[daytrader]

You clearly have no clue what you are talking about. I would certainly not sweat anything if a r2r ares 2 fais, but the knowledgable service center don't exist in this planet. A good solder guy earns 500$ the hour, by the way. A good one, and still, they need to be familiar with the stuff. You can find a proper macbook service repair center, but not ares 2 solder experts.

Ok, try that again but this time in comprehensible English? Then again, with the tone of your response, don’t bother!

 

[]eep]

What "they say" may not be what you say. SQ is subjective and impacted by the room, the other components in the system and the source material.

Also, we hear things differently. My hearing isn't what is was 40 years ago.

relativism is another way of avoiding truth...

I understand what you are trying to say. I do. But it pushes all my wrong buttons... "you have your truth, I have mine" is just a copout for acknowledging someone is making a valid point. And a self-defeating argument.

Quality is quite objective. Sound quality is objective, but complex. Weighing the different aspects of sound quality is subjective and somewhat prone to taste.

The difference between the technical specifications and parts used, or better said the technical compromise taken by the designer, between the Bifrost and the Ares will stay the same no matter the acoustics, listener, source material or auxiliaries.
The Ares not being able to output to XLR and RCA simultaneous is because of the choice to keep the output stage passive in order to maintain the best soundquality possible. In other words (from the viewpoint of information technology) not to lose information.
If you take in to account that every component (every R, C, D, I or even connection/transition) impedes the integrity of information to some degree, less is more. Less components, less loss. Better quality components, better conservation of information. If you use an active stage you insert - a lot- of components and however good, you will lose information coherence. Since only very few users will ever use both RCA and XLR at the same time I think this is a good choice. Even Jason Stoddard of Shiit on the question of why he included an inferior RCA on his balanced design HP-amp answered: "to put it bluntly; because I want to sell more than 5 units". Now the Ares gives you the choice. Only this time with - better- quality.

What might impede the ability of the listener to appreciate the difference is the (lack of) resolving power of the system, reverb of the room, age/hearing impairment of the listener etc. Although I also have 40y worth of experience with loud headphones and noise exposure I am perfectly capable of noticing differences in quality between dacs. Because listening involves training.
Everyone (normally, not impaired) can hear, but not everyone is able or willing to listen. And that is where most subjectivity lies; human psyche. Not in a component.

 

[]eep]

Ok, try that again but this time in comprehendible English? Then again, with the tone of your response, don’t bother!

something about a pot and a kettle... comprehendible? (also you quoted the wrong post which might be offensive but clear, and mixed with the other one which was hard to understand but not directed at anyone).

First: I have a lot of exerience over 15y with a lot of different Chinese audio components. So far only 1 had a bad design and broke (after i started tinkering with it). My cd player (10y) has a bad optical unit but that is to be expected and no worse than some (uk brand) cd player i had. So i had no worries whatsoever about Denafrips.

Second: although R2R was invented in the 50-ies, the tech inside the Denafrips Ares is by no means old. The control of the resistors and the inputs is very new and hightech. Not something i would like to repair.

Service centers are mostly not very versatile. They're good at what they do on a daily basis. But give them something old or out of the ordinary and they're stumped. Most of the time. I started my chifi journey when i brought my Audio Note tubeamp in. The high end audio shop i brought it to sent it to their service centre. After a month of inquiries i heard it was the power transformer. After months i heard they were waiting for a reply from the distributor (who was retired as i knew) so i had to call them up and had to tell them where to get it. The 'technician' said it was highly irregular that a customer had to tell him how to do his job (how dare you!). I took half a year to get an Audio Note repaired. By the time i payed the €400 repair and received it back the €230 Chinese 'stand-in' had been playing for months. With better sound mind you.

 

[Lman]

relativism is another way of avoiding truth...

I understand what you are trying to say. I do. But it pushes all my wrong buttons... "you have your truth, I have mine" is just a copout for acknowledging someone is making a valid point. And a self-defeating argument.

Quality is quite objective. Sound quality is objective, but complex. Weighing the different aspects of sound quality is subjective and somewhat prone to taste.

