The PCM1704-UK chips are laser trimmed R2R. The R26 ladder is not in the same league. Its not about jitter. Its about linearity of the ladder, power stabilization and output stage. Dont sell the Audio-gd 7.1.

An XLR to RCA cable like that is fine. Its likely to mimic the Densfrips RCA output from the DAC.

I wouldn't use a cable like that for balanced to unbalanced connection. It appears to connect one of the active XLR outputs to ground. Thats a bad thing to do a Denafrips. One ladder will get good impedance and the other a virtual short. A more elegant solution is to use a transformer. That...

Thank goodness for neuroplasticity. That and a handy expectation bias, i.e. an update = must be an upgrade. From an engineering viewpoint, a DAC that's been played for hundreds of hours does not have an easily conceivable way to "burn in further". The capacitors will be fully formed and...

If using USB a great option is to use an Intona. Its so good at cleaning source noise it often makes the PC quality entirely redundant. Use any old noisy PC and stop chasing low noise source options.

That's silly. Software cant burn in :) The brain will adapt to the change in sound for sure; but trying to make out that's an equipment burn in is a shocker.

Thanks for your comments on the new sound signature. I hate edgy. The organic sound of the original Denafrips is special. Did you roll back to the original firmware?

Has anyone with a a DDC and I2S compared 192KHz with I2S verses 1536kHz on USB Input? The Ares allegedly doesn't actually have a true NOS mode and the Vinshine info appears discredited: https://www.denafrips.com/ares-12th One way to defeat the internal oversampling is to use the USB to...

Hi Alvin. What do you mean by "Vinshine Audio believes it's NOS". Is this non-oversampled or not? Yes or No please? Please dont obscure truth talking about staircase. NOS is not oversampled period. Is it NOS? If its not oversampled and true NOS this is brilliant and a breakthrough for those...

I wasnt asking you. I was asking Alvin who is the Denafrips global leader. Anyone who has seen the measurements of the Denafrips in "NOS" mode that is clearly oversampling will understand the question.

Whats NOS?

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Making repeated definitive statements like this based on erroneous reasoning doesn't do your reputation any good. Just saying.

Thats incorrect. You need to be a bit careful making a habit of coming out with definitive statements that are just wrong and can mislead beginners. For anyone wanting to look into this check out the data. Linearity plots and 16bit to 24bit FFTs show the resolving power of a R2R. Dan Lavry...

Thats a misleading way to look at the LSB processing accuracy for a R2R DAC. Look at linearity if you want to understand the ladder processing ability.

Thats interesting. EE design says a clock should be as close to the DA as possible, ie internal. If an external clock is better, an EE might say Gustard really messed up the design. That could put a lot of potential buyers off. Gustard must hate this thread: humming transformers buzzing...

If you want to get great sound from Qobuz using Windoze you can try: Qobuz => Virtual Cable => Foobar record => WASAPI event

:)

iffy - Wiktionary Adjective. iffy (slang) Of dubious authenticity, legitimacy or legality ▲ Synonyms: dodgy, dubious

Its a lot less crazy than listening to Tidal and MQA :)

This is a bit over the top for most of us. PGGB lets you dial in the specific bit depth you want. So why not do it and leave the useless LSBs quiescent: 1. Work out the R2R DAC bit depth it can actually render – ignore the specs, eg if a DAC says 24bit don't believe it. a. find a linearity plot...

That calculator does not take into account up sampling for a R2R DAC that processes discrete bit depth on a resistor ladder with a known linearity. In other words it's a misleading tool to use if doing PCM upsampling to the R26. Whether that's audible is another question.

R26 linearity degrades rapidly above 18bits, so you might want to do 19bit depth processing to match the ladder accuracy and then avoid dithering? Does doing 19bits cost much in processing time compared to 16bits with dithering? Just for R2R reference, the Holo May shows what good engineering...

I hope you won't be deaf in twenty years. That's the ultimate music lover bummer.