryZ said:
I owned an Audionote DAC.

It had an old Phillips DAC chip (R2R, I think) followed by a standard tube output stage, that added a bit of second harmonic distortion.

It sounded nice on all recordings, in the same way. I don't mi ss it at all.

And let's stop with "China-made" crypto-racist fearmongering, please. If Chinese factories can make reliable cellphones, they can certainly make excellent hifi components - the latter are far easier.
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They doubtless *can* make them, but exactly who is making them, and under what conditions? And if you channel you're hard-earned in that direction, what are the bigger implications for this country, for our children's futures, etc?
 
DimitryZ said:
I owned an Audionote DAC.

It had an old Phillips DAC chip (R2R, I think) followed by a standard tube output stage, that added a bit of second harmonic distortion.

It sounded nice on all recordings, in the same way. I don't mi ss it at all.

And let's stop with "China-made" crypto-racist fearmongering, please. If Chinese factories can make reliable cellphones, they can certainly make excellent hifi components - the latter are far easier.
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The tube output stage would be adding either gain or a low impedance output. You wouldn't be able to hear second harmonic distortion at line level output.

Regarding your second point: The link below is just one reason, there are many many more:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/extra/85qihtvw6e/the-faces-from-chinas-uyghur-detention-camps
 
leroyd said:
You certainly have provided food for thought and thank you for that. Can you or anyone else here, recommend an alternative R2R dac to the Denafrips Pontus which is manufactured in the UK or EU?
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Metrum/Sonnet comes immediately to mind. Aqua is another, although I've no personal experience of the latter. There are doubtless others, and the likes of Soekris are now supplying OEM R2R modules to other manufacturers although you'd need to do a bit of poking about to find their 'clients.' I believe LessLoss is one.

I'm not sure I'd get too hung up on the technology though. There are plenty of interesting European DACs around. If I were in the market for such a beast, I'd also be curious about the likes of Lab12, Audial and possibly Merason.

Plus of course there's Sugden a bit closer to home.

I believe all of the latter eschew 'specmanship' for its own sake and focus instead on whether the bloody thing can play music. To the best of my knowledge, all the brands mentioned are manufactured by grown-ups (or highly-trained whippets in the case of Sugden) in their country of origin.
 
Worth bearing in mind that the better the measurements ( r2r) the less distortion perhaps even inaudible amounts so a dac like the Denafrips which measures pretty well may sound identical to a contemporary oversampling design.
ASR have measured a few, also worth looking at John Atkinson’s measurements for Stereophile.
Keith
 
Purité Audio said:
Worth bearing in mind that the better the measurements ( r2r) the less distortion perhaps even inaudible amounts so a dac like the Denafrips which measures pretty well may sound identical to a contemporary oversampling design.
ASR have measured a few, also worth looking at John Atkinson’s measurements for Stereophile.
Keith
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The Denafrips is an oversampling design...
 
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