The difference between the technical specifications and parts used, or better said the technical compromise taken by the designer, between the Bifrost and the Ares will stay the same no matter the acoustics, listener, source material or auxiliaries.
The Ares not being able to output to XLR and RCA simultaneous is because of the choice to keep the output stage passive in order to maintain the best soundquality possible. In other words (from the viewpoint of information technology) not to lose information.
If you take in to account that every component (every R, C, D, I or even connection/transition) impedes the integrity of information to some degree, less is more. Less components, less loss. Better quality components, better conservation of information. If you use an active stage you insert - a lot- of components and however good, you will lose information coherence. Since only very few users will ever use both RCA and XLR at the same time I think this is a good choice. Even Jason Stoddard of Shiit on the question of why he included an inferior RCA on his balanced design HP-amp answered: "to put it bluntly; because I want to sell more than 5 units". Now the Ares gives you the choice. Only this time with - better- quality.

What might impede the ability of the listener to appreciate the difference is the (lack of) resolving power of the system, reverb of the room, age/hearing impairment of the listener etc. Although I also have 40y worth of experience with loud headphones and noise exposure I am perfectly capable of noticing differences in quality between dacs. Because listening involves training.
Everyone (normally, not impaired) can hear, but not everyone is able or willing to listen. And that is where most subjectivity lies; human psyche. Not in a component.

I don't want to get into a discussion of truth, absolute or otherwise. My point is simply that the dac is part of a system that produces sound and the sound quality that we are attributing to the dac is significantly influenced by the other components in the system, what we used to refer to as synergy - which I think you are referring to when you mention the "resolving power" of the system. Do better components produce better sound, yes, but if the differences become so minute that it takes a trained ear, such as you have, to hear them, then most of us won't be able to tell the difference. I believe this is where subjectivity comes into play.

 

[daytrader]

something about a pot and a kettle... comprehendible? (also you quoted the wrong post which might be offensive but clear, and mixed with the other one which was hard to understand but not directed at anyone).

First: I have a lot of exerience over 15y with a lot of different Chinese audio components. So far only 1 had a bad design and broke (after i started tinkering with it). My cd player (10y) has a bad optical unit but that is to be expected and no worse than some (uk brand) cd player i had. So i had no worries whatsoever about Denafrips.

Second: although R2R was invented in the 50-ies, the tech inside the Denafrips Ares is by no means old. The control of the resistors and the inputs is very new and hightech. Not something i would like to repair.

Service centers are mostly not very versatile. They're good at what they do on a daily basis. But give them something old or out of the ordinary and they're stumped. Most of the time. I started my chifi journey when i brought my Audio Note tubeamp in. The high end audio shop i brought it to sent it to their service centre. After a month of inquiries i heard it was the power transformer. After months i heard they were waiting for a reply from the distributor (who was retired as i knew) so i had to call them up and had to tell them where to get it. The 'technician' said it was highly irregular that a customer had to tell him how to do his job (how dare you!). I took half a year to get an Audio Note repaired. By the time i payed the €400 repair and received it back the €230 Chinese 'stand-in' had been playing for months. With better sound mind you.

Setting aside your hifi journey and repair experience. The “I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about” is clearly offensive to me. Interesting that you don’t see that. But we have disagreed in the past, so no surprise.

 

[Lolito]

Ok, try that again but this time in comprehendible English? Then again, with the tone of your response, don’t bother!

Making sense it's totally overrated.

Totally.

 

[Lolito]

Setting aside your hifi journey and repair experience. The “I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about” is clearly offensive to me. Interesting that you don’t see that. But we have disagreed in the past, so no surprise.

You are right there my friend, my apologies. You probably have a clue. You surely have more clue than me maybe, who knows!! Truth being told though, when I saw your answer, I thought you had no fricking clue, so had to write it. Sorry for the honesty. But I am a bad beach. I will wip me right now strong and hard, and hopefully I have paid for my sins.

What was this thread about? and yes, the ares 2 awesome dac yeah... if any of the little components in it fails, not sure anyone other as the manufacturer can really fix anything, for a cost worthy price, more like replacing the whole board, and ship defective one for reparation, no?

A person that repairs say 5 of these per day, or say 10 per month, can do it very very fast, and knows what can fail and how to repair it. Any other place, if it's the first time they have this, have no schematics of the board... not gonna happen really.

 

[daytrader]

You are right there my friend, my apologies. You probably have a clue. You surely have more clue than me maybe, who knows!! Truth being told though, when I saw your answer, I thought you had no fricking clue, so had to write it. Sorry for the honesty. But I am a bad beach. I will wip me right now strong and hard, and hopefully I have paid for my sins.

What was this thread about? and yes, the ares 2 awesome dac yeah... if any of the little components in it fails, not sure anyone other as the manufacturer can really fix anything, for a cost worthy price, more like replacing the whole board, and ship defective one for reparation, no?

