Same here! Although mine was delivered around Christmas time last year.I've had the Pontus II for over a year and am still quite smitten with it.
I'd be worried about the serviceability of these DACs with so many electrolytic caps in there
How are these new R2R DACs different to old PCM1704, AD1865 and PCM63 DACs?
It was a rhetorical question.
There's no technical difference.
I agree it's a different implementation, but it's the same technology.
I must admit to being a bit sceptical about these new R2R DACs. One of the best old school CDPs, the Cambridge Audio CD2, is bettered by an RPi and IQAudio DAC IMO.
Admittedly the TDA1541 X 4 in the CD2 is not actually an R2R DAC (but it's a lot different to a delta-sigma DAC).
OTOH there is some very bland sounding digital kit out there - anything with an ESS DAC inside IME.
Apologies for my scepticism. I'v seen the wheel reinvented quite a few times in this hifi game .
I haven’t heard about Denafrips before this but read great things about the Ares and Pontus 2 on another forum. It appears that the Denafrips have more fans than haters based on responses on the forum.
Interestingly, the Denafrips compare very favourably to the Chords (Qutest up to Dave) as few prefer the traits of the Denafrips over the Chord. The Pontus 2 sounds like a great sounding DAC.
One of the many good reviews of the Denafrips taken from another forum ;
As a diehard vinyl listener, I’ve actively avoided digital audio for the past 32 years until COVID struck this past year. With working at home for a year and a half now, the advantages of being able to change music without getting up became much more important than pre-COVID. So I built a front-end for listening to digital music both via local files and Qobuz streaming. As part of the process, I’ve listened to 8 DACs in the past year:
1. Audioquest Dragonfly Red - already owned, but plugged it into my streamer to see how it would fare in my home system
2. Rega DAC - loaned to me by a friend. Had it in my system for several days and then took it out.
3. Denafrips Ares II - loaned to me by a friend. Had it in my system for several months.
4. Simaudio Moon 280D - Listened at a dealer in comparison to the Qutest
5. Chord Qutest - Bought one. Had one in my system for several months. Sold it after I got the Pontus
6. Denafrips Pontus II - What I decided to keep.
7. Chord Hugo TT / MScaler - Listened at a dealer
8. Schiit Yggdrasil - Listened at a friend’s house
If you’re seeking a more analog and less digital sound, I can highly recommend the Pontus. FWIW, I was not at all impressed by the sound of the Hugo TT / MScaler. It was lacking in both pace and tonal color for my preferences. The Ares II was decent, but the Pontus is in a completely different league in terms of its sound quality improvement overs the Ares. The Ares has better tonal color and a more analog quality to its sound than the Qutest while the Qutest has better pace and timing than the Ares. The Pontus is better in pace/timing, ability to convey tonal colors, soundstage size than both the Ares and the Qutest. I thought the Pontus has more finesse than the Yggy. The Yggy was more forceful in how it conveyed rhythms.
You've clearly not dealt with Chinese factories. Chi-Fi will often suffer the same 'swap out' that many industries do in the Chinese factories, hells even Samsung suffered this once with batteries I believe. If you don't know what this is, I suggest you learn before you comment with your usual 'the world is racist because I say so' rhetoric you bring in to every thread that even mentions Chinese based manufacturing, which you will essentially derail and ruin because of your own distorted belief structure.
I'm interested in getting an R2R DAC soon. From my trawling YouTube, Denafrips has many rivals now, but to my mind this Holo Audio Spring 3 R2R DAC promises most at it's particular price point (~3.2K Euros) ...including looks, remote control and a preamp.
Oh ...I hope it works out well. Please do pass on your impressions. I'm very close to ordering this myself, I'm just jugling a few bills first. Also trying to work out whether to order from Magna HiFi (Holland) recommend by Rune of this parish or go with Kitsune USA...I'm not sure which will work out better for me in the UK.This post turned out to be impactful and expensive. Let's see. If it turns out to be nonsense I'll blow the whistle - I have 2+ weeks to wait I think. Thanks again all.