A person that repairs say 5 of these per day, or say 10 per month, can do it very very fast, and knows what can fail and how to repair it. Any other place, if it's the first time they have this, have no schematics of the board... not gonna happen really.

It’s a weird time, covid confinement has us all a little short of patience and understanding. OK sweetheart.

 

[]eep]

Setting aside your hifi journey and repair experience. The “I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about” is clearly offensive to me. Interesting that you don’t see that. But we have disagreed in the past, so no surprise.

you are right, that is not an agreeable thing to say. But not everybody is always equally well-spoken or feeling at ease atm. Try not to take it personally. When you are tired or anxious (as many are in a lockdown) it is not that clear cut or easy to write flawless English, especially if its a foreign language to you. You might want to take that into consideration before you feel you must slap somebody on the wrist. And when you do... better not make mistakes or you will look rather silly. I notice this many times that (often) Americans are not very understanding, appreciative or patient when others are trying to express themselves in your language. And I'm not even speaking about diffetence in culture. Where I'm from, we don't beat around the bush and come straight to the point.

We don't always disagree. I think we agree more often than disagree, but difference focuses the dialog on the disagreement to get to a fine understanding on the matter. That is why we post here, to share information and learn. When everybody says the same thing there is nothing to learn (unless you have blank spots).

What is also a common sentiment in America, and something that irritates non-americans is their xenofobia disguised as patriottism. And on that bombshell... No, i can't walk away on that. It's good to be proud of your country (something that we, the dutch, lack very much) and the things you make. But so are other people. It is hard to apreciate something made in a country of which your media is constantly bombarding you with propaganda of animosity, hostile intent, scandals, stealing jobs, communism... yada yada yada. I am with a starting business in bamboo we get from a Chinese distributer. I can tell you, there's a big difference in culture that can't be 'google translate'- ed. You need a lot of patience and empathy to do business. But when you do it is very worthwhile. You can't keep thinking that only American is best and that anything sent from outside is a risk, dangerous, bad or inferior.

Especially China is the largest, fastest growing economy with the largest number of engineers and graduates per annum. The world is changing. And it is said intelligence is the capability to adapt to change. So let's help eachother with that. (that's what I'm trying in my own socially awkward way)

PS 1:
what Lolito said:lack of schematics. I can attest to that, and understand it very well. Given the the whole 'Musician Pegasus ripp-off thread', and culture of copying /lack of copyright in China you won't be seeing one soon. I've been thinking of modifications to the Ares, but I'm not risking it with these small smd components and without schematic. The Ares still sound fine 'as is'. Only the coax sounds a bit too 'rounded', rolled off to me. But only from CD as a source via coax. So i use my old NOS R2R for that to get more openness and raw energy. CD's are often problematic anyway given the mastering practices of the post 90-ies.

PS 2:
On 'relativism'; while the dac is part of a system, it doesn't change anything about how the dac is set up on the inside. The dac itself is a system. So we are comparing one system of input preparation, power supply, conversion and outlut stage against another, different system of DAC. So if you change the output stage only, it is like saying you changed the amplifier, or the speakers, or the room or... See where this goes? Following your logic we are already talking about a system, so let's stick to the system inside the box.

If you want to embrace relativism you say; "we're all part of the universe. The whole universe is changing". Sure, but we are talking about this particular object and how it performs in different settings. Some properties are set to perform within predefined parameters called standards. Like output impedance. That gives you a choice to make about the output stage. Do you want versatility (that most people dont need) on the outside by using extra components on the inside at the cost of signal integrity. Or do you single-mindedly chose to keep signal integrity? Minimalism: make it close to perfect for its intended purpose only.

That choice reflects on what is inside the box: the boundary of the object of our discussion.

 

[ShenaRingo326]

So I just got mine. Gotta say, in comparison to the Enog 2, it's night and day. ****ing loving it. I would say it could be tweaked, but I don't have the money to try everything or find exactly what I need. This does justice to what I listen on and what I listen to. I think that's high enough praise

Listening with the Gilmore Lite Mk2 and the RS-08 (which I got today) along with my eikons, clears, and elegias.

Hi there,

How's the synergy between Ares II and the GL MK2? I'm planning on upgrading my amp to the GL MK2 with GRPS in the near future to go with my DCA Aeon 2 Open, and then later down the road the Ares II. I've seen some feedback that with software volume at 100%, this DAC's line out being at 2.2VRMS and the GL MK2's built in 7.5x gain limits you to very low settings on the volume POT? Have you heard any channel imbalance in that range?

Thanks!

 

[Lolito]

you are right, that is not an agreeable thing to say. But not everybody is always equally well-spoken or feeling at ease atm. Try not to take it personally. When you are tired or anxious (as many are in a lockdown) it is not that clear cut or easy to write flawless English, especially if its a foreign language to you. You might want to take that into consideration before you feel you must slap somebody on the wrist. And when you do... better not make mistakes or you will look rather silly. I notice this many times that (often) Americans are not very understanding, appreciative or patient when others are trying to express themselves in your language. And I'm not even speaking about diffetence in culture. Where I'm from, we don't beat around the bush and come straight to the point.

We don't always disagree. I think we agree more often than disagree, but difference focuses the dialog on the disagreement to get to a fine understanding on the matter. That is why we post here, to share information and learn. When everybody says the same thing there is nothing to learn (unless you have blank spots).

What is also a common sentiment in America, and something that irritates non-americans is their xenofobia disguised as patriottism. And on that bombshell... No, i can't walk away on that. It's good to be proud of your country (something that we, the dutch, lack very much) and the things you make. But so are other people. It is hard to apreciate something made in a country of which your media is constantly bombarding you with propaganda of animosity, hostile intent, scandals, stealing jobs, communism... yada yada yada. I am with a starting business in bamboo we get from a Chinese distributer. I can tell you, there's a big difference in culture that can't be 'google translate'- ed. You need a lot of patience and empathy to do business. But when you do it is very worthwhile. You can't keep thinking that only American is best and that anything sent from outside is a risk, dangerous, bad or inferior.

Especially China is the largest, fastest growing economy with the largest number of engineers and graduates per annum. The world is changing. And it is said intelligence is the capability to adapt to change. So let's help eachother with that. (that's what I'm trying in my own socially awkward way)

PS 1:
what Lolito said:lack of schematics. I can attest to that, and understand it very well. Given the the whole 'Musician Pegasus ripp-off thread', and culture of copying /lack of copyright in China you won't be seeing one soon. I've been thinking of modifications to the Ares, but I'm not risking it with these small smd components and without schematic. The Ares still sound fine 'as is'. Only the coax sounds a bit too 'rounded', rolled off to me. But only from CD as a source via coax. So i use my old NOS R2R for that to get more openness and raw energy. CD's are often problematic anyway given the mastering practices of the post 90-ies.

PS 2:
On 'relativism'; while the dac is part of a system, it doesn't change anything about how the dac is set up on the inside. The dac itself is a system. So we are comparing one system of input preparation, power supply, conversion and outlut stage against another, different system of DAC. So if you change the output stage only, it is like saying you changed the amplifier, or the speakers, or the room or... See where this goes? Following your logic we are already talking about a system, so let's stick to the system inside the box.

If you want to embrace relativism you say; "we're all part of the universe. The whole universe is changing". Sure, but we are talking about this particular object and how it performs in different settings. Some properties are set to perform within predefined parameters called standards. Like output impedance. That gives you a choice to make about the output stage. Do you want versatility (that most people dont need) on the outside by using extra components on the inside at the cost of signal integrity. Or do you single-mindedly chose to keep signal integrity? Minimalism: make it close to perfect for its intended purpose only.

That choice reflects on what is inside the box: the boundary of the object of our discussion.

for 1$ I read that whole entire thing. Should I send you my paypal address?

 

[daytrader]

for 1$ I read that whole entire thing. Should I send you my paypal address?

It’s a pretty long one, I’d ask for $2.

 

[Lolito]

he seems to be right though

 

[sajunky]

+1. And we shouldn't have comments like that.

There is one thing I don't agree with @jeep (and we had discussion on that) is a balance between versatility and the things is believed that most people don't need. Talking about non-standard output impedance. It also impacts other things. By example a lack of a buffer separating ladder conversion process from a noise on output terminals is not about versatility.

 

[grooveriders]

Hi I'm looking to buy a new dac. Never heard an R2R dac before, how does it sound compared to the delta-sigma like Topping D90 for example? I am interest in the Ares II but I only stream on Tidal (mqa) so the topping D90 MQA got my attention but I have heard good things about the Ares II also. If I could get both D90 MQA and Ares II for the same price which would be a "better" choice?
1.I only stream on Tidal MQA
2.Mostly listen to funk,soul,Jazz,RnB,Pop and some classical etc. (no rock/hard rock and those stuffs)
3.I use balanced XLR output and Topping A90 at the moment.
Thanks in advance